Swales are FULL! Starting off our Permaculture Food Forest with 150mm / 6 inches of rain!

[@peterpusey3206]

Love your outlook on life, nothing better than seeing dry land watered and life blossom.

[@stijnt2377]

ive heard of a water infiltration test whereby a metal, circular piece of pipe is inserted into the ground. You measure a few things and can then determine the infiltration capacity of the soil. I believe if you search for ray archeleta and water infiltration test you should find something. He is also known for the slake test which is different.

[@futurecaredesign]

Yes someone mentioned it in another comment I think. I haven't had a chance to do any research on it but I will before I upload the next video!

[@insAneTunA]

Happy new year, and congrats with the water. My advice would be, don't over complicate things if it isn't in your control, such as measuring the inflow of water. The edge from you swale is your ultimate measuring device, just go from there. And secondly, create one or more spillways so that you can manage and control where the excess water needs to go. For example, if you had a spillway that would lead to a small sump tank in the ground, then you could pump all the water that reaches the sump tank into a larger water storage tank and use that stored water at a later stage for drip irrigation or whatever. Then you get the best of both worlds, both water infiltration, and water storage for later use. Micro organisms, plants, and trees do better with a regular watering schedule. 👍

[@futurecaredesign]

Yes you are right I should not over complicate things. But I posted just a picture of the rain gauge on Facebook and got so many responses it was kind of difficult to NOT get drawn into a discussion about this 😂 And yes I have many more iterations planned for what we have accomplished so far. Like a little 'eddy basin' on the back of the swale somewhere (Google images for what that means). And the capacity to empty the duck water and chicken coop bedding into the swale before a big storm. This would essentially turn the swale into a 'fertigation' system. And yes I do have plans to run pumps from the swale into storages around the land. In IBC's (1000l tanks) but also simply into the soil, or our chicken compost / hugel mound. Too many ideas, too little time and money to execute it all 😅

[@stijnt2377]

EDIT: clearly I gave away that I replied before watching the entire video because you're just about to start talking about Brad Lancaster. :-) @@futurecaredesign I'm not sure it's a great idea to run surface water into cisterns because keeping them clean/free of pathogens would be extremely difficult. You seem very well versed in all of this so you might have these books but look at the 'rainwater harvesting for drylands' series by Brad Lancaster for more info on what types of water are most suited for tank storage. It basically boils down to hard surfaces such as roofs rather than storing surface flow or grey water in tanks.

[@OublietteTight]

Is there a math geek out there somewhere who can calculate what you are wanting to measure? The Ancient Egyptians had lines on stone walls to measure the Nile's changes. What is boot height times pushed over grass distance from center horizontally computed verses slope of the swale angle adjusted for the bell shaped bottom? 🥴 I'm asking half jokingly. I am actually suggesting putting a high water line marker on the ground to celebrate 150ml ! 😊

[@OublietteTight]

Just discovered you. Repeatedly was thinking... wow, impressive, so much labor went into this! How tall are your boots? How deep was that water? How long is that swale?

[@OublietteTight]

A measuring staff could help us viewers to get a better understanding? Esoecially when there is no water, such spaces can appear almost flat.

[@stijnt2377]

I live in Italy and our Brad Lancaster is called Lorenzo Costa. His videos are in Italian but some certainly have English subtitles should you be interested.

[@futurecaredesign]

I will have to look him up! Anything you'd recommend to watch?

[@stijnt2377]

@@futurecaredesign not really your case but this is an interesting one on how to deal with steep rocky slopes: kzbin.info/www/bejne/eXKtonlubtKosLs

[@feel7251]

25 points to an inch a point is 1 millimeter

[@sophacles10]

The algorithm brought me here, and I'm happy it did! Congratuations on a successful "big rain" test of your water harvesting - its wonderful to see. I look forward to future videos and seeing how your work progresses. How long did it take all that water to infiltrate into your soil?

[@MinTubaTuba]

Could you explain: From which area(s) of your land did the water come? ie. Surely, that water in the swale did not come directly from the sky, but drained/ran-off from other areas? If so, how large is the catchment area that supplies the swale? Thanks. New subscriber.

[@futurecaredesign]

Hi there! Yes, we are living on the downhill side of a dead-end road. The road continues after us but we are able to convince the water to come towards us instead. The total surface area is about 1000m2, so if we go purely by those numbers it could be that we caught and infiltrated 150.000 liters of water. But almost every house along that road dumps their roof water onto the road as well so maybe it is even more. Of course asphalt doesn't start to run off until about 10mm of rain. And neither can we capture every last drop from the road, especially if it is a big amount at once. All in all it is difficult to say but the short of it is: yes, there is an external input of 1000m2.

[@ThessidenThess87]

Gelukkig Nieuwe Jaar Bram! Καλη χρονιά!

[@adrianhazbun7756]

I think you could calculate your soil infiltration rate empirically and then multiple by your swale surface area. There is a standard way to calculate your soil infiltration rate. You just dig a certain size hole and measure how long it takes to drain a certain amount of water.

[@futurecaredesign]

Cheers I will have to dig in to that (pun intended ;) )

[@IRailroad]

Happy 💧💧💧💧💧💧

[@Tyrannulet2k]

Conversion is wrong, 150mm is 5.9 inches. 17” of rain would be the kind of rain dropped by a major hurricane. Enjoying channel!

[@futurecaredesign]

@@Tyrannulet2k Yeah that's our yearly rainfall. I had to speak about both but I think in metric so got confused when choosing a video title. On youtube the title is fixed. Did I get it wrong in the video too?

[@futurecaredesign]

Dangit I just checked. I got it wrong in the video too... Can't edit that out anymore.

[@MinTubaTuba]

Aha, part of the answer was in the outro.. But could you show the catchment area? Is it only the road? How much road?

[@futurecaredesign]

No worries. The short answer is about 1000m2 of road runoff.

[@stijnt2377]

I see quite a few mushrooms so were you already running grey water into this swale before or have you been having periodic rains in recent weeks?

[@futurecaredesign]

We had a few rains since autumn but none as big as this. The biggest was 50mm.

[@futurecaredesign]

The mushrooms are mainly popping up because of the huge layer of woodchips.

[@feel7251]

150 mil is 6 inches

[@futurecaredesign]

Woops you are totally right! I had the 17 inches nr in my head because it's how much we get per year. I have edited the title. Did I mention it incorrectly in the video too?

[@adrianhazbun7756]

I guess the device to use is an infiltrometer.

[@futurecaredesign]

I will look it up! This is exactly why I mentioned it in the video.

[@jimdotcom1972]

you'll have to build more swales or half moons to capture all the overflow you lost, you've not maximised you water harvesting potential until your top swales are full and your bottom swales are empty. best of luck with next steps.

[@stijnt2377]

He mentioned that this was built for a 50mm rain event, now that he knows bigger rain events are possible I'm sure he will decide to add more.

[@jonathanblum2994]

What is the animal skulking across your neighbor's yard starting at 4:51? If it is a cat, it is an odd looking one. Ditto with a raccoon,

[@futurecaredesign]

I believe that is a Maine Coon cat, someone must have left it in the street or it is the child of a housecat. Either way it looks much bigger because of the massive fur.