Garden Swale: How It's Doing

Photo from Feb. 2022. Swale after a three inch rain. Making of pictures here.

About a year and a half ago, we dug a garden swale. The purpose of a swale is to collect and store rain runoff. It's dug wide and deep for that purpose. The stored water slowly seeps into the ground and hydrates underground. This is important because during a drought, even a good rain may not saturate the ground deeply. So, a three inch rain may only get the top three or four inches of soil wet. I learned this by digging around in the soil with a shovel after a rain.

A good swale combined with good rains will gradually make a difference in the soil moisture level. According to permaculturist Bill Mollison, it takes several years, but it eventually the deep soil will remain hydrated, even during droughty spells. This will only be our second summer with our garden swale, so I don't think we'll see it's full benefit yet, but I'm hopeful.

What I really want to show you, though, is the swale berm. The topsoil we removed went for a hugelkultur experiment (more about that in this post.) The subsoil became a berm on the downhill side of the swale. I didn't want it to become overgrown with weeds, so I pulled out my garden seeds and planted a mix of old herb, flower, and cool weather greens, along with clover and a winter bulb forage mix. A year and a half later, it's still thriving.

This is what I see when I first walk to the garden. Swale on the right.

Looking back from the other end of the swale. Berm on the left.

The chicory and clover are predominant, but there are a few other interesting things here and there.

California poppies

Red clover

Dianthus

Bachelor Button

Coreopsis

Collard flowers

Radish flowers

Summer's very first chicory flower.

Comfrey, which is growing under a pear
tree at the base of the berm rather than in it.

A couple of weeks ago, I planted black turtle beans in the bare spots, because I don't like to leave bare soil anywhere.

Something has been munching on my black turtle beans.

What amazes me is how well everything has done considering that the berm is mostly clay subsoil. Being raised, it does tend to dry out fairly quickly during our hot dry spells in summer. What has survived and thrived, has done it without help from me: no watering, no compost, no mulch, just a little chop and drop. Amazing, isn't it? I'm thrilled that it's thriving.

Garden Swale: How It's Doing © May 2023

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com

Swale Project: More Experiments

Digging swales is our big infrastructure project for 2022.

Proposed plan for approximate swale placement.

The first swale was for the kitchen and canning garden. We dug this one by hand. It was a lot of work, but not too bad with the two of us working on it.

Blog posts with more pictures here and here.

It still needs a bit of leveling, but it works well and captures a lot of rainwater.

Next, Dan hand dug a second small swale for the little production patch next to the driveway. No roots and soft soil, so it went pretty quickly.

After we get a good rain to see how
level it is, we'll fill with wood chips.

This spot is where we plant a plot of something, like corn or wheat, rather than a bed. But because it's located on a high point of our property, it dries out quickly once we hit our summer dry spell. Whatever  rainwater we can catch here will hydrate the soil more deeply than just rain. 

The more challenging swales are the ones for our pastures, because they are too big to dig by hand. But we've finally made a start! We started with the pasture closest to the garden, where we can use a spillway to direct garden swale overflow into the pasture swale.

After we moved that big mound of dirt, the next step was to find and flag a level line for the swale.

We used an inexpensive transit to find a level line for a swale.

Being level is key to a swale's effectiveness, because it ensures the water will be distributed evenly across the length of the swale.

Flags mark a level path for a future swale.

The how-to has been the big question. People often use large equipment such as a backhoe to make swales. But a lot of folk have been creative with what they have and have used turn plows or scraper blades. 

Dan decided to see what the scraper could do and made a start.

Then he ripped it and scraped it again.

Then the tractor called it quits and stopped running. At least we've made a start.

Swale Project: More Experiments © May 2022

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com

Spring Planting & Growing: Early Edition

"All spring, I try to plant something every day "

Carla Emery, Encyclopedia of Country Living

I love that quote by Carla Emery, but I confess I haven't faithfully applied it this year. We've had a lot of rain, so some days it's too muddy to work in the garden. I managed to get my cool weather crops in, and now look forward to our last potential frost date. That date falls in the middle of our spring planting months, and so divides my planting season into early and late.

Planted so far:

• turnips
• kale
• carrots
• parsnips
• mangels
• sprouted pantry potatoes
• beets
• lettuce
• snow peas
• salsify
• pink dandelion
• cultivated burdock
• mizuna
• bloody dock

Of the root crops, only the mangels and burdock have emerged so far. You'll see them with the other spring garden photos below.

I only had a few plants survive winter; the rest succumbed to the cold.

These collard plants are several years old. I don't get huge
leaves from them anymore, but the small ones are tasty too.

One of just a few fall planted kale plants that made it.

Fall planted garlic, multiplier onions, and volunteer potato
plant (the sprouted pantry potatoes haven't emerged yet.)

More garlic

The one that concerns me is our wheat. It's yellowing.

Our fall planted wheat. Yellow from ???

There are a number of things that can cause this: nitrogen deficiency, iron deficiency, sulfur deficiency, fertilizer burn, herbicide injury, moisture stress, plus disease or insect damage. Apparently it's common enough that there are scores of articles written about it and speculating as to its cause. 

We don't use fertilizer, herbicides, or pesticides, so those are out as causes. Nutrient deficiency perhaps. Dan side dressed the rows with compost to see if it helps. Moisture stress is a possibility. Not from too little rain, but because we've had so much. At any rate, it looks like we'll still get a harvest.

It's still going to seed.

Saving for next year's seed will be the priority. We can always adjust our diet to whatever's left over if we need to.

Next are the early spring planted veggies.

Snow peas. No flowers yet!

Lettuce and volunteer dandelion; both salad favorites.

Mangels. These make great livestock feed (both leaves and roots).

Mizuna and violets (of which the flowers are edible)

Now that the swale is in and working well, I'm hoping my hoop house will be more useful in summer. Its raised beds dry out quickly in summer, so that I tend to plant there as a last resort. What I've decided to use them for is perennials, where the raised bordered beds can keep them under control.

Cultivated burdock and volunteer chickweed.

The other thing I planted this spring was the garden swale berm.

Swale berm planted with herbs and edibles.

I made a seed mix of all my old herb, flower, greens, and root crop seeds plus clover. Then I covered it with compost. Because the berm is sloped, much of the seed has washed down a bit, but hopefully enough has stayed put to help anchor the soil. It will be fun to see what grows.

Seed mix sprouting on the swale berm.

Then there are the perennials.

My few asparagus plants were taken over by
blackberries and daffodils, so I liberated them.

I actually gave up on asparagus a long time ago, because the wiregrass kept choking it out. But I have four or five plants that have hung in there over the years. We only get a few stalks at a time and enjoy them greatly, so I think it's time to invest in more.

Strawberries are thriving. My competition for those is slugs, birds, and chipmunks.

Red raspberries are leafing out.

Horseradish. Young leaves are good in a steamed greens mix.

Pear tree, garlic, & comfrey; swale berm in the background.

Pear blossoms. Pears seem to be our most reliable tree fruit.

Cherry blossoms. If I can beat the birds to them, I might get some!

Our last expected frost date is right around the corner. Then we can get to work planting our warm weather favorites. Like every other gardener on the planet, I'm looking forward to that.

How about you? How does your garden grow?

Spring Planting & Growing: Early Edition 

© April 2022 by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com

Pasture Swale Prep: Moving That Pile of Dirt

The biggest project on our spring project list is getting a start on our pasture swales. Our garden swale is functioning beautifully, so the next step is to extend our swale system to the pastures. We want to start the next swale near the one in the garden, to take advantage of its overflow. However, we had an obstacle; a big pile of fill dirt that Dan made when he dug out the old buried swimming pool. I finally have some progress to report.

Photo from "Our Agrarian Year: Spring Project List."

Disappearing the pile was done in stages. March was rainy, but in between rains it was warm enough to dry things out. Between the tractor and scrape blade and some hand digging, we redistributed the pile over several weeks.

Dan started by spreading out as much as the scrap blade could reach.

Then we had to knock the top of the pile down by hand.

More spreading until he got to the fence.

This last bit at the fenceline was moved by hand as well.

Then he secured the fence once again, to keep the goats from escaping.

Looking at it from the pool side, a view that has been
blocked by that huge pile of dirt for over two years!

The soil was fill dirt: a mixture of sand, clay, silt, rocks, and mica flakes. I don't expect much in terms of fertility, but spreading it out on the pasture was the fastest and easiest option. It's a relief to have it done.

Next, we'll measure and mark a level line to dig the swale. Then, I'll broadcast pasture forage seed over the soil and cover it with old barn bedding. The old straw and manure will be protect the seed and feed the soil. All weather permitting, of course!

Pasture Swale Prep: Moving That Pile of Dirt 

© April 2022 by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com

Interesting Things I've Learned With a Shovel

Once upon a time, I thought of shovels as simply tools for moving things like dirt, compost, or mulch. While it's true that they are, I've also come to understand that they are invaluable learning tool as well. It's my first tool for soil analysis; a carefully removed shovel depth of soil reveals its physical structure: type, texture, color, and presence of organisms and organic matter. Then there was poking around in the dirt where I put my first forest garden. That was almost like an archaeological dig.

This particular episode in my ongoing learning adventures started when I planted two quince seedlings in the goats' browse area. I'd ordered four seedlings, of which two went above the annuals garden. Then I started learning about swales and wondered if I could help those little trees by digging a small trench-like swale between them. What I learned changed everything.

Digging the trench led to an interesting discovery,
which led to transplanting the little quince trees again.

While digging the trench, I observed water seeping through the clay subsoil and filling the trench. Odd, I thought. Even odder was that water sat in the trench for weeks afterward. Unlike our garden swale, which soaks up the water in about two days, the water here was very slow to soak into the ground. 

The next good rain we got, Dan and I walked the land to observe what the water was doing in this area. Our property is a series of ridges, possibly man-made in the 1930s when swale making was one of the government projects to give people work. The remnants of these are less obvious on our treed land, but easy to see on our next door neighbors' places.

Ridge and old swale above where the quince trees were planted.

Two ridges below where they were planted.

We discovered a series of puddles both uphill and downhill from where I planted the quince trees. However, there wasn't observable overland runoff. Coincidence? Or is something else going on?

After it dried out a bit, I dig another small trench below the first one.

If you can spot her, Meowy is squatted down near my 1st trench.

I dug about this deep and then something interesting started to happen.

Water started to seep through the clay and fill my little trench.

It filled quickly enough to make ripples in the water!

The water fill pretty much stopped when it reached this level.

I dug another trench a few feet over, and it too
started to fill, though not as quickly nor as much.

The next time it rained, I was curious to see what was happening.

This shot was taken looking down on my trenches.

The two lower test trenches had filled with water too (top of the photo).

The trench on the left not only filled, but overflowed.

Where did the overflow go? Both around and under the old pine stump.

From the fence I could look below the next ridge, and this is what I saw.

The hole was made by an uprooted pine tree and
is in line with the flow of water I'm following.

I've been observing the trenches daily after it rains. My observations are that the two lower trenches drain before the top trench does. And while my garden swale holds water for about two days, the top trench holds water for several weeks.

Conclusions: 

• There is a lot of water moving underground here, even when it's not raining.
• Soil conditions are right to retain water here for a longer time than elsewhere.

The unanswered question is where does it originate? From rain, of course, but there's more water collecting in my trenches than is visible to the eye. 

Looking uphill. That's the old swale in the foreground.

Continuing uphill. The green is one of our goat
paddocks. My forest garden is uphill from that.

Over the years, Dan and I have talked about putting in a pond, although we never thought about putting one here. Yet thanks to a shovel, we've made some interesting observations about our land and how it responds to rainfall. Will we ever actually dig a pond? I have no idea. When I took my online permaculture design course, Bill Mollison and Geoff Lawton had really interesting things to say about what happens after the land is re-hydrated by swales and ponds. They also discussed how productive aquaculture can be. So, a future pond for us? It's definitely something to consider.

Interesting Things I've Learned With a Shovel

© March 2022 by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com