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- Malynda has a question here.
I know the course will get to this later,
but there was so much talk in permaculture
about slope and swales.
What do you do if you have a flat lot
with an abundance of water?
Well nothing's perfectly flat,
unless you're in Holland, of course,
where you might have constructed flat,
but even then you can do things.
You can be more creative to move the swale around,
but you can also make canals
and all kinds of interesting things.
I've got the cows in here.
I'm actually grazing the bottom of the swale.
They only came in yesterday afternoon
and I've got water siting here
and the cows are already manuring in here.
The water's going through the mound, not down,
it's going at right angle to contour.
And that manure is diluting into this water.
At the moment, I've got a swivel pipe open here,
so the water's going down through the swivel pipe.
So now, that water draining out that way
means it doesn't go all the way along the swale
'cause we've got an exiting there.
Just this last little wet bit.
We've got all this beautiful hangover forage here.
The cattle have been down here eating the ice cream bean,
everything here,
getting all the mulberry.
They only came in here last night.
Yesterday evening.
They've eaten the mulberry off; they're loving it.
They're dropping manure in the base of the swale
and when next time we get a big rain,
their manure will dilute all the way along.
I'll block the swivel pipe,
we'll get a diluted manure going in through swale.
The water's actually going in
through the swale,
through the mound.
It's not necessarily going down.
It's going along,
under, right angle to contour,
going through.
Now, if we were on flat country,
nothing's perfectly flat,
You can have a hundred to one.
You can even have a thousand to one.
If you've got a one meter high mound
or you got one meter of water here.
Hundred to one,
you got a hundred meters of water.
You got a thousand to one,
You got a thousand meters of water.
So your water will sit all the way back
when it's flat, you'll hold more water,
but it'll still soak through here.
Now you may have surplus water.
You have too much water.
Okay.
The great thing about flat land is or flat-ish land,
like I said, it's never perfectly flat
unless you're on a salt pan,
there's some slope.
Your land is usable.
You got really convenient land.
So, if you don't want that much water sitting back there
for a few hours or a day
while it soaks in,
'cause that's all it'll sit there for,
it won't be there all the time,
It'll soak in,
you can put deeper swales,
which means they're probably going to turn
into little canals.
Now, you've got a chinampa-esque type system,
the most productive, sustainable design system
ever documented in the history of the world.
The chinampas.
Mostly canal, some water.
So what you dig out,
you go a bit deeper,
you end up in a water table,
you've got a kind of permanent canal pond aquaculture.
That's the most productive aquaculture,
the canals,
lots more edge in these strip canals.
And the extra material makes a higher mound,
so you've got a well-drained mound,
'cause what you gain here in depths of water,
you gain there in the height of the mound.
So, you've got a better drained mound,
you've concentrated the soil,
you've got higher well-drained mound
and you've got a deeper, more usable,
aquaculture canal pond.
So you're coming in a great direction.
You know, that's the wonderful thing
about flat country.
Disadvantages: you don't have head pressure,
you don't have height on the water,
but the great advantage is
you've got usable land
and you've got easily agriculture for little earthworks.
Often you've got winds,
so you can direct the wind to lift the water
and give you a little bit of head pressure.
It's all roundabouts and swings,
water and land.
It's all a matter of design.
There's no disadvantage, whatsoever.
In fact, it's a great advantage to be in flat country.
You can, you know, the problem is the solution,
every time.
(soft synth music)