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RE: Landscape regeneration. Healing from Motocross Track. First Earthworks: Terrace / Retaining Wall, Pocket Pond, Soil decompaction on 400m2 (4300 square feet).
We have plenty of earthworks planned for our property and they will be done in stages. This year we will be doing some basics like the drive way and yards site. Doesn't sound like permaculture earth works but will be incorporating a pond and a quasi swale that will shield the driveway from erosion.
We are finding out quickly that the permitting is a nightmare...
Hey @canadianrenegade.
Make shure your pond is as high up in the landscpae as possible, to enable gravity fed water systems for your housing, irrigation or life stock. I don't know is your situation makes this possible but if it does, then go for it as it will be a great life time investement of labour and money!
About your drive way: A swale is a water harvesting and tree growing earthwork. It will hold water for infiltration and destabilize your drive way if installed on the uphill side of your road. The uphill side (the backcut) should definitely be planted in trees if they dont shade the road in winter. If trees will shade out the road, to reduce muddy roads, then the uphill slope needs to be planted with mat rooted plants tp hold the slope better. The uphill side of the road also needs a drain to keep runnoff from the backcut and the road itself. the drain then can be channelt under the driveway in culvert pipes evenry now and then into a swale downhill of the road! And alsways remember. A swale is a water infiltration earthwork and tree growing system.
There are also some more details illustrated in this image from the Permaculture Designers Manual.
Whish you all success possible for your works!
Moritz
Hey, thanks. I saw your message on Discord. I didn't miss your message just been busy and have gotten behind on replying to my comments.
Sounds like lots of good advice. The reason I called it a quasi swale is it isn't really going to hold/infiltrate water. It is just going to be on contour or near contour with one end opening into a pond we will be creating.
There is a low spot the road has to go over where we would have to put a culvert anyway. We are going to dig this area out and use it to build a small damn for the road to roll over. It will only be holding back a couple of feet of water. The majority will be below grade and we will have two overflows. One being a culvert under the road and one being a drain off the other side of the hill away from the road. I might make this one lower so the water never gets up to the culvert.
The only logical place to put our driveway would have it on near contour anyway and putting in Calvert's all along the road means we lose the water into the bush. The subsoil is all gumbo clay so I think it is ideal for this type of project and the pond is quite high on the property. I will have future posts on this project with more details and topographic maps before we actually do the work so maybe you can take a better look over what I am doing then? I am open to suggestions.
Sounds good dear @canadianrenegade.
If I will not see the post due to information overkill, feel free to send me a heads up. I would love to contribute my knowlege to this project!
For now I can only advice, that any culvert is reason to be afraight of erosion. So if not addressed properly, there WILL be problems evolving out of every water running downhill. So make shure to prevent that by any kind of "slowing, spreading, soaking" measures for the culverts.
Also any "quasi swale" that is not completely on contour turns into some kind of very shallow drain. The prevent erosion here in your clayey soil you should not go steeper than 1:500 slope and seed the drain with groundcover right after installing.
Talk to you soon then, and looking forward on your earthworks-posts, as this is one of my favourite permaculture fields.
All the best.
Moritz
Thank you. I will notify you when I post on it. I have the same problem. Just too many posts and follows to keep track of.
Nice to meet you Moritz, I am Matthew and my wife is Aimee. Sometimes she posts /comments on this account but she usually ends her comments with:
-Aimee.