I built a 3 mile road up my mountain and down again with an excavator. The side ditches or swales were made to have numerous "Retention basins" or small ponding areas. Never just a smooth channel for erosion. Now, those holes are silting in a bit, but hold water into June in areas. Pine trees are repopulating like crazy and water rarely makes it to the culverts. Rather it stands and soaks in, making home for frogs and water for bees and mammals. In some large basins, I can harvest a truckload of fine silt for the garden yearly. So easy and self evident, but rarely done.
What a great video! Keep posting. I'm on a similar adventure building a food Forest with swales. I live on a kind of high desert/ prairie. Windy, dry and not many trees. Hoping to hydrate the land and build the soil with trees and swales and wood chips.
Great video man! I'm about to start on my flat (less than 12" high to low), very wet, land. The A frame worked great for me...had some spare parts and built one. Good luck on this season! Hope everyone is stocked up and ready. Much love.
Thanks for watching! I dug more this spring in a smaller field. Tried to make them shallower and wider because I've noticed some erosion along some of the steeper, more abrupt ones I dug in this video. Just a piece of advice. Good luck with your project as well!
I'm so glad youtube recommended this video, it was a great intro to swales! I've already started watching your other vids and can't wait to see what else you post.
Thank you for posting this. It was interesting to see and hear you talk about the excavation- and the note about the learning curve for using the excavator was helpful too. I really liked the overhead shots of the whole project the whole way through. Subscribed.
No way I would have let those vols out alive! It's one of the few animals I can actually bring myself to kill. Mice, rats, vols, beaver and anything non-native and invasive.
thank you, nigel for a very useful, informative and accessible video. i appreciate your slower pace and the time you allowed for comprehension of information screens. the method for determining how and where swales go over land is very helpful. i also unexpectedly learned that google earth can calculate the measure of a field, who knew? :) thanks also for introducing that permaculture tool for obtaining level. it is small, simple and affordable. dude, this is most excellent work! gracias, amigo:)
hilarious! sight level:). thanks! watched the film about the rain a month after setup and boy was i impressed - the sound of water running in the channels was like a temporary self created river, fantastic!
Thanks for showing your experiences with the voles nesting within the treetubes! I'm desperately researching how to prevent the deer from reducing my castanea sativa seedlings to bonsai sized miniatures, but voles are my other problem...
I don’t know if it’s because of our cold winters, but I haven’t found any vile damage over the first two years of this project. I did find a paper-thin skull in of the tube though…
Do A frames have the advantage of giving more data points as I suspect the sight levels would tend to be placed further apart? Excellent video. Thank you.
Hello, I see this video is a couple years old, hopefully you get my message. I noticed the Holmes rental logo on the excavator. Im in Killbuck area. Would you have any interest in possibly consulting with me at my property on swale placement. Ive been thinking about installing some this spring. Looking forward to hearing back from you. Mike
Why did you make them? And what benefits you got? As I can see the whole area is full of trees, so there is not much use of it. If you just let your land spared for a year or so the whole area is covered in thick forest with no effort at all.
Awesome breakdown of your land use techniques - the voles peaking out the tubes cracked me up! Did they appear to be eating the plant matter on the trees or primarily just nesting in the tube?
Jacob, thanks for the comment!! They hadn't chewed the trees yet but the during the winter when there's nothing green to eat is when they do damage....So I will have an update this week as soon as I can get back out there.
Steep areas? That is a parking lot compared to mine. Rocks the size of cars and 40% slopes common. Don't be afraid, you have to work really stupid to roll over. Usually on a loaded swing with a full bucket on an edge can do it. Mine weighs 45,000 pounds but I would guess the stability is better since it is 11' wide. Work it for a year, You will be climbing trees!
Well for a first timer the feeling when it wobbles off the skids is very unsettling. This one was tiny, 8000 lbs and less stable than a big one. It was my first time operating but sounds like your an old timer! Yes I’ve learned to bring the bucket in when swinging it with a full load.
@@kennhurt5636 No problem! It is a small mini-excavator (8,000 lbs I think). This year I rented a larger one (17,000 lbs) and it cost $1200 for the week. The place I rented from also added a 10% damage fee (non-refundable) and tax which added 200-300 to the total. And running it all day I could spend $80-90 in diesel so it adds up. Still many times cheaper than hiring someone!
Maravilloso. La REFORESTACIÓN debe ser responsable y con biodiversidad, así volverá el ciclo de vida. Los árboles regulan la temperatura en la corteza terrestre. Resguardan las NAPAS SUBTERRÁNEAS. Un gran ejemplo.
Great video. I'm wanting to do this but need to do a little more research and learn how to do it properly like how many swales, how far apart, and how deep. So the property you're working on is in Ohio but you live in Mexico? What part of Mexico? I've Been looking at property in Campech and surrounding areas there. How is the weather and how are the prices for land in your area in Mexico?
Yes the property is located in Ohio. I’m not sure about prices in Campeche but I’ve been through there. I didn’t look seriously at any land in Mexico, or find it to be any cheaper than land here… the going rate for 10x20m lots outside my city is 25-40k! If you speak Spanish and make connections you can ask around. You will definitely find land if you look seriously!
As for swale size and spacing, all I can say is it depends! There are wrong answers but also many good answers, depending on your land and goals for it. I’ll make a video to address it when I can.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge and process, so interesting and useful! Specially the design of swales. Im curious if something would change if you gave the voles an alternative place to nest. I'd be interested in friendly ways of controlling the damage predators can cause to your trees (since i have no idea). Have a nice day:)
Just be aware that 'alternative nesting area' reads (to voles- or rats, or mice) exactly the same as 'more nesting area'. I had a friend who was horrified at my 'kill them all' strategy for mice, so she made a series of nice little places for them to move to in the backyard while I was away. The result was a population explosion in the house and in the backyard.
@@nigelsearthprojects Ah I see. Well would swales be useful in a climate like California, where there is only 2 seasons: rain and no rain? During rainy seasons, our problem is how to remove the water the fastest. During our dry season, we need water but there is no rain to catch in a swale.
@@TheNativeTwo good question, I don’t feel qualified to answer but I’ll try anyway. It probably depends on where you are in relation to the local topography-if you’re in a basin where hundred of acres of water are running down into you or whether you’re upland. Upland I’d try to catch every drop but in bottomland you’d need to be sure you have stout and wide spillways. Look around your area for people who’ve tried!
@@dmcafee8882I follow a woman in Northern Australia, very dry area, and she collects seeds from local wild fruit, street trees, fruit she buys, and also swaps with other people. Growing trees in her swales that cope with severe drought. Grows and plants in the wet season, so they have a good root system when the dry season comes. She needs hundreds of trees to provide food and shade, so she said it is a cheap way to cover your land. Very interesting.
@@nigelsearthprojects thanks! Haven’t heard of it before and wasn’t sure i heard the name correctly. I want swales and may have to resort to a grub hoe to move the earth. But a dibble bar will have to accompany it
