Swale Updates

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My new swale did a good job slowing down water runoff and promoting water insoak, but it needed to be tweaked a little to transform it from just a ditch to a gentle slope that we can take care of with the riding mower. I used a box blade on the tractor to even everything out. We also buried a 4-inch drain pipe and covered it with crushed rock. I’ll encourage grass to grow on top of the rock. All the trees I’ve transplanted seem to be doing great.

  • drainage ditch feeding swale
  • swale looking to the south
  • pop up emitter from 4″ drain pipe
  • one of several fig trees planted in swale
  • swale looking to the north

Hugelkulture Bed Update

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This is year number 2 for the hugelkulture bed experiment. It still needs soil added to some areas where wood is sticking out. I have a lot of beans and melons planted. Most excited to see how the melons do!

  • hugelkulture bed looking to the east
  • hugelkulture bed looking to the west
  • comfrey has grown too tall and is falling over, surrounded by beans
  • melons planted on hugelkulture bed starting to grow quickly
  • more melons
  • beans
  • melons and weeds
  • melons and garlic
  • melon
  • melon, garlic, asparagus
  • melons
  • beans

Hachiya and Honan Red Persimmon Trees Planted

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I planted 2 bare-rooted persimmon trees that I bought from Trees of Antiquity in California. One of the trees is Hachiya, which someone said was their favorite flavor, and the other is a Honan Red. I put them in the same swale where I have my fig trees on the east side of the house. See the interactive map for the location.

  • 2 new persimmon trees (bare root)
  • Honan Red Persimmon
    Honan Red Persimmon
  • Hachiya Persimmon

Pics of Swale After Rain

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  • swale – looking to the south
  • swale – looking to the north

The new swale was holding back a lot of water when I checked it this morning after a 2-inch rain. It looks like it worked exactly as designed– it slowed down the water runoff, and let the water sit long enough to allow insoak. The fig trees I just planted on the high end will have access to huge amounts of water stored in the soil for weeks to come. The standing water should disappear in a few days, so the risk of mosquitoes laying viable eggs is small.

Melons, beans, okra, cowpeas planted 4/24/21

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With the help of Aiden and Amber, we added a lot of cantaloupe and watermelon in the huglekulture bed, along with a lot of cowpeas and beans. We also planted a few okra and cucumber in the front raised beds. Several of my tomato and pepper plants were injured/killed in the late April freeze we had last week.

Swale and fig trees

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I created a swale (AKA ditch-on-contour) to catch the runoff water that flows behind and around our house. I transplanted the 11 fig trees I started from cuttings last year on the high side of the swale. The idea is to slow down the water and let it soak into the soil. After a big rain, this area might look like a pond for several days. All that water eventually moves down into the soil where plants can use it for weeks or months after, reducing the need to use extra water.

Strawberries are producing

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This is the first year the strawberries have produced anything. I was going to dig them up because they take up space all year for not much return. They taste too good so I’m keeping them!

I have one 4×4 raised bed that is mostly filled with strawberries. It hasn’t produced much until now, and wow, it has taken off! Awesome flavor!

Worm Farm – April 2, 2021

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Bench in storm cellar doubles as worm bin. Inside is painted with fish pond epoxy paint.

For the past few months, I’ve only added food to the left-most side of the worm bin in hopes of convincing all the worms to go over and stay on the left side and let me use the castings on the right. I was trying to avoid the time-consuming task of filtering out the worms when I want to use the castings. The plan kinda worked, but there are still lots of worms left on the right side, even though they haven’t had any added food. What I thought was just worm castings has sunk down a good 3 inches, which tells me the worms are still working on it.

Other observations: I had a lot of worms crawl out of the bin this year. I think this was because I overfed them at one point and created a hostile environment. You can see lots of dead worms on the ground.

This bin has worked out very nicely. The worms are safe from critters and haven’t seemed to have any problem surviving the blistering summer heat or the super cold winter.

Tomatoes and Peppers – March 27, 2021

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I’m several weeks behind and didn’t even have time to plant the onions I bought, but today I did manage to get the raised beds cleared out and a few things planted. I used my tiny chainsaw on the monster okra plants, which worked great.

  • 3 new tomato plants in bed 4
  • 2 pepper plants in bed 5
  • Early Girl Tomato
  • Super Fantastic Tomato
  • Porter Tomato
  • Tam Mild Jalapeno
  • Mammoth Jalapeno