Harvesting Rainwater on our Homestead 🌧️
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- Опубликовано: 26 янв 2025
- Hello from our Homestead in Alentejo, Portugal!
Over the last 2 months we've been putting into place a water harvesting system called swales. We've put them in 3 areas so far- a small slope without vegetation & very little top soil, a big slope we're transforming into an orchard, and, most recently, in our veggie garden.
We have had very little rain since summer, and this last week we had a couple days with rain! We're very happy about this and it gave us the opportunity to see how the swales all do! Will they collect water? Will the water infiltrate or run off? Watch to see:)
We've begun planting a couple trees & looking forward to showing you more about that next week.
If you'd like to support our project, here are a few ways:
1. Watch, comment, subscribe, share this video:)
2. Join our Channel as a Member- all membership funds will go towards planting trees/regenerating the land.
3. Become a Patreon Member: / theyellowbootshomestead
4. More ways on our website: www.theyellowbootshomestead.com
Thank you so much!
Calla & Jon
1) Mini-swales need to be 2-3 times larger (deeper & wider). 2) mini-swales, the spillways need to be on alternating ends, not in the center of each, so that in case of a blowout, the water doesn't just cascade straight downhill, doing more erosion. 3) Road needs either a "crown" (sloping to both sides) or if in a hill, sloped slightly towards the hillside, with a bit of a ditch, -or- several little cuts in the road diverting the water into swales in the hillside. Just some thoughts and observations. As you well, know, start the earthworks as high in the landscape/watershed as you can. Contain the energy before it gets the ability to build up enough to cause damage or erosion, then work your way downhill. Good job.
^This guy swales
Yep. You speak the truth.
Agree.
facts , was about to write the same
Thanks so much for these observations and suggestions! we agree that the mini swales are wimpy;) need to slowly build them up with dirt from elsewhere! And we’ll adjust the spillways too. Really appreciate your comment🙏🏼🙏🏼
Your trees are dying from Phytophthora, not lack of water (which doesn’t help of course) it is unfortunately an issue that out Azinheiras and Sobreiras are going through. The only known way to prevent so far is to plant marioila (phlomis purpurea) near the trees since its roots are antagonistic to the Phytophthora. Get some seeds , plant them in trays and then plant them near the trees! 😊 good luck with your project, lovely having people like you around ❤
Ah, you‘re using the John Kaisner tree planting tip :-) - it‘s really interesting watching your swale work and to see that they are doing what you planned. I also like that you want to restore the land not just for yourselves but also nature, not too many people do that.
Yes! We love his channel:) Thanks so much for watching & your interest in what we’re doing! Cheers to taking care of land for the wellbeing of the the Earth, communities, future generations, flora and fauna!
Yay for swales working so well! I'm learning so much on permaculture and tending to land with you guys.
Thanks lovely! Ca’nt wait to have you here!
Way cool to see this in action. We're also digging swales and creating earthworks for stewarding the land and growing a food forest.
We live in the hot desert outback of Australia. High winds, high temperatures and lack of shade is our biggest issue.
Thank you so much! Wow that must be quite an adventure as well in your climate 😁 hope you love the journey. Which trees do you plant for shade?
What is ur channel?
Love to see this working. All water you can save is precious.
We agree! Thanks for watching!
Well done! The restoration of this land is on its way. Congratulations and my best wishes 🙏🥰
Thanks so very much for being excited and supportive of our project! All the best💛💛
The road looks like a good place to capture more runoff in the future. Good Luck
Agreed! Thanks:)
Well done! So good to see that it is working!
🌴🌲🌴
Wahoo! Thanks so much:)
It’s great to see what you have started. You will soon realise you need an enormous amount more water and/or water retention within your system. We have around 8 million litres we hold in our dam. We also have massive amounts of mulch and living roots in the ground to assist with our water retention.
Sounds amazing, thank you for sharing. We plan to build more ponds when we can afford it, and we definitely need to mulch more everywhere. A constant work in progress! 😀
@ Mulch in the form of living roots is the best now science is showing. A lot less work. We have thousands of perennial basil, canna lilies and QLD arrowroot. We plant about 1 metre from every fruit tree. They cover the ground and suppress all weeds. We chop and drop some of them to the fruit trees and others just keep growing.
How satisfying it must be to see the swales work as you intended. Congratulations! A few mini swales across the dirt road will help prevent erosion in it and direct the run-off where you want it.
Thank you so much! Yes we will definitely do that at some point. Have a good week! 🙂
@@theyellowbootshomestead Thank you, a wonderful week and a magical full moon tonight to you also!
Great Job! Make the swales on the driveway a bit wider and deeper...plant more trees along the driveway and make the run off pools wider...its beautiful work you have going in here. Love from Kenya ❤
Thank you so much for your suggestions! All the best!
Seems like you can't have too many swales on your property. Very happy for you folks!
It’s the year of the swales:)
Build more swales please!! Loved this video!!
Swales everywhere! Thanks for watching!
It might be helpful to add some type of mulch to shade and protect the swales from the wind in order to prevent evaporation.
Great observation! Yes, we’re working on clearing dead plant material to get everything mulched with what’s on the land. Hopefully we can get a wood chipper this year- that would be a game changer for mulch! Do you have a favorite mulch?
Woohoo that was swaley awesome to see the swales working in the rain :) lovely video xxx
Ain’t it swale!? Thanks bestie:)
Research from MIT has shown that heat is not the only reason water evaporates. In fact, they have demostrated that direct sunlight without heat on cold or cool days is very effective at evaporating water. I note that your pond or lake has absolutely no cover around it whatsoever. You are probably losing a lot of water to this form of evaporation in autumn, winter and spring in addition to the heat when it arrives. I would think that getttng some form of tree cover around your lake is important.
We totally agree! We’ve tried planting a few trees around it since we dug it out but none have took. We are working towards lots of trees around it for shade and lily pads as well- just haven’t had them work yet. Thanks for sharing that MIT did research on this- very cool and important!
Looks like fun, playing in the dirt.
It is really fun indeed! 😁
For handling pieces of that "Prickly Pear" cactus, I just use some kitchen/BBQ tongs. Good for when cutting the pieces off the main plant. And good also, 2 or more weeks later, (after the cut ends have dried out) when a person is placing those cut pieces into the ground at planting time.
Thank you for the tip!
You should maybe try building some rolling dips that feed into your swales or zuni bowls on the side of the road. This would reduce erosion on the road and improve water capture.
Thank you for your comment. We are considering zuni bowls in other parts of the land, but we never heard of rolling dips before. Really appreciate the advice 🙂
@@theyellowbootshomestead There is a channel called GrowTree Organics where they use rolling dips, so that might give you an idea of how they work. Their homestead is in Arizona. They have several videos of their earthworks harvesting water.
Just 4 min in, and had a thought. If there is very much variation in the bottom of the swales, where some points are dryer, and some points puddle a bit. If you can make some stakes or flags with two colors, marked the high points, and the low points for later fine tuning.
Wow that didn’t cross our minds! 😅 that’s a great suggestion. We would not mind small variations but if it varies too much as you say, then some plants/trees could miss some water and in this case your tip would be a perfect way to fix it. Thanks again for sharing.
The real dream coming true. ❤
It’s quite a life- very grateful!
Well donne ‼️ Hard Work pays‼️😍🙏🏻🍀🥂🍾🎇
It’s so exciting to see the swales working! Thanks for cheering us on:)
It's definitely gotta feel satisfying to have something you do turn out to work properly. Lol i build houses 😂😂😂😂
The little dams you build around newly planted shrubs and trees, please do add a thick mulch, either bark chips or pine needles this will keep the roots cool and moist in summer. I have access to the long pine needle for free, raked it up and mulched my plants very thickly.
Long leaf pine - Pinus Palustris, a large dam covered with a thick layer 10 to 15cm will last for years.
You are absolutely right, mulching is in the todolist 😅 thanks for sharing
beautiful work
Thank you very much!
Pause at 13:17 and he walks by in the corner of the frame with a pickaxe and sickle. Close enough. Workers of the world, unite!
It’s all looking fantastic. I would suggest that the spill ways be more of a level seal and wide to slow the water. And the small ones on drive way be careful that the water doesn’t drown the trees. I have videos of the swale I built on my channel that may interest you to watch. You two are doing a wonderful job and it will be very rewarding as it all develops. 😊
Thanks so much! Will take a look at your video- thanks!
Make some swells across the road. If you can put pipes in the ditch then cover with rocks. I think that would help.
It’s a road that we drive on so they wouldn’t withstand a car, but yes we definitely need to direct the water and pipes in a ditch would be a good idea too. Thanks!
As a child in South Africa we loved to build mud dams and cakes/mounds. The soil we used to construct with, was a fine clay soil (that we worked with our hand to become sticky) it dried to form a solid very hard mound or structure. I remember it lasted for years. I wonder if the soil on your property is not too corse with many small stones, there for the rain water will damage it more easily? I suspect that good clay for construction is dependant on the type of soil you use.
Totally. We noticed our soil can be very different depending on where we dig. We’ll see how it all behaves with time and will adjust as we go 😀 thank you for sharing!
Yes, you said it right, EROSION. Why, what you done we call it child swale. Just dig deeper and wider. Make no mistake by adding dirt on it, it will erode easily. Dont make spillways in the middle, alternate it on both ends, so that in case of blow out, the water doesn't cascade straight out and cause multiple erosion. about your road, make a slope on both sides, or make a ditch on one side facing the hill, and put some diy culverts made of tubular plastic pipes or concrete.
Thanks so much! We will adjust:)
In Southern California, lots of the freeway borders are heavily planted with Oleander; the Oleander flourishes, even though the air quality is just awful. I've been told that Oleander just sucks the carbon dioxide, and monoxides right out of the air. Was that a reason for your planting Oleander on your property? Thanks for your videos. I can't wait to see your land 5 years from now! 😄
Didnt know that, thank you for the info! We planted it because its native, grow very very well in our area, and it makes a beautiful thick edge along our path, creating a wind and dust break 😊 after planting it a neighbour told us that it is a nice plant to have also because sheep and goats dont eat it.
@@theyellowbootshomestead Pretty sure it's poisonous.
Great job! I too want to recommend Rolling Dips on your road. They are extremely gentle undulations on contour, allowing you to then divert the water runoff horizontally immediately off the road with ditches or swales, similar to the natural erosion pattern you took advantage of to water your oleanders.
May I suggest a wider larger semicircle mini berm below each oleander (to catch the runoff from the small existing circles) as the least effort plan to improve water retention around them?
Great job on the mini swale spillway technique. You have already identified the inevitable adjustments to make.
I am super excited about the excellent water infiltration of the orchard swales. Most swales Ikve seen built in Portugal have almost no infiltration at all, the land is that degraded, and permaculturists are desperately filling up their swale ditches with mulch, high nitrogen compost, aiming for cover crops and fungal injected mulch to build any soil in there to infiltrate water.
Your one problem in the orchard swales is that AFAIK Portugal floods heavily at least once a year, in between little to no rainfall. If this were my farm I’d be planning to increase the water holding capacity and berm size by 10 times for each swale to actually be capable of smoothing out and holding/infiltrating Portuguese rain. I saw that these were hand dug, and I think it’s possible if carefully planned out to start carefully stage planting, while regularly enlarging the swale ditches and berms over a five to ten year period. As the swales are, I doubt your orchard will flourish in Portugal.
Thank you! We appreciate your suggestions and excitement and encouragement:) Taking note! Take care.
You do know that every part of the Oleander is poisonous? Love your water works. We sometimes dig what we call a water bar. Dig a slight swale on an angle across your road to quickly route the water off your road. I’d dig them to work with your swales on your land. The water bars are not for getting the water to soak in, just get the water off the road.
Thanks for this suggestion! The erosion on our driveway definitely needs help. Thanks:)
😊
Nit that I'm an expert but it seems your spillways are on the narrow side. If it rains. A bit harder you could have a blow out.
Yeah you’re right! We will keep adjusting :)
way way too small even the one around your plant is too small it can't really hold any water and you noticed this by the instant overflow... now imagine if it rained heavily... and as someone else said, alternate overflows so they aren't in the same location and they need to be much deeper/wider so they can actually hold water and not just run over if someone spills a cup of water.
Agreed! We will improve progressively. Thanks for the advice!
@@theyellowbootshomestead it will come with some work, don't worry, it will be great
Slowing water run off is such a solution to bio diversity around you! Easier to dig the ground when it is wet rather than cement like when dry!!
Definitely! Thanks for your comment:)
I’m all for this project, but hearing an American accent, why did you move to Portugal for this?
Edit: Husband(?) accent gave away the reason hehe, never mind!
Haha:) We lived near Geneva before this. We have a video all about why we chose Portugal if you’re interested to hear more:)
Я дико извиняюсь и немогу сказать про всью Одессу, но викопать 15 шагов борозд и срубить 15 минут видеосик на ютюбе, ето налицо черезчур мнение о себе и считат остальних из аудитории дураками ...
I think your property would benefit from you putting in wooden gutters into your road.
Google: 'road wooden gutter drain' for pictures(to understand what I mean)
In my country these are often put on forest dirt roads to prevent erosion and redirect flow of water.
Basically it is a gutter, made of two solid planks (sometimes held by piece of iron on top. To keep the gap from closing). Cars or bikes can get across easily.
Because these planks are placed so that they are the same level as the road the water runs into the gap. And then to the side of the road. (Wood would rotten much faster if the water was just collecting there, by allowing it to escape wood last longer)
The gap can connect onto swale or run into some other catment area, where it can seep in gradually.
These gutters of course has to be cleaned regularly to work(because they will get dirtier/or full of rocks much easier than a swale). But they certainly work.
From what I could observe the steeper the road-more gutters it might need.
However the top one usually takes the brunt on steep hill. Lower angle-it's more evenly distributed.
Near my home is National Park-where few years back they installed the gutters across dirt road. (Just to keep tourists walking on dry land.) But it worked so well, that they put 3 times more of them within next 6 months and also enlarged the 'seeping in area'. So that every gutter ended in swale leading towards large hole-where it could seep in.
However one of those holes has since became 5x5m wide muddy pond. Not by their design(they didn't dig it that large)-the gutter connected to it simply catches that much water.
Of course imo they should have do more with it, tweek the design. Just wanted to make you aware-unexpected can happen with these gutters.
Thanks so much! Very good idea!