HOW TO BUILD SWALES - and harvest water
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- Опубликовано: 2 окт 2024
- How to build a swale is one of the most important things I have learnt while developing my food forest and studying PERMACULTURE with Geoff Lawton.
A swale is a method of harvesting water, and they work whereever you live in the world.
This is the first video of a three part series on swales. With thanks to Geoff Lawton, this first video is the "INFO" part of this series, and is pulled from Geoff's Online Permaculture Design Course (find via my website).
The second and third video in this series are here:
Part 2: Geoff visits my garden and helps start me off with planning where my swales shall be: • DESIGNING SWALES - Geo...
Part 3: I get help from my community and dig dig dig: • DIGGING SWALES FOR A F...
Enjoy and learn
Weedy
www.theweedyga...
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#harvestingwater #waterharvesting #selfsufficientliving #selfsufficient #permaculture #organicgardening #organic #howtogarden #growingyourownfood #sustainableliving #offthegrid #growfood #gardening #gardeningtips #sustainability #vegetablegarden #swales #organicfarming #gardening #foodsecurity
![Swales: Earthworks for Conservation and Storage [PDC Preview]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/W-f2genlUZI/mqdefault.jpg)
Studying PERMACULTURE with my teacher Geoff Lawton - The 2024 online PDC is open for students from 10th May 2024. If you go to the enrollment page using this Weedy Garden affiliate link www.discoverpermaculture.com/a/2147844655/UvHULpHp - you can also recieve a US$150 discount off the online course by writing "weedy150" in the coupon.
A year ago my missus and I were living in the city in a townhouse trying to think of an escape, watching your videos every night, today we built our greenhouse and planted our first spring veggies on our acre block (barefoot) 😂 and built our bathtub wormfarm, with our rescue magpies . just thought I'd come back and say thanks for the motivation! We're home ❤️
That´s the comment of the day :-)
A big tv can cc cc cc by Rd r Rd jo
We are trying very hard to achieve the same but could only afford to buy in the middle of nowhere, Queensland, Australia which make sustainability in our 40’s just a dream. But, we have 39 acres of Aussie bush covered in Australian Grass Trees, a disrupted creek that only runs when our neighbours dam overflows, a good sized dam, a really dodgy old transit bus and many adventures to have until we can finally move there permanently.
Woohoo!!!😀 delighted for ye.
👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾 BEAUTIFUL!!!
I could listen to this man all day long, not get tired of his voice or lesson. Great info! Thank you for sharing kind sirs!
🖍 🙏
If only we could hear him
@@blakelafevers9243 where are you? Try closing your browser then reopen the video.
@@wakeupsheepleNWOREAL I meant that his voice is quite than the music, and the whole video is much quieter than most RUclips videos.
One of the best explanations I have ever watched, great explanation of the system and the benefits.
A year already? thank you for your channel I enjoyed your first one , and been here ever since!
Just when i start to miss you, you come up with a new video... You are an awesome Madala...💐💐💐
The day I saw your first video, I knew you will be going this route.. it's your calling..permaculture is the way ahead.. wish you more power in your journey.
Two legends doing legendary things in such a biblical way. Love from Ireland.
Awesome. Thanks :-)
Thank you! My son has been encouraging me to create swales in my low desert yard, and this gives me greater understanding of where to start, and why.
Such a valuable video! Love Geoff's teaching style.
Swales are like- a one dig and then fertilizing everything in the path. You cannot beat that.
I’ll be continuing my backyard swale dig this weekend.
So grateful that you are sharing permaculture! You are an artist and your beautiful way of presenting awakens and awes. So exciting!
A masterpiece of self growth. A visual feast. I love the sound design truly makes it.. So worth the effort.. Love it so much..
Thank you kindly!
This comment was meant for your 40 Min movie exert released today.. Somehow ended up here.. Random.. They are all great just the same... 👌
@@solmedia131 lol. I had a feeling. This one isn’t that epic 😁
this is one of the best presentations i have seen on swales to include those that Lawton himself has presented haha - simple and direct
I love your works of art. Happy your videos crossed my eye sight
There's a popular place in the Lake District, Cumbria, UK called Swaledale, I think I might know why now. Very informative. Thanks for sharing.
Your lessons are so much needed. You ARE changing the world through education . Your lesson are amazing! So many questions finally answered !
Yes Geoff Lawton! I have been studying as well my friend and it gives me such joy to see someone with the artistic talent of filmography, such as yourself, who truly captures the magnificence of it all! Thank you so much for your inspiration 🥰
I just purchased 5 acres of gently sloping raw land. I think we will put in a swale! TY so much!
Congrates 👍🏼🌱
Love the bamboo wall.
very nuanced and important distinction: a swale is dead flat, ie parallel to contour. a ditch is not on contour, it has gradient along it's length. a swale holds water on the land, a ditch drains water from the land. be like geoff and build proper swales. ;)
is their any possible connection between a swale and terraces? Is it the case that they would ideally follow the contour lines on a map?
@@GOLDSMITHEXILE A terrace is essentially a more drastic (and expensive) water-management solution that an earthen dam couldn't functionally achieve. In the States, artificial swales are usually called wascobs (water and sediment control basins) by engineers. There are other solutions like buffer strips or tile drainage that also resolve water issues.
So ditches drains and swales swim. Got it! Thanks
I look forward to seeing the Weedy Swale! I want to see how you do it on your farm... but I always like watching that video from Geoff again
Brilliant and captivating. Thank you
Often people in Geoff's situation (eco hippy) babble on about mystical forces and the like but he is just talking hard geography and makes a lot of scientific sense. It's very refreshing and clearly the guy understands what he is talking about.
I hear ya buddy! I listened to this one Irish hippie in YT talk about permaculture in her land and she kept calling it “goddess permaculture”. Nothing wrong with being in touch with your land but for those of us that are technical it’s a fast turn off.
Beautiful photography.
Thank you for your knowledge, your wisdom.
It helps in building foundations In permaculture before going to next level in university.
This is a beautiful and loaded with valuable information video..Thank you very much.
👍
OK, Now this is mindblowing. i am utterly grateful for sharing this with us, this will have a major importance later in my life. bless Geoff. bless you.
🙏🏻👍
You are doing something special with this channel! This is an incredible video
Damn, this guy is a good teacher. Thank you very much. Starting a project in a couple of months here in northern Spain.
There are some videos on YT about swales near Tucson, Arizona, USA ... one by Geoff. :) The cool thing is they were built a long time ago under FDR and were never maintained, but they are still giving life to that desert area.
ruclips.net/video/1I-Et4FnEvA/видео.html
Amazing! Thank you for sharing.
First video of yours I have seen, beautiful camera work! So calming and it fits your voice so well!
Great video & creatively introduced! Very clever filming! Also some invaluable info. Thanks!
glad I found you again!
30 seconds into your video, I knew you deserved my new subscription and every other subscriber you have and more.
Wonderful content.
You are a top notch videographer, editor, pleasant speaker, and very informative.
Can’t wait to dive into your content further.
Awesome Steven. Thanks mate. Hope you enjoy my other vids 🙏🏻👍💚
Why does everyone think that water flows downhill once it gets in the ground? Everyone plants on the downhill not thinking that the uphill planting will also do well because the roots will find the water below.
Thanks for working to make amazing videos.
That was brilliant. It was good of Geoff to let you use his video. Really shows the value of swales in re-establishing trees back into an environment. He really knows his stuff!
if u haven't already, watch Geoff's Greening the Desert project. It will blow mind your mind and really showcases the power of Permaculture
Janice - we have a small plot which takes floodwater from across the road running down from the mountain and the majority of water in the village is managed with pipes and paths going down to the river - our plot was never developed. I love this video as it is nice and slow - I think we definitely need to get on down on this one! It rained 300 millimetres in 2 days and the water went running like a river (eventually to flood the septic tank below) around my very vegetable beds; which luckily I had built up a few days before it started!
Perfect setting for swales it seems.
you are amazing and inspire me! To learn more n more knowledge...Love it
I grew up on a large commercial farm in the piedmont region in the southern USA, all our farms had terraces with grass waterway in front of them that fed into irrigation ponds. This greatly reduced erosion and encouraged deep water infiltration. This along with contour tillage (when a crop needed it because almost everything now is planted no-till to reduce erosion and cut fuel cost), no-till planting and subsoil deep tillage to allow rainwater penetration have been standards of agriculture since the 1960's. (Subsoiling is when a 18 - 24 inch deep slit is pulled through the soil but no soil is turned over or moved.)
great show
Thank you for sharing
Thanks I loved your lesson on swales and how impotant they are to help the earth and provide perfect systems for trees and plants to flourish. I live near a swampy area but gets very dry in winter so we dig 8 foot deep hole and bang a sand spear in .
And use a small pump to water every thing ...i can smell the nutrient water and the plants are fed to perfection .
🤣👏🤣❣
Beautifully made.
love the background music
I have gravel deposits on my property from the Wisconsin Glacier that act like a sponge. The gravel recharges with water from winter snow and spring rain and slowly releases the water during a dry summer. The trees grow really well up on that hill.
👌 perfect
Nice I didnt think gravel was much good for holding water! Is the rock of the gravel a very porous rock? My garden is very gravelly and dried out a lot.
@@Padraigp I had gravel soil in my vegetable garden. It was great I could plow the ground when it was wet and if the sun came out later, I would disc and plant because it would dry out. The gravel in my woodlot is not to near the surface and the tree shade and organic material keep the sun from drying the gravel
@knuckledraggingneanderthal720 ah mine had gravel but also quite thick clay and then rocks and sort of sandy ...it dries out really quickly in summer buts it's soggy as hell in winter. I have very little actual soil hummus..
@@knuckledraggingneanderthal720 or houmus? Not the chickpea thing lol!
IMPORTANT NOTE: In urban settings, call (411 in the U.S.) before you dig to mark any buried wires or gas lines!
In most cases, digging a garden swale for a food forest does not mean taking off more than six inches of top soil, giving you a foot high swale, which is fine and wide enough for a wheel barrow. Most cables, mains, drains, telephone, power ect are much deeper down (two or three feet or so), so unless you are digging a massive swale in a desert, or a pond attached to your swale, it is no more than a spade deep.
@@TheWeedyGarden Not in my garden, the gas line is about 6 inches down and the cable is above the surface in some spots.
@@GiveitaGrow really? And council know that? Pretty seriously shallow for a main gas line. Then it IS good advice to make sure you know what is anywhere if you dig in a garden, hammer posts in the ground ect 😳
I love Geoff's lessons... I've been absorbing them for a few years now, and I find him so easy to understand. You are also very easy to spend time learning from in your Weedy Garden, so thank you for the inspiration! I'm just starting to plan out my second fruit forest in 3 years - I did the same thing just a few years ago, carving out channels and swales in the landscape and planting about 40 tropical fruit and nut trees, many were quite rare and unusual. Everything was ticking along nicely in the garden, then, one November day in 2019, things got rather hot... only a few trees survived. I moved. Now I am planning a totally different temperate fruit forest, preparing the land, digging swales by hand, planting cover-crops, potting fruit trees in preparation... This video was an excellent refresher for me ~ it sparked all sorts of ideas and I learned so much. Cheers
I think Geoff talks on this point about growing pioneer trees and transitioning into fruit trees. Pioneer trees grow to provide shade and help develop the soil and prepare it for future plants, and fruit trees are introduced later with the protection cover that the pioneer trees give until they are established and not as vulnerable to the sun and droughts. Once the fruit trees are established, the pioneer trees are removed over time to allow the other trees more space to grow. Remember a forest has various levels to it. From the ground floor plants, to shrubs, up to vines and canopy trees.
Great video Geoff. Would have been interesting if you had discussed the spill over section of a swale and how this can be directed to water catchment areas
Great for wildlife as well.
I am digging a small swale in my suburban garden to catch water from my gutters and I have planted 3 trees to help. In the back yard I am digging a 2nd swale to do the same, but I use bio soap in my washing machine that will discharge into the swale as well. Getting into this is very important as over here in Cape Town, South Africa we almost ran out of water 2 years ago.
Same here in this area. 😅
Brilliant work
My heroes restore the earth.
woW! Ypu've really done something wonderful.
Thank you for bring such an interesting video today my friend, I’m looking forward to seeing your design come to life. It saddens me that we are all governed by narrow minded politicians! In a world where climate change and its catastrophic effects are reeking havoc I wonder why people like Geoff are not the driving force of governments? I have no formal education in horticulture, agriculture, climate, pollutions or conservation but it doesn’t take Einstein to see the huge benefits and the on going positive ripple effects for Mother Earth and in turn wildlife and humanity!
Great information!
i like the way you think!
your stuff is brilliant mate, please keep doing what you're doing.
It really is!
So happy to see you bck! I clicked on so quick in anticipation of the next adventure of the Weedy garden. This was so informative. This gardening thing is a continuous learning experience. Always looking forward to the next one!
Thankyou for your kind words
it almost seems derogatory to call it just a ditch after watching this.
Wows thank you for the amazing video
Not sure why I clicked the video, but can't stop watching.
Your not sure? Did u search for something?
Loveee this video❤❤
Thank you that was very informative!
Is it possible for you o raise the VOLUME on these videos. This info is CRUCIAL FOR THE LIKES OF ME AND TO HAVE TO STAINS to hear every word is time consuming. I am fully cogisent that I need to watch your videos again and again to be able to absorb all that we are being give and then to try to utilise it but the LOW VOLUME just detracts from my concentration . THANKS A MILLION FOR ALLLLLL YOUR PREVIOUS videos which have not ONLY been entertaining. BUT too have been educational, which really is the point of all your hard work. Many, many thanks 👩🌾😊🌹
Some viewers will experience very low and muffled sound on this video. For some reason, it seems to be when played on a TV, and has something to do with the bass in the sound of this vid. I do appologies, but I can´t do anything about it now. You will need to use the subtitles for this video if you have this issue. For me, it sounds good, and sounds as good as any other of my videos, but on some devices the sound is bad.
Your videos are incredible
Thanks David
Back to the important stuff ; )
It’s all important...for me 💚😊
i wanted to sort of do swales last year, but I hurt my knee, not that I knew much about swales except they were a good thing, but I know more now! My soil is heavy clay with big granite rocks, so it's going to be a very difficult and extremely small scale ... and they will have to be retro-fitted swales to fruit trees already there. But at least I know now to do them above the trees on the higher side of the slope, lol ! :D
How fascinating... thoroughly enjoyed this video. It amazes me how techniques such as these aren’t used more!
Fascinating, I'm going to try and workout how I can make this happen on my allotment. Thanks
great info, thanks for sharing!
Wow, I watched the second one first, more wowed watching the first one now... People have got to do this all over the world... This will go towards saving the planet. Thanks so much for your knowledge, explanation, and illustration...
instant subscription..
I'm currently reading Water for Any Farm by Mark Shepard - a very in depth look at designing swale systems!
my mind is blown.
Good on you for learning about permaculture! Like you, I got into it online, & now I'm going to do an online course from Oregon State. It has really expanded my understanding of what's possible.
Happy Earth Day ☮
David.....you are extremely inspiring! Giving me a reason to wake up. I would like to chat with you. Hopefully you can find some time. Be safe brother.
Thanks Justin. You can find my contact details on my website 👍🙏🏻
Great video David, nice that Geoff allowed you to use his class lecture. This is absolutely the first step in setting up a food forest in an arid region, it seems, and awesome to see the results. The most amazing thing about Geoff is that when he took classes from Bill Mollison, he was a skeptic. I guess getting out there and trying the methods Bill taught was a revelation for him.
Amazing man. God bless 🙌🙏❤
Geoff is doing great work. I have learned so much from him. Plant the water and you will succeed.
Awesome content
Most definitely subbed 👍🏼✨
Great presentation and excellent content.
I am starting the permaculture journey - started watching RUclips videos last month. After seeking the advice of the Ministry of Agric on rainwater harvesting, I was pleasantly surprised that they offered free assessment of farmland for rainwater harvesting potential.
I hope their recommendations will be useful and can be used with permaculture techniques. I am excited about this journey. My farm has been unused forever. Its time that changed.
This is great Weedy Man! I've wondered what you've been up to for so long with no videos. While I can't do a swale in a city garden it's nice to learn new things. Thanks for sharing your journey and thank Geoff for allowing you to share a bit of his course with us. Looking forward to the next videos.
Wonderful. Nice and easy
I have been trying to use vetiver basically as a swale, its a great alternative that serves the same purpose.
Its all connected, swales to tree canopy.
Great idea to saturate the soil bring nutrients to soil and trees. Very useful information. I will add swales when I have a farm. For now I grow food in pots in my shoebox size space.
Gotta start small 👍🏼
I was listen to something on RUclips while driving, then this video popped up next, I had to park to actually watch it.
Thank you for all the masterpieces.
That´s awesome. Nice one :-)
Amazing, thank you both for showing people how we can assist mother earth to recover 🙏❤ much love
What a swell swale you've got there. Have you ever taken a swig out of your swale? Have you ever thought about making your swale bigger? I heard that swole swales were swell as well. I once saw a swale so swole that I swore you could fit a wale in that swale!
As for me, I just have a lot of snails in my swales.
That’s swell
Thank you very much for this David (and Geoff)
Great information. I learned a lot from this.
Cheers!
That was so very informative, Thank you for making such incredible videos. Peace and love.
Geoff Lawton has an excellent,detailed and magnificent way of teaching and i can really understand what he is teaching especially through the visual illustrations as he talks.
You both have such a great auro about you's.
Agreed.
Your video editor deserves a raise dude
Incredible vid…
Sensational. Subbed
Bob Ross meets the gardener!
I've done quite a bit of swale work, and a problem I'm still grappling with is moles tunneling in around the swale and berm which greatly compromise the swale's integrity. I must constantly monitor for and plug these tunnels. I guess no matter how brilliant a system is, it's never perfect... My hope is that as the vegetation matures and the roots knit together with the soil, erosion through these passages minimizes? Perhaps I need to dig the swale deeper - below the level of typical rodent tunneling? Would enjoy hearing Geoff's experience with tunneling rodents in water/earthworks.
maybe stone well swales?
I would add in plants that rodents do not like and yes as the trees and shrubs mature they will grow more roots. I would recommend willows they are deep rooting trees that help water stick around. Possibility of adding in some stacked stone for the base of the mound tree roots go right through it rodents can not.
Introduce. Prey. Predators. That. Eat. Rodents 🌎🦉🦉🦅🦅🐍🐈🐈. Running 🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🤪😜🇨🇦🚜🇺🇸👍🏽
@@babbarsher2065 Thanks for your comment. I have tried encouraging predation, but moles are very resistant because they never surface even when expelling dirt (and we don't have predatory snakes here). I am curious if knocking down the mounds helps owls/coyotes pick them off, but no firm results... maybe every once in a while a mole goes mysteriously missing, but in the end, predation only moderates population, never minimizes or eliminates. So the problem persists! Happy digging-
Our garden is on a slope, so we dig deep trenches for garden beds, fill them with organic matter, then rebuild the dirt around them to guide the water to their centerline from the pathway just above, technically making swales, but only having to build them one piece at a time in the size of a garden bed, making each section immediately usable.