Cottage Food Forest | Page 2 | Food Production and Preservation | Forums

er, straw, straw is the one I used! I sometimes forget there is a difference given my city slicker roots.

While I don't want to encourage tall grasses in here, I will not be weeding that much, or at all if I can get away with it. All yield is beneficial in some way, even if it is only for soil protection and compost when I chop it back in the fall. I want to keep the natural forest life cycle in place as much as possible so I can piggyback my garden on it. I want mother nature doing most of the work.

Gaias would be awesome. I don't have it but have come across it at book stores so it would be an awesome addition to the collection.

Thanks again.

So I was at the cottage for a week of vacation a few weeks back and huge storm came through. I first noticed it as I was bathing in the lake and I watched it form up for about an hour and a half (hey, what else did I have to do? Plus I really like storms) before it unleashed. If poured, poured, poured, for 20 to 30 minutes and then rained for close to an hour after that. I was excited as this would be the first time I'd look at the site with so much water on it and I am glad I had the chance as it really showed me how poorly I set the site up.

Seeing the site with so much water on it made me realize I really discounted the slope from east to west which resulted in a lot of the water collecting unevenly in the swales. The western side of the first and third swales had a lot of water, but the eastern portions did not. The second swale had almost no water in it all all, re-enforcing my fears from above that I especially messed that one up. I knew the east/west slope was there but I did not think it would play such a large role. I also discovered I did not to a good enough job of ensuring the as much of the water off the parking area would enter as high as possible into the site.

Here is the site before the storm, looking north from the parking area.

And from the west you can clearly see the three swales planted in bush beans.

Here is standing water on the parking area I need to get into the site. Site is top left of this photo.

This was frustrating to see. The standing water above eventually runs into the site, but it runs from the puddle almost dead west (photo is looking east) for a bit and then enters the site almost at the western edge. I need to get this flowing into the site as east as possible. Will be easy to do, but I did not think the water would flow as it did.

The top swale. Photo is taken from the east looking west. Lots of water in the western end of the swale, not so much in the east.

Here you can see water escaping the site from the first swale. I'll need to loop this back into the site, but I am going against grade to do so. I may just end up building up the end of the swale to act as a bit of a dam to keep as much water around as possible. Or clear out the junk in that area and integrate it into the site.

Thirst swale, same as the first, with water in the western side, not so much in the east.

I was really glad I could see this much water on the site. I have a few ideas for fixes, but if I could do it over again I would rotate each swale close to 45 degrees so it respects both slopes as much as possible. As it stand now I will likely build small dams in the swales, perpendicular to the swale, so at least a few inches of water will stay high (east) before it runs down west. I will also likely build additional swales between the existing ones, but these will be designed to be close to perpendicular to the existing ones with the goal of having their overflow run into the east portions of the existing swales.

This site has already been a great learning experience so I am pretty stoked with it so far. Looking forward to getting the garlic in, make some fixes, and setting up for next year. I did some chop and drop on anything that wasn't a bean and I was pretty happy with the volume of material there in the first year, so building soil should go as planned.

Onwards and upwards!