Swale is working after heavy rain. We rely on rain water to fill up our tanks and water the plants. Although a river runs along our property boundary, it is hard to transport the water up the steep hill, as we don't have a pumping system yet. The other problem we have is that the soil is constantly eroding from the rain. Once there is heavy rain the soil is carried down the hills and into the river.
For this reason, we decided to dig swales not only to capture the rain water but to avoid the soil erosion. We didn't know anything about swales when we bought the farm but we discovered them when we learned about permaculture principles. We are so glad now that we took the chance to trial swales even though the property is really a bit too steep for them, luckily the soil has high clay content and they have worked well. We now have three swales installed with the longest being over 200 metres long.

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