Swale + Water = Trees / How swales are built in high elevation mountain desert climate. 

Thanks, nice to hear from another CO content maker. I’m finishing my CTP certification with Dr Elaine Ingham’s Soil Food Web organization this growing season. So more to come with permaculture and microscopy work after graduation.

Love it, I did elaine course in 2020. Keep me posted. I started the lab course and didn't get certified at the end. I'm hoping to get a full scale nursery for agro forestry projects going in the next couple years.

We are also in the Columbia Basin! New to permaculture and just starting out planted herbs, berries & fruit trees this fall.

@@genevievegray2194 It's a long hard road to keep things alive here, but so rewarding when they do live.

Plants trees with broken glass to keep away voles and gophers

A swale is not meant to be a pond, but a slow percolation device. However, if you were making a pond gleying the ponding would be more efficient.

If it was Europe I'd say plant blackberry brambles right around the trees.

@@williamchamberlain2263 ummmmmm..... no! Washington State has a horrible issue with Himalayan blackberries that are listed as invasive.

The swale landscape has gone through a extensive transformation in the vegetation that has grown in what was a barren area, with new trees some voluntary and some intentionally planted. Currently finishing the final experimentation project for the Soil Food Web school’s advanced Consultant Training Program. So we will have an update to the Swale video here after the completion of the course project.

Oak brush is all over Colorado and though it is native it’s large bushy structure doesn’t quite fit our ideal outlook for eventually our field food forest. The purpose behind using Red Oak is for us to use the limbs for growing mushrooms off their trimmed limbs. Gambel Oak isn’t the best for growing edible mushrooms.

​@@KTheGuy If these species with bushy structure do grow very big (slowly), then I'm sure they can be pruned into trees. In Portugal, two of our most common oaks (holm and cork oaks) are just like that, taking about 2-3 pruning events in the first 15-20 years for a tree structure to take shape

I’ll add that to my list of videos

You try doing that in Mesa Verde!

Currently I don’t do any instruction or tours on property for our families privacy, but we do have an online Soil Food Web basics course coming soon.

@@KTheGuy okay cool. When do you anticipate starting it, and do you have a way of notifying people when you have the course up?

We should have the course up in the next couple months. There will be links to the website in the next upcoming videos, which are some really cool videos from an amazing guest on Soil Food Web Biology.

I have been filming throughout this season for all of the growth along the swale and field. So hopefully I can compile all of the footage, but my focus has been finishing my final for the Soil Food Web Consultant Training graduation. We had some exciting developments in the field research project that I would like to add additionally for everyone as well.

You are playing favorites. Chickens will feast on the maggot infested droppings of the sheep. The chicken droppings are more concentrated with both potassium and phosphorus.

@@estebancorral5151 You need a lot of chickens to fertilise 100 acres or a thousand acres, dont you have Dung Beetles in America, its a known fact that if you cut the grazing paddocks into smaller allotments and over graze for a limited time before moving the livestock onto another allotment is beneficial to the soil.

@@jamesmatheson5115 you misunderstood. Within three days of an animal defecating, it will attract flies which will infest the feces, and producing maggots. If unfettered this could cause sanitation problems. By applying the chickens you avail yourself of a protein source while culling vector populations. In essence, the chicken is replacing the role of the dung beetle. The major difference is that the chicken is domesticated while the dung beetle is not. The only human civilization that ever cultivated dung beetles were the ancient Pharonic Egyptians, but sadly their methods have been lost.

We found them on Amazon. We have yet to compare the truffle spores on the wheat berries with identification on a microscope but it was a faster prospect than buying truffles and doing an inoculation manually which can always be done at a later time.

You are myopic. Most grasses are annuals while trees are perennials. The greatest amount of soil improvement happens through the perennials. You have not shed yourself of exploitive thinking of industrial agriculture. Trees will get to fungal dominant soil faster than grasses or in cannabis.

@@estebancorral5151 really? I always heard grasses and weeds are perennials

@@EnergiA854 Who did you hear it from? They are mostly reoccurring annuals. Did that person ever mention fungally dominant soils? This is the point you should remember.

Nos sabemos.

Rain water certainly does contribute to water deposits in the soil. We’ve mainly left water to run and the ground to naturally produce anything that will grow without human intervention other than some oak trees. But the swales creates a barrier to slow the flow of water downhill and soak deeper into the soil whether irrigation or rainfall. Geoff Lawton has a really good presentation on the aquifer effects from swales creation.

Over 5500ft

Swales, over time, will fill with sediment and debris as the canopy continues to evolve. A natural reforested landscape is the result long term. Keep in mind the application of this method, especially here, is in an arid environment.

In the high desert your natural landscape is dessert. You can't support much life with that. There's a lot of trees that grow faster than an oak and it's ok to plant trees that you'll never enjoy the shade of, but your children will. You're not limited to oak and can plant trees you'll enjoy plenty of shade under. You probably live in the city or suburbs so I'm guessing, not really understanding what it takes to work land. I'd do a few things differently than this fella, but he's doing fine. He should plant buckwheat, it's one of the fastest ways to improve soil, for example, but hell figure things out that work for him as he goes along. I'd plant many different kinds of trees, particularly mimosa, even though they're a weed tree, grow fast and are invasive, is another example. They are some of the best nitrogen fixers there are and you copping them ensures you have a steady supply of wood. Go buy a single acre of raw land, see what it takes. It's hard work but it's also fun.