Sealing the pond

With our new pond project, we thought we may need help with sealing, because this particular area is known for its sandy-loam soils. Our pond is right on the edge of a (formerly) active gully, so it has collected quite a bit of silt over the years.

 Project to date - logs roughly mark pond

We aren't fans of pond liners though, not least because of the toxicity in manufacture and price, but also because we know nature has been sealing ponds very adequately, for a very long time. We just had to learn the process of how to do it. So began my research for knowledge.

First, this link has a thorough discussion on the topic of "gley" or "glei" if you're speaking Russian. Which is just the layering of biodegradable material over the surface of the pond. It creates anaerobic conditions which mats together, or seals the pond. I've seen this done naturally in our middle swale, thanks to the pigeon peas I planted above them.

 Natural swale seal

They dropped their leaves and when they broke down over several seasons, eventually made a black-green slime. I had no idea at the time, this was nature sealing our swale. Yet its very distinctive, where the organic matter fell, the swale holds water. Where it doesn't, the water sinks through.

But I really like Sepp Holzer's approach to pond lining - just add pigs! The way pigs agitate the water with their hooves, they compact the soil particles regardless if the soil has clay or not. Sepp imitates this process, with the use of a excavator bucket on machinery. We won't go that route ourselves, but if you want to learn more about Sepp's techniques, visit this link.

For pretty pictures of ponds, using Sepp's techniques, see this link. You may find more information by clicking on the images.

We will probably start by adding lots of organic matter to the surface of the pond, once its dug and plan to have some deciduous trees nearby to continue the process.

A new project

Click images to enlarge

So what can you do when there's not much money, but land is at your disposal? Well, you can make dirt, or you can just as easily, move it. I can't think of anything more enjoyable. And that's exactly what David embarked on doing today, with his trusty hand tools, a bit of sweat and even the shirt from his back!

We like to keep our work simple.

The beginning

We're renovating a patch of land, which we originally dumped tree trunks on and attempted to grow some volunteer plants from our compost. It made some lovely soil, grew some grass and even sheltered insects from the sunlight, but nothing which originally sprung from the compost, actually lived very long.

 The plan

That experiment was a dud, but we realised the area would make a great pond - something we could direct water from the main gully to. But first we had to pull up those decaying logs. By we, I mean, David.

Termite candy

I was able to steal a few moments from Peter napping inside, to take some pictures of David's handiwork. There were logs in various stages of decay, as well as plenty of broken down sticks. There were even some amazing fungi growing on some of the logs. So many things happening in this area we disturbed just a few years ago.

Natural bling!

As David moved the logs out of the way, there was some fairly good topsoil to put aside for later.

I like how we mostly use hand tools in our land work though. It takes a lot of time, versus the mechanical methods available, but its cheap and if you look after your tools, they never break down.

A great way to spend the day

The other benefit of using hand tools, is that it helps keep your own organic matter, maintained. We once used hand tools because we didn't have the money for mechanical ones, but now its something we're happy to adopt - not as an inferior substitute, but as a means to connect with the soil, and our own bodies.

In turning the soil, we turn our muscles and both are the better for it. I get my workout, when I dig the swales.

Before

So this is what the area looked like, once the pile of logs was removed. David got busy with the shovel and carted that topsoil away. Then it started to look a lot more civilized.

After

Because we're digging this area down, to make a pond, these small trees will have to go. In fact, quite a few trees, outside this picture has to go. But its all for the purpose of making something better. We'll plant more trees of course, and building a place to hold water, will increase the network of living organisms.

The tree leaning in the foreground, was the first one to meet David's mattock.

Digging up the tree

It was the second tree, I have since been informed, was responsible for breaking the mattock! Its not called Australian hardwood, for nothing. What was I saying about hand tools never breaking down?

That mattock has seen some mileage though. We bought it, when our first mattock split its wooden handle. After we got it repaired, we had two invaluable devices for moving dirt with. They helped build the many retaining walls around the property. It's done some serious dirty work!

But now it seems we're back down to one. I know any mattock we buy to replace it though, will be money well spent! David's back out there with some shovels an axe, and determination to take out one more tree, before the day's through.

As an interesting side-note, when I looked for labels to put on this post, I found Health, Land and Water management. Seeing those three things together, I realised, that's what its all about - our health and that of the land and water. We come outside, nearly every day, for those very things.

It all connects

It's coming to the end of our monsoon season, so the storms aren't as intense, but still bring with them some rain. These will reduce further into winter, and won't really start again until next summer. We always seem to miss the spring rain, unfortunately.

I thought I'd take the opportunity with a recent storm, to explore how we're dealing with water run-off. Normally it would all just run down the slope as quickly as possible, until it reaches flat ground at our lowest gully. This creates soil erosion however, so over the many, many, many years, we've been digging a series of swales to direct how the water flows.

Click all images to enlarge

Forgive the weeds. Its autumn and we're slowly removing them and mulching the swales and plants with them. A season of natural equity goes back into the soil.

We have one swale on the top slope, directly above the house, which redirects water that comes from the street and our neighbours' driveway (above). But there's also a middle swale, which wraps around the immediate vicinity of the house. Any water which collects, gets moved slowly north. These middle swales, always fill relatively quickly and seem to drain within 24 hours.

Same middle swale

House, left, cross the swale to reach both chicken coops, right

We've built these over several growing seasons, and even used them as dumping grounds for prunings. As they break down, they fill any ruts we have in the soil, but also act as filters for the water which passes through. It's been wonderful at recycling our natural materials, with the bonus of slowing the flow.

As much as we try to capture and retain the water on level swales (dug on contour) it inevitably has to travel down a small slope, because, well, we live on slopes and that's the way gravity works.

From here, the water would normally launch on the north facing ski-ramp, and chew its way down the slope. But not since we've dug our newest swales. It's a slow process digging by hand, but the job inevitably gets done. Swale 1 is in the middle of construction, and swale 2 is yet to be started.

This picture doesn't really illustrate how long the swales are going to be, but shows the path the water is going to take nonetheless. Its going to travel twice down the slope, with strategic spillways in the swales, to move the water further down hill as they fill.

We already have a semi-mature mulberry tree to help take up some of that moisture and nutrient flow, but we also have a mango tree in the distance, out of shot. More on that in another post.

But now this is where it gets interesting...

Where does all this water lead, you may ask? Straight to the flattest ground, which happens to cut through the middle of our property. This is where all the water events, end up merging together. We get water from our own property meeting with water entering from our neighbours lands, which all deal with the water coming off the street above.

Its a network we're hoping to tap by slowing the flow - especially the velocity where the water enters from our neighbours land. They've built a concrete culvert to cross the gully to their house. The water sheds from the bitumen road quickly, enters several properties with no means to slow the flow, then it shoots like a bottleneck, through our neighbours concrete culvert.

The speed in which it enters is so forceful, it cuts a new path nearly every time. It digs deeper and deeper into the soil, creating chasms at least a metre deep on our neighbours side. Our only hope to stop that kind of erosion happening on our land, was to choke it out with natural materials - in this case, grass, weeds and what-have-you. We're somewhat chuffed you cannot see the enormous erosion channel that used to be here. Its been choked out with thriving grasses growing on old debris instead.

We had to slow the flow by using a similar strategy to the middle swale - by dumping old prunings and such into the channel. Not in all of it, mind you, just at strategic points so the water could spill over if there was too much. We don't burn our debris (not until we get a wood heater) but we tend to drown them instead. Aren't we lovely.

Mulberry tree #2

water flows to the left (mostly) but can also spill over to the right 

A little further down stream, is a somewhat younger tree to our first mulberry, and its planted here to take advantage of the water and nutrient flow. We thought the first mulberry grew fast, but this one is on steroids. Its about half the age of our original tree but growing twice as fast.

What I have just shown you in these series of photos, has been many years in the making. We are still doing a lot of work, but nature is helping us too. With each monsoon season that passes through, more elemental forces help to shape our lower gully. We have a lot of gullies on our property, this just happens to be the biggest and with the most potential to tap, as land stewards.

There is so much work to do here, and God willing, we will finish it. The work is pretty simple though - dig, prune, dump and see what the monsoon season leaves behind.

Expoilting the environment

Normally when people read about exploiting the environment, it means taking an unfair share of natural resources, to make a plethora of temporary products. What I'm talking about today however, is exploiting our "unnatural" environment to the benefit of natural things instead.

You just need to find industries which produce an excess of waste, and find a way to re-purpose it. David works in the hospitality industry presently, where there's quite a lot of waste generated. He doesn't like it, even his bosses don't like it - but its a byproduct of the industry to function.

 10 Litres of soil

So David will often bring home things from work, which are being thrown away on a regular basis. The hospitality industry requires a lot of food-safe plastic and we require a lot of containers to grow food in! Take a problem and turn it into solutions.

Ten litre buckets which once contained gravy mix or mayonnaise, are used in our garden, primarily as buckets first - but when their handles break from being exposed to the sun for over 12 months, I drill holes in the bottom and use them as large potting containers instead. These are presently great for growing ginger in, but also good for fruit trees.

Red Mizuna

David has brought something new home to re-purpose. Micro greens. They're chopped fresh in the kitchen to use on salads. Of course, if you keep the water and nutrient up to them, they can re-shoot. Not something which can be done in a commercial kitchen obviously, but we saved them going into the bin and found a function for them here.

At first, we fed these micro-greens regrowth to the chickens (placing the pots in the coop when they were ready) but then we - I should say, David - decided to experiment a little more.

Lots of colour

Compliments of a seafood styrafoam box (also from David's work) he transferred the contents from the containers and some of our compost, and we're now seeing how big they can grow. There's quite a variety. Something else has decided to sprout from the compost mix, also.

Potential

Its either pumpkin or rockmelon, and is probably too late in the season to get any fruit from it now. But I'm sure it would be happy here until next summer. I love how this box if full of so many surprises. There are things in here I've never heard of, let alone, knowingly ate!

 Large green leafs of radishes

I'm really loving the radishes though...they're all squashed together, which will make for some pretty deformed radishes, but if worst comes to worst, the chickens can always get what doesn't work! But that's not the end of this free exercise in potential...

More pots!

I now have over a hundred pots to reuse for my propagation material. These are 80mm instead of the traditional 100mm, which is convenient because I often find I want a pot size between 50 and 100mm. These will be used a lot!

If fact, I have so many, I'd be happy to share them with anyone in the local area, between Withcott and Toowoomba. Just leave a comment and I'll get back to you.

 Pick 'em greens

I also grow other things in styrafoam boxes, compliments of David's former workplaces. This box of silverbeet have kept our guinea-pigs happy for a long time. I'd eat it if we had more plants! We could fit six plants to one box. In the background are some pineapple tops I planted in styrafoam boxes too. If there's an empty box, I simply have to plant something in it!

Perennial pots

Next to the pineapple, is a pepino growing in another box. I took this cutting from my wild one, growing amongst grass and weeds near the chicken coop. Pepino makes great forage food for chickens. They love to eat the flesh (because its so juicy) and what small seeds are inside. Bonus if bugs get to them first, as the chickens get extra protein! They scramble competitively for a bug ridden, end of season pepino.

 Divide and conquer

I also put my rubarb in boxes. It's one of those plants which just keeps on giving. From one plant I've grown at least six via division. These are the two I had left after the dry spell we experienced in spring. I took them from the garden and nursed them back to heath in a box. It pays to propagate!

Precious water

Apart from using these disposable byproducts of the hospitality industry to grow food in, we also use them to store water. These are 20 litre bottles which used to hold vinegar. We have five bottles, storing a total of 100 litres. We didn't have to pay anything for them, in fact we saved his employers from having to dispose of them.

David tells others in the workplace, so they might get the same idea!

New project

A recent discovery, inside a commercial rubbish bin, has been one of our greatest finds to date. Only two are pictured here, but we have three, 30 litre storage containers, we intend to turn into wicking boxes. They still had the sticker price of $30 each. Had they been complete, we would have paid $90.

All that was wrong with them, was missing or broken handles, and they had no lids. Crap for storage but perfect for wicking boxes!

So might I encourage you to make networks with any industry, which pays to throw away the byproducts of their business. So long as its safe to re-use, it can be put to work in other ways.

*UPDATED TO ADD: these were actually 160 litre tubs, not 30 litre. My brain wasn't plugged in that day. ;)

The nature of things

I feel I need to come clean with some aspects of my nature, because sometimes it can get the better of me. Perhaps your own nature, sometimes gets the better of you too? When that happens, we tend to make decisions which are relatively short-term. What we think are solutions, can also become distractions from seeing the bigger picture.

What has been eating away at me since late last year, and my husband too, was a sense of inadequacy. Life was really chucking on the challenges and we had limited reserves of energy to deal with them. Both in our early forties now, we're suddenly feeling the physical struggle to get things done on the property. Raising a toddler and a teen at the same time (with different needs) withdrew more physical and emotional collateral from our reserves. Then the two cars constantly played roulette with our bank account, and the income situation kept changing.

We love our two kids

Many things to juggle at once, can make anyone feel inadequate. That wasn't the problem though. It was doubting ourselves and our life's purpose in the process. When we struggle for strength to get through our day, we send ourselves the message - are we strong enough? When we try to be mature examples for our children, and fail - we tell ourselves we're bad parents. The broken cars, the disappearing income, add a whole list of usual suspects and we were feeling like we'd never have what it takes.

That's the aspect of my nature, which needs to be given a reaffirming nudge, and sometimes I forget to do that. The best way I have found, is to do something which adds purpose to my day and actively affirm it to myself. Even if that just involves wiping the kitchen bench. As I'm wiping, I remember all the effort it took to get here, to eat and make mess in the first place. I consider the water in our full rainwater tank, as I rinse the dishcloth - and the quiet time, knitting the dishcloth in the first place.

It's not that I am to overcome and defeat my struggles, rather its acknowledging I'm present in them with more than just self-doubt and inadequacy. Sometimes I think its my duty to escape hardship, and I'm somehow failing if I can't. I'll spare a whole rant about consumer culture, but instead, think back to my family history and realise what exceptional people they were, through harder times than these.

I have some stories to share about my farming family history, and what those childhood memories mean to me now. I think they're important. Especially to staying the course. Doing the right thing sometimes involves a knee to the ground, and bowing ones head in happy humility. Those are sometimes the best memories to make in life, even if they are the hardest ones to live through.

A new swale

Because we live on a slope, drainage is particularly important. We need water to move around the property, causing the least path of resistance. Which is why swales are what we are incorporating in our design.

Click to enlarge

Over the past few months I have been digging a new swale to help deal with the minimal rainfall we can get, to the maximum run-off. Which is why its so wide and shallow. This swale receives all the run-off from around the house and is designed to run past the mulberry tree and mango, way in the background. I still have some digging to do!

The "berm" is the mound side of the swale where all the dirt gets dumped, and is great for planting shrubs and trees in, as they can take advantage of the stored water and benefit the swale by draining it slowly, over time.

Bamboo multiplex

We will plant other suitable plants in the berm, after a lot more grunt work has been done. I have managed to put in a bamboo cutting from a multiplex variety however. This variety won't grow much taller than 5 metres. It's planted on the drip-line of the mulberry tree, and will act as nutrient accumulator, chop and drop mulch, wind break and potential bird nesting site during the cooler parts of the year.

Mulberry

Designing this swale was a little challenging, as we had to take a risk with one of our fastest growing, fruit producing trees - our mulberry. We already have another mulberry tree growing in another part of the yard, so felt we could take a managed risk. Basically we had to dump dirt on its trunk, so it could become part of the berm.

While this is normally a big no-no, as you can risk collar rot on a mature tree, the dirt isn't touching the trunk, on the down side of the slope. We planted this mulberry early in the piece, before we knew anything about swales, so that's why its being incorporated into the design now.

Berm

You can see how wide the berm is, with the mulberry trunk in the foreground. Its this wide to cope with the slope, but also to give the mulberry trunk some air, so its not completely surrounded by dirt on the downside. It should grow new roots where the dirt is touching the trunk though.

The milk crate in the background, is placed over the bamboo, to stop kangaroos squashing it. They have a few trails through this area, as they love to eat the grass.

Mulch grown on-site

And don't we have plenty of grass! Before Cyclone Marcia hit the coast of Queensland, predicting some large rainfalls in our parts, we managed to mulch the swale with grass we had cut down a few weeks earlier. It was David's idea. This was shoulder-high grass and once cut and dried, made a great cover for the soil. We had no soil erosion, and mulching really kick-started this swale into immediate production.

Berm on lower, right, of grass strip

The grass grew right at the berm side, because I'd removed the topsoil to make the berm. Eventually the swale will develop more topsoil, as we mow it during the growing season. The kangaroos will help by dropping their poos when they feed here too - which they love to do. Wouldn't you want to eat near a mulberry tree if you were outside too?

Native wandering jew

We are getting things growing in the swale already, just a little slower. I noticed this native wandering jew (famous for loving moisture) has started to grow in the swale. Normally this slope would be dry after a week of sunshine, but with the swale stopping the water from going down hill, its stayed so moist and much cooler for weeks. The shade from the mulberry tree helps.

I'm loving the prospect of finally having a place in the garden I can grow comfrey! It's foiled all my attempts so far. But it should get moisture, indirect sunlight - thanks to the mulberry, and in return, the comfrey can feed this beautiful fruit tree.  

Lush mulberry leaves

When I first started digging the swale, I encountered quite a few thick mulberry roots and had to cut them off. The tree became a little stressed and lost some leaves. But since we mulched and got that lovely amount of rain we did recently, the tree has returned to its lovely green self again.

Mulberries are pretty hardy trees. They're known for doing well near waterways, with temporary flooding. So I had a little confidence this tree was going to cope with the changes. I'm really happy it has, because it provides such a wonderful spot in the garden to retreat to from the sun.

In the meantime, its dig, dig, dig for me during autumn and winter to try and finish this off, before next storm season arrives.

Back for 2015

 Luffa's

It's three months into the new year, and I've reopened my blog. Why? Because we're not moving. Bet you weren't expecting that? Well, neither were we! It was a done deal as far as we were concerned. But then life happens and changes the way we look at things.

Every reason which was important for going, turned out to be manageable where we were. Not easy, but still manageable. The main change of heart came when my husband decided to switch careers recently. Only it would involve several years of studying, training and practical experience to get there.

No more suitcases

Such a large alteration on top of getting resettled, would be even more challenging for our family. We decided we weren't going to wait another year changing careers, as that is how long it would take to move and resettle. David is hitting the books and computer to make that new change today.

While away from this blog though, we've done a few things to the property (progress with Hilltop) plus a few more projects lined up. It all takes time but I look forward to revealing them.

Out for a walk

How long are we going to stay here? It will be eight years this Easter and maybe many more years to come. Our son, Peter, is growing quite attached to the backyard. Our eldest moved here at four years of age, and grew attached to the concrete footpaths we walked every day in the suburbs. Our son though, is growing up and learning the well trodden bush tracks, we walk him through, nearly every day here.

Natural play

He loves to search out and shuffle across the log bridges, and basically yearning to be outdoors as much as possible. So comfortable with space is he, that he wants to do everything by himself. Fearless.

I don't have a crystal ball, but I'm fairly certain we won't be moving for a while. There would've been many new opportunities to enjoy in the city, but I'm also quite relieved we're staying. It's not an easy life here, but it's what we know and I guess, ultimately, what we love.

Truth be told, we had to disengage from this place while considering moving and that was torture. I'm glad we don't have to go through that any more.