 Hey, it's Matt of Farm4All and today I just want to talk about why everything should be on contour even if you're not making swales and terraces so when I first got onto the property and Or even before then I imagined lots of swales in my design I mean after all that's what you're supposed to do with permaculture right just put swales everywhere But the reality is that most of this property is too steep for swales above believe. It's about 20% grade Swales become more of a risk than a benefit they Increase the risk of flooding and landslides especially in our heavy clay that has a tendency to get waterlogged It's it's a huge risk to put swales where they don't belong Terraces are a better option out here Although even that will be tricky With some of the slopes that I'm working with but then I discovered the work of Craig Spanholz and his mentor Bill Zeedike and That's when I started to realize That swales aren't the be-all and end-all of working with water and working with contour Let me show a couple of concrete examples of how I'm using contour And then I'll get back into the theory and the work of Bill Zeedike and Craig Spanholz so This line right here Perfectly level perfectly on contour Use my a-frame level here And there are lots of videos on how to put together an a-frame level. I'm not gonna get into that But it's definitely a useful tool and one you should make for yourself and So I'm just measuring out this Contour line with my a-frame level and I'm going in With my spading fork Sticking it in and just wiggling it back and forth and pointing it out. I'm not turning over the soil Because I want to maintain the root structure and the Micro biology that's in the soil, but I just want to open up a little slot where I can plant What's going to be a row of peas? so that last shot was down at the bottom of the garden and as you could probably tell it hasn't really filled in with vegetation very well since the property was clear-cut and I Means it's a spot where I do need to be capturing a lot of water and sediment Now I'm up at the top end of the main garden up above. I don't know if you can see it behind me the pond back there and Go ahead and do a quick turn see that That's that's the top of the slope that we're on and Well, let me just turn the camera around and I'll show you so There's a slope I was talking about all of this all of this Just filled with grass and other plants because of course this the slope is the main drainage that drains into the pond And so this is where a lot of the water on the property is flowing through And so I knew this would be a good spot to plant things That I would not be able to irrigate but would need a decent amount of water in order to produce a good crop so Look here Let me step around to the other side so you can ever see it so a few weeks ago. I had a friend Ian come out and Help Mark out the contour with these sticks. I didn't do just one This one here Become a little bit further. There's this one here. There's one still further right here, so The idea here lock back down to this first one is that First we place sticks on on contour and now I'm raking all of the dead grass and weeds Overwintered here Up to the line that the sticks are on and so what's going to happen is when water flows down the hill Down here It's going to hit all of this mulch and sticks and everything else that I pile here and it's going to help diffuse and Slow down the water That'll help sink it in no swales required Just having any kind of obstacle in the way. It's going to help So the ultimate plan for this is I'm basically going to be a roof stout potato bed on contour and I'm gonna do is just left enough space in between These rows here that I can get a full swing with the side now. This isn't super even ground so It's a little bit closer in some places and a little bit further another and that's that's just how it is with contour So I made sure that The whole way across I could get a decent swing with the with the size and Then that'll be further mulch to go on top of this And then every few feet I'm going to plant potatoes. I'm doing Andian Potatoes from true seed Then in addition to potatoes, I'm going to start planting out these contours with trees. So things like hazelnut and chinkapen are Some of my high-value staple crops that I want to get planted in here I might do some fruit in here, but I'm mostly planning on doing fruit on other spots in the property just because most of the fruits that I'm growing are Magnets for deer and this this is not a safe place for them but Yeah, see I haven't I haven't finished raking all the mulch down yet But break this down And as as the season progresses, I'll be able to side this and add more mulch on top And that's going to end up killing All of the the weedy stuff growing here. Notice that I'm not I'm not taking out any of the perennials that are growing here I'm leaving them in place as much as possible They're really in the way. I'll move them The most part I'm keeping them This fern It's probably going to die being in full sun, but it's going to stay there as long as it wants Here's some of the Doug fir that was replanted and Of course, it'll stay here and The things that I plant will just grow around it the only thing that I'm actively moving You can see this giant patch of organ grape that's just in the way, so Digging these guys up slowly, but surely and And Plan for these will follow me this way Bring them all down here Stick them back in the ground I already started sticking a few in here And the idea with that is just I already have the organ grape. They're not in a good spot now But if I put them here, they'll help be I mean Leaves are pokey They don't feel good So I want to get a nice barrier here that'll prevent deer from walking through as much as possible and also fill it in with Aromatic herbs that will also help deter things from walking through here just so I can Kind of direct the wildlife to where I would like them to be rather than where I don't want them to be so What I really love about zeal that builds edicts work is that even though he's working in the american southwest primarily and places that are effectively desert and Can't mess around with water He's not using swales at all. He's not using terraces at all Instead he's carefully stacking rocks and brush in order to control the flow of the water so It's got a few different techniques that he uses Uh technique that he calls a zuni bowl that's for kind of like water that's dropping off of An edge and it's picking up Quite a bit of speed It's got one rock dams that are slowing water flows through valleys he has media lunas which are Designed to kind of span a valley and disperse the water in an alluvial fan but the basic principles Play in his work are to put an obstruction in the way of water Make it level so that the water spreads along the obstruction And just the act of putting an obstruction in the way slows and disperses the water As well as catching any sediment this flowing downhill and any seeds And in his case, he's not Vegetating anything he's setting up these structures And topsoil and seeds are flowing down on the water Getting caught by the barrier he's created And then those seeds because they're not being washed further down the hill end up sticking around and sprouting And all the vegetation that's coming up along the structures that he builds Traps more water and more sediment that's trying to flow off of the property And even though I'm not stacking rocks Like he often does and even though I'm not stacking massive logs like he often does just by having This vegetation that I'm planting on contour and this mulch that I'm planting on contour Placing on contour rather It's it's gonna the water is going to hit it Rather than being Big heavy flow. It's going to break the water up and disperse it also Because the plants are putting down roots along contour It gives it a nice big line where the water is going to hit slow down and sink in All without using swales all without using terraces now Do you have a few examples on the property of How bill z-dikes principles? work in nature And it isn't just human design. It's the way nature repairs fast-flowing water Let me show you a couple of those. Yeah, maybe just one. I've got one good example. I think to show you So the landowner set up the drainage to Take water away from the barn And it's doing a pretty good job of that and also causing massive erosion because anytime you have fast-moving water it takes soil and organic matter with it But the interesting thing is There's this massive rock Right here in the way that you can barely see Because all of these grass seeds have ended up getting caught here as they were trying to flow down the hill and now It's nice and vegetated right here. Just where this rock is blocking the flow of water and now The water flow uphill from this is starting to slow down and more vegetation is popping up And that's that's the basic principle behind bill z-dikes work. Slow the water down catch the top soil catch the seeds and let nature Repair the damage that's been done So those are the basic concepts behind bill's work and It's been really inspiring because When I first got out here I was thinking man I need an excavator that I can't afford so I can dig all of these earthworks that are going to be in ice or Now that I'm looking at the slope a lot of the slope just won't work with swales bill has given me ideas for things that I can do At a human scale things that one person with hand tools can do Even if I wanted to dig swales, it would take me the rest of my life The rest of my life I'd be digging swales But instead by planting vegetation on contour I'm having most of the same benefits of a swale unless you're trying to Hold water to actively irrigate with which I'm not I'm trying to set up my systems to be irrigated passively If you're not trying to store water for irrigation and you're just trying to get it into the ground I think this is really the best way to do it Mark out your contours plant on them And then let the vegetation do the work Okay, now that I have this furrow on contour The other thing left for me to do is Grab some of my compost Drop it in the bottom here and Got beads Soupies that were sent to me by Jan White to focus I soaked them overnight now. I'm just going to place those every three inches or so and then Come back in Cover them up with compost After I get that done I'll come through and clear out some of these weeds are going right up next to the furrow and That'll be it eventually. I'll come through and cover this with a layer of grass as mulch and If you saw my previous video, I'll probably also use sticks to keep Birds from pulling out my germinating seeds. That's been working really well I'll uh Try to do an update on that as soon as the peas are big enough to be worth talking about Yeah, that that's it A little bit of compost on the bottom throwing your seeds compost on top Walk away and let nature do its thing All right guys, that's it for this video. I hate doing the whole youtube spiel, but I am a small channel and it really does help out if you can like the video subscribe hit the bell Share the video leave a comment all all of the usual youtube BS um Just hit over 100 subscribers and As far as youtube is concerned that means my content is worthless So if you think otherwise if you got any value out of This video then help me out to do all the regular youtube garbage and Help me get seen by more people who can be helped out by the stuff that i'm doing here Thanks. Have a good one guys