#32 Why I didn't install swales at my permaculture food forest.
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- Опубліковано 12 бер 2024
- Berms and swales are a great solution to catch and sink rain water. They have been used in permaculture projects all over the world! But it isn't the only solution and certainly not the best solution on our land.
This video was the inspiration for our stone lines:
• Stone Lines
This is where we bought our vetiver gras: (no paid add, but highly recommended!)
www.vetivergras.com
You can support this project with your donation:
www.sonselva.com
Permaculture starts with observation. You work with what you have, One of the principles is "The problem is the solution". rocky sloped land with little arable top soil? build rock berms to collect the topsoil. Context is everything. in Ireland all of those walls surrounding the fields? those rocks were dug from the fields. every year the wall gets a little higher and the top soil a little less rocky.
Some of them were built as famine walls to make sure the irish worked for their soup. And meanwhile the better thing the trees are ripped out which also hold water and soil etc.
One benefit from using stone lines is that it will build up the top soil over time as it collects organic matter from trees and bushes. The soil will get a bit thicker and thicker for each year that passes.
A swale will of course also collect sediment and organic matter, but it will be more concentrated to a small area of the width of the swale.
Excellent site specific design. Part of being a successful permaculture designer is not getting caught up in anyone's dogmatic approach. We work in a coniferous forest and don't use swales because of the damage to the roots of very old trees. We lay tree trunks and brush on contour, slowing water and nutrients - over time creating small fertile terraces in the forest. Keep up the good work.
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The best day to start is the day you start.
With rock so close to the surface, and rock available, what you're doing makes perfect sense. It seems like placing more rock as new organic matter is creating new soil above the first rock in the line would be great to get the topsoil even higher. If the water sinks through the permeable rock, it's not all that accessible to most plants, so you're really trying to slow down the water and prevent erosion of the new topsoil you create. Part of the method of swales is to thicken the topsoil in the planting area, but if you have almost none to start with then building up makes more sense than digging. Nice video. I'll start at the beginning of your videos.
That's exactly the plan! Once the soil is built up, I can add another line of stones on top of the first until I have a "mini terrace". We'll see how long this will take. But we're adding a lot of OM in the rows this year. Thanks for watching! 😘
@@sonselvapermaculture do you watch The Weedy Garden? That's an excellent channel with very good techniques for building up compost rapidly and increasing fertility. It's also fun to watch.
Would you also want a line of deep rooted trees..they also hold water and hold soil from being eroded and create soil mayter with their leaves as well as helping fungus live. Or hugel culture beneath as well. But maybe by leaving the roots in place as a matrix of wood. That would take years I suppose maybe decades.
Great effort. I am doing a similar thing here in tropical Australia. I am using swales but I don't have a single rock at my place. Soil is also not very deep, so the doubling up of the soil in the berm is working really well.
Since you don't have much soil over all, I was wondering, where you get enough substrate from to plant your trees. So I guess you have external sources for compost and mulch? Do you use pigeon peas much? Or is there any other local fast growing legume available for you to generate large quantities of biomass?
Permaculture is about CONTEXT. No "one size fits all" solution
***Using the method that is best for your land*** I value this so much. Unfortunately many have taken a set of learned concepts and understood that they apply to every situation. We have just purchased the side of a mountain in Southern Mexico. Just as it is for you, swales and berms would be a terrible thing to install on our steep landscape. When we observe and study what the characteristics of the land and environment are, it always tells us what changes will be most supportive.
This makes me very happy to see. I have been trying to think of ways to terrace a hill on my little piece of property on the TX-OK border. I've been gardening for years in containers because I have no dirt - just rocks, lots of rocks. But the other part of my lot is on a hill and would love to food forest on it. Now I have a plan.
Awesome! It‘s a great start and you can do the same for your veggie garden.
Nice! Have you tried using hay bales? They're like containers except they break down into soil instead of plastic. They can be cheap or expensive depending on where you live...textas? And you can make hot beds with them for winter and spring planting or to heat a hot house... they also look nice and raised bed like at the start anyway and they are nice and soft on the knees compared to wooden raised beds ... if you have cheap straw and square bales ypu can build really amazing things with them.
I’m in Texas too and was trying to create stone lines myself. But this the first I’ve seen a permaculture expert explicitly recommend them for certain types of terrain. I feel so validated!
I clicked on this and had no idea that we had met last year up in the mountains with Jacopo and the gang. I'm doing the same here in Calvià, so many stones!
Oh, hi again! And good luck to yoir stone garden. 🧑🌾
It rains here in Ecuador everyday! I wish we could send you our water in exchange for some sunshine! Subscribed ! Keep up the good work!
I would love that! 🌧🌞
Saudi Arabia has these odd stone circles all over the place (you can see them on google maps). I have often wondered if they weren't some sort of water catchment for plants growing inside when the climate wasn't as dry as it is now.
The stone walls are an excellent choice for your soil type.
Thanks so much. Love your work. Where we are in western Arkansas, there is not a lot of soil, and lots of rock about six inches down. Rocks and lots of wood logs and brush with weeds and leaves for making berms, to keep the soil from moving to far or washing away.
doing things differently - at least from my experience - is a sign of understanding.
Well said! Thank you. 😘
Always good to see a fellow Permie in a Mediterranean climate coming up with solutions. I have swales, berms and terraces, but they are a LOT of work. I also have a gazillion rocks. Mmm?
Yes, site specific solutions are what permaculture is about. Good job identifying what works best for your land.
The growth of the plant on the berms will be impressive. Keep your small changes. Cover the soil, plant in density, variety. Look for for stratification and sucession. You know all that. It works.
Thank you! 😘
Berms and swales are great tools in the permaculture toolbox, but they aren't the best solution in all cases. I hope your project does wonderfully! As the soil builds up behind the rocks, you'll gradually be building terraces, which will allow you to retain increasing amounts of rainfall.
We love a terrace
Good to have a reminder to use what is available locally. Good luck with your project.
Thank you!
Keep on trucking, sister. Very interested in your results.
I’m Scarlett from South Africa, so glad I found your channel ❤
I really enjoyed your take on rock lines, berms and swales. Since individualization is one of my strengths, I’ve always appreciated the fact that Permaculture creates bespoke solutions to the needs of each site. That’s why it works. Looking at China today and the sorry state of its agriculture, it seems like every time someone comes up with a successful and sustainable method, for managing their land, the government orders the entire nation to do it, with disastrous effect.
I appreciate that you gave height for the rock line, since the only other stone structures I’ve seen discussed in this way were much larger, and the work was done by an 100’s of villagers .That is as hard to come by as mechanical earth moving equipment in some circumstances.
PS, vetiver is a badass! I never knew.
Many just copy permaculture techniques rather than the principles. I've seen some making swales in Belgium and the Netherlands on flat land where there is an abundance of rain and excess water is more of an issue than drought. It makes more sense to catch water runoff in a pond there to add more biodiversity and have some water to irrigate with in case there's a dry summer.
Same I see with hügelculture beds they're often used in contexts where they don't make sense.
can you elaborate about which contexts do not support hugel beds
@@dazey8706 for example the combination of swales with hügel beds. That's a bad idea and something Sepp Holzer himself advises against. Imagine a slope with water running down into a swale seeping into the soil and a hügel bed that's not very compacted and filled with wood. That's a disaster in the making.
@@kristofp72 ahh thank you, very concise and clear explanation!
It will be interesting to see how effective these lines will be; I've had success with stone-lines immediately above tree lines, rather than below. That way allowing for water retention and then permeation to the soil below them, and so to the trees.
That makes sense I feel like trees would be essential here to hold the soil erosion
I intend to capture some soil / organic matter above the stoneline for the tree line. Since there is not much soil below the stone line to soak uf water anyway… I’ll keep you posted on the effect!
@@sonselvapermaculture yes but the trees will soak up the water...so if there's water in the other side of a stone wall the trees can probably live on the less wet side than the wet side. On the wet side trees will soak up all the water you want to reserve for growing your plants. Not in a bad way I just mean on the other side they are keeping the soil that can hold cover of grass or plants and can acsess the deep reservoir your creating and take any excess that would roll off and keep it there so it can be a reservoir in itself for plants rather than giving it the full reign of the reservoir if that makes sense? above the wall which i assumed you wanted to grow veg or something in. I dont think i described it right. Lol! But whatever works! Let us know what happens and what trees you plant i love following other landscapes that are even harder than mine and seeing the creative things you do to get around those difficulties. Its very inspiring.
@@Padraigp I get your thought! I'll mix in veggies and herbs inbetween the trees in one row following the syntropic method. So they all should be helping out eachother. on the lower side of the stone line I'll let the pigs run and hope to slowly create a "pasture". Maybe I could have done it vice versa...
@@sonselvapermaculture nice i assume the trees will also help the other side to have that moisture too. And the walls as well. All you can do is try and then observe whats going on. And if the meadow on the other side seems dry maybe the trees are not letting enough past and so be it. Its better to have patches than none at all and over time the soil itself will build up and fungi and other things will hold moisture. I have had to move all my raspberries. When i got here my landlady scraped off all the top soil for me cos shes so kind. Lol. So i had to guess where there might be nutrients in the subsoil and use a lot of stuff to byild soil on top. I left it to grow lots of weeds and mulched them in and then realised the weeds were growing lush at the back wall and the plants not soing well at all where i picked to put them cos it was super dry beside the wall she also built that nobody wanted. The soil is all sandy in spots clay ans wet in others and pure rock in others. I have only dug holes and one bit is totally different to another cos they churned it all up and took 3 feet of top soil to fill a ditch. Lol?!! Anyway i had to move everything to the side where the weeds grew well and omg the berries were twice the size then and didnt get dried up. Its about the only thing i can manage to grow in the garden. And i moved my drought tolerant herbs to the wall thats so dry ..rosemary sage thyme and oregano all grow well there. Also a willow sprouted up so I left it and kinda wove the branches. Willow seems to not mind the dry i guess it reaches far down for water and has found some where the other plants couldnt. I might grow willow all along the wall and weave it to hide the concrete. Create shade on that sunny wall. Its weird i live in ireland which you wouldnt expect to be dry but my garden is walled anyway and an extra wall in the middle and sandy and gets super hot and dry in midsummer so the most thing ive had to deal with is drought and things bolting from the early heat. Then in winter its a mudslide and spring is a slug and snail fest and then you can get bloody snow and hail in april when you think things are finally warming up. So ive had a lot of disasters and i think in reality it probably takes 60 years to figure a plot of land out and then when thats destroyed in some way because a landlord messes wirh it (it was a productive garden for at least 10 years with raised beds of lovely soil which is why i moved here. But between paying the rent and getting my van of stuff they " did the lawn" for me as a welcome gift. I cried for 6 days total greif) then it has to be assessed again. So dont worry if things dont go as planned you will learn even if you make mistakes and the land will give up its secrets over time. Hopefully once youve figured it all out you will have many years of joy and for generations to come too!
Great project. I can't tell, but do the parallel boundaries have large stone boundary walls, like the sides of the property? Have you checked how much soil and its quality that has collected behind those, it would be interesting to see. My experience with the stone lines in very dry desertified climates showed the wind can deposit a significant amount more material behind them than the water runoff. And that they loose their effectiveness as the shelter and green cover increases. I think the Vetiver lines will probably end up creating more soil accumulation. And the rock lines will end up providing an excellent rock mulch, which will provide additional shade and moisture retention. I completely agree with you on the overuse of swales in permaculture projects. Keep on making the world a better place.
Thank you! Yes, the whole land is surrounded by wide dry stone walls about 150cm in hight. We only have one wall (more or less) on contour though. This is the spot where we are currently setting up our vegetable garden because yes, there is significantly more soil there.
Dig some holes or build mounds and bury spongy wood to catch the water. Make sure hole funnels the water towards the wood. You need carbons to hold moisture and give bacteria a place to live to fix the soil. After bacteria are established fungus can move nutrients to the plants.
Excellent advice. We've just dug a 2 meter deep "water battery" and filled it in with wood that we've collected off our land to do exactly as you've suggested.
is sounds like digging holes in that landscape might be rather difficult, given that she describes how rocky the earth is and how thin the top soil. Thats why she is opting to build up with rocks rather than dig swales down. Burying wood is definitely a good idea where it's practical, but it's not appropriate everywhere. Also planting deep rooted grasses and then frequently cutting them back will add plenty of carbon deep into the soil without the need for breaking your back digging wholes. Every time the grass grows tall it will sent new roots down into the soil, finding their way around the rocks and through cracks in the hardpan. And then when the grass is cut back the plant no longer needs all those roots and will cut off a portion of them to save energy, which will then die and decompose into carbon down in the subsoil. Then as the grass grows tall again it will send new roots down and the process will repeat. No need to import wood or dig pits in hard rocky ground. Just let the plants do the hard work for you, and get a useful crop off them at the same time
Dig Half moons in this kind of climate. Doesn't have to be perfect. Use a hoe. 8-12" will get you started.
@@WhichDoctor1Yep, she said for sure using a jack hammer would work for digging in her soil, lolol.
I’m sure she will be using all the debris possible to make soil once there are catching structures, in this case the stones.
Looks fantastic. Great job 😊😊😊
I will say all that clay is gonna be SO GOOD for wild clay pottery! andy's ancient clay pottery channel talks a lot about it and it's easy to fire clay pots in your backyard. Useful for a million things including making ollas, cups, mugs etc. I think you'd also love the channel fraser builds he explores ancient techniques of metalworking etc which can be easily done with again you guessed it, basic terra cotta pottery.
multiple uses for your "abundant resource" while you wait to build top soil.
There’s also something I’ve heard called bathtubs that Dustups is using for his desert forest project. There’s an analog from Africa along the Great Green Wall.
Well don! So clever to use the rocks and vetiver to collect the rainwater!
Excellent video!!!
Subbed to watch your project progress. Be sure to take plenty of before footage, something I regret not doing more of.
Thanks! Yes, I'm glad I bougth that drone right at the beginning. But it's a good reminder to take some inbetween footage aswell.
good thinking, thanks for sharing
Great to see the wild interior of Majorca beyond the drunk German tourists! You would get enough effect from your vetiver without the rocks if you don't have to move them anyway. Being a permaculture teacher myself I would strongly advice to look into syntropic agroforestry for yor plantings. All the best to you and your project. Greetings from the north of New Zealand. similar climate but a bit more rain!
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I haven’t watched you for about a year. I have to give it to u . U certainly are persistent and committed.I often think we have it tough. Our climate is hot, the soil was pretty infertile. But no stones. What you are taking on is incredibly serious. My hat off to you. Your Chanel has grown immensely. I think u only had about 30 followers when I first started watching.
thanks for hanging in there! 😀 it is certainly a challenge. but that’s exactly what I came here for. let’s see how we can improve our land in the coming years! 🍀
As your fruit forest evolve your rocks will fill with organic materials and life, also capture heat at night. It’s a great solution!
I have that same issue here in hawaii. On the dry sides of the islands theres almost no soil, its all lava rock that drains fast so I dont bother with swales much. I do use hugels waaaaaaaayyyy more than most permacuturalists though to keep the water from draining away.
If many rocks are embedded in the soil then maybe you could dig them out with a pick axe to use in the walls and loosen up the soil behind each wall and create a shallow swale at the same time, though that would be very hard labor!
I hear you. I'm managing some land where digging isn't an option. So, I'm using cut branches and logs to slow the water/catch the soil. It's working great. Good luck with your rock lines and I look forward to your next report.
What a beautiful land
When doing contour work, it's worth reading up on keyline design and seeing if you can apply that to your land. Basically it's a system of exaggerating the curves of your contours so that your swales or other contour structures go a little bit uphill into your valleys and a little bit downhill onto your ridgelines, helping to draw the runoff out of your valleys and spread it back towards the ridges.
I recently .over to a Mediterranean environment off the west coast of canada. Soil depth here is minimal. I did the same thing g at one of my clients sites. I love stone borders , thermal mass , habitat and great for erosion control. Permaculture isn't one size fits all , it's about approaching every problem with ots own specific solution.
We are just starting out property.we have one Swale working great.waiting on rain so I can dig more as ground is hard I use a shovel.they are 50m long and 300mm deep.rocks good idea
I saw on Shaun Overton's Dustups channel where he's trying to use prickly pear cactus to sequester rain water in place. I guess he would then chop some up and spread them around to distribute that water?
Yo puse láminas viejas y luego las piedras para detener el agua de lluvia las soporte en varillas para que se sostengan. Espero continuar con las láminas y encontrar el nivel para lluvias fuertes
I dont use swales either but for another reason. My soil is so sandy, water doesn’t run off or pool. It just soaks right in so swales wouldnt do much.
Gorgeous place Scarlet :)
Many, many years ago, in Souther France, in “maquis” country, I saw them using a different technique, they dug some pits about 60 cm deep, then put out shallow “arms” leading into the pit. In the pit they mulched any vegetable matter they could find, on top of the vegetable matter they put plastic, unsecured at the lower edges so water could flow further into the pit from rain and run off.
Hi There Scarlet, silly question did you go to the Green Gathering in Wales Uk 2022?
PS great improvement on swales & accessible way of building erosion prevention & building soil, I'll pass this on, thanks for your dedication🙏👍
Thanks! No, I have never been in Wales so far. Is it worth a visit? I mean the green gathering, not wales. ;)
Vetiver is what we call it in Tamil Nadu India too!😄
Bel progetto, sono curioso anche io come si comporteranno le due soluzioni. Ciaoo
The stones will work well. Boomerang swales will work well too, with a mix of rock and earth.
Boomerangs are a good compromise for compactness, IMO
Hi Scarlett, I noticed you had plenty of dead trees on your own property. Could you cut them down, use long pieces and branches in combination with the rocks to make your rock wall?
It's a great video. I, too, have little topsoil and have been wondering how to best achieve the intent behind swales wirhout digging. Rocks are a great resource, but i dont have them. My run-off is not great, but soil is hydrophobic, and i'm considering using strawbales as berms and planting into them with pockets of compost and slowing building soil by adding to the berms each year. I'd be interested in your thoughts.
This sounds like a reasonable approach if you have strawbales available. you could also use old logs to stabilize the berms, creating something like a hugel culture.
The more I learn about keylines/swales I feel like keylines/swales in fields very similar to broadforking for residential back yard or for small market farms if used horizontal to the path of the rain. Is this correct?
Nice work. How did you create the contour lines map for your site?
Thanks! I got it from my architect. There‘s a site where you can download it but you need a payed login.
Me gusta!
This is a great video thanks for sharing!
My husband and i want to start permiculture on our land in the desert. We are still stying to figure out what would be best. We do not have a monsoon season we just get reain here and there and not much. But we have an extremely high clay conntent. I wonder if the rocks would be the best way to start especially since limited funding.
Any tips would be appreciated.
Nice! I wish you all the best with your project! I guess with clay swales (and dry ponds) will work well. If you want to do it low-cost, you could also install small half-moon shaped basins to catch any possible rainwater. (I'll attach a video for you). I'm sure you've already checked out the channel of Geoff Lawton for inspiration.
ua-cam.com/video/1mdh0YoAF1M/v-deo.html
Hello. You talk about an extremely high clay content so that opens perspective for water-retaining-mixture. Maybe you heard about LNC (liquid natural clay) from Desertcontrol. They have some projects running in the Middle-East and at this moment they are also active in the USA with the University of Arizona... check them out and try to apply it to your situation. Greetings
@@sonselvapermaculture Thank you so much! Yes! I was thinking a mix of things would be best. Definitely want to try the half moons! I just haven't seen how big they dig them and such....
I suppose it will be some trial and error. Can't wait to see some results!
Blessings to you
Nice idea, I was in doubt as well wether to install swales or not but considering I have a soil very rocky and similar to yours I will do the same! :)
Btw I have a silly question, but how does one know if there is a lot of soil or not so much? In my land I see trees, how can they grow if there is not much soil? What method one can use to see how much soil there is
I'm glad I could help you to make a decision! :) In our place it is very obvious that we don't have much topsoil, because wherever we dig, we hit solid rock within the first 20-50 cm. In Mallorca we have a very porose sand stone. So roots can go through it, if they are strong enough.
You can try to find out of there have been any soil analyses performed in your area that you can get free data on by checking online, or pay for a geotech engineer test the soil on your property. Clear Creek Solutions put out a video recently on "Soil Types Explained" that covers the basics of soil types and how the testing is done.
As long as the ground isn't too compact or rocky, trees and other plants will eventually manage to lay root systems into the ground that can break through loose soil types. And assuming that there aren't large rocks everywhere just under the top layer of the ground soil (as Son Selva seems to be experiencing), you can help the process by using a broad fork to aerate the soil and loosen it for root development.
unfortunately we have an almost solid layer of rock below the already rocky soil. 😝 but we did make a soil analisis (check out vidoe no. 5)@@Talisrune
I may be wrong but seemed to notice that your contour rock dams are downslope from the plantings. What is the reasoning behind this approach vs the upslope infiltration that is typical in swales? I'm assuming it has to do with accumulation of organic matter at the base of the trees but would love to hear your perspective. I'll go take a look at that African video now.
Yes, we want to take advantage of all the organic matter we can catch, since we literally don't have any top soil left due to erosion. Also this method won't let water sit in long enough to filter downslope like a swale would to.
Yes. If you have the money you can get in a machine to move earth, rocks and old wood trunks into swales. It advances your garden by many years,
We sometimes inherit land that is very marginal, but at other times we can choose where to farm by buying a suitable block of land. Did you choose that location for a reason?
Adequate rainfall is not guarenteed where you are and it could be a long drought these next years. Your ground is so bare and open to the sun, can you get free woodchips?
Also do not hesitate to scan the surrounding area to bring in organic material, you don't have to produce it all on site and it would take years. It would be nice to see some big compost piles there, try to get all the almond husks from the neighbours.
I've seen so many projects move along too slowly because of the idea that you can only use what you have on site. If you want to eat from the land you have to dress it soon. In the pine forest nearby there will be many logs to bury along the swales. I constantly bring down material from the hill above.
I'm just over on the mainland near Jerica. 20 years now doing permaculture here. I can almost see you over there in the dust. good luck.
You do not need to make swales, if you make a small pond or a water collecting ditch with a single channel on edge of the property so the water travel from all the sides into single channel. That channel could be filled with tiny pebbles and rocks that you collected from all over the property.
Dang! You’ve got a challenge with this plot of land 😐
By the look of your land, unless you had access to an Excavator it would be very hard to dig Swales
Where is this Greece?
Mallorca, Spain
In effect you start terraces ? ;o)
Yes, in deed! just very small ones and over time, to let nature work for me. 😎
Sounds like what you're building are beaver dams, or leaky dams
Yes, it’s a similar principle, just so much lower and wider than a beaver dam. These stone lines will catch some of the wild seed that’s brought downhill every time water runs down the hill. Caught in a moist rock crack that is also collecting silt over time, the wild seeds are more likely to sprout and flourish. The stone line on contour quickly becomes a grass and wildflower contour leaky barrier that traps even more silt runoff. Scarlet has jumpstarted the process by planting vetiver grass parallel to the stones.
I have seen a variation of the on contour stone line done where it is only one flat stone high, but about a meter or more broad. In just one to three years the stones are buried and invisible under naturally provided grass and earth, on a surface that started as bare rock. Every year the farmer comes along and puts another layer of flat rocks on top of the previously buried stones. Year by year it turns into a stony berm that is almost invisible in the landscape, but is doing a wonderful job of slowing and sinking water, and slowly building topsoil behind itself.
Believe this is how hugelkultur started.
The history of hugelkultur isn't a mystery you can look it up, if I'm remembering right it was an early farming technique used by proto-European nomadic groups
@@ottoflouer1750 I'm saying they realized that there's protein sources that come from just retaining standing water and realized they needed wood to soak up what would've made it through the rocks. I also believe there was much more than were currently able to research on the 30 year old Internet. The basis of pictures for this generation is 200 years at it's oldest and people often aren't putting in the thought necessary to solve equations which they've not seen a portion of proven possible; because to them, seeing is believing and without the faith to try, well, there is no new outcome.
people are soo easily caught up by dogma. They see people they like doing a thing and then that just gets lodged in their heads as the one and only thing that should ever be done in that situation. Permiculter is all about getting the maximum results for minimum inputs by working flexibly and creatively with the environment you have, instead of imposing a rigid cookie-cutter system onto it like conventional agriculture. Anyone saying you're doing something wrong by not making swales in a landscape where swales aren't appropriate just needs to go back to the permaculture principles and think a little more about how things work
I feel clickbaited by this video's title. It's phrased like you're answering a question I didn't know I had, but when I watch the video it's more of a meandering vlog with pockets of information throughout. Nothing wrong with that kind of content but it's not what the title implies and if that was intentional for clicks then it's kinda scummy.
the whole video is geared around answering the question in the title. She doesn't really talk about anything else. Just the reasons why she isn't installing swales on her land, what shes doing instead and how that system works, and talking about the different conditions that means she does think its a good idea to install swales on a different plot of land with different soil conditions. There's nothing in the title that indicates in what format she's going to answer the question
I suspect (1 minute into the video) that you have clay dominate, acidic soils, that are bacterial more than fungal. Your first step should be to identify what you can grow without swales or any other earthwork.
Then work on the earth works.
Don't ignore your soils microbiology and your climate just because you dug a swale.
What is there already?
Get a soil analysis.
What will grow in what you have?
Then maximize it with permaculture principles.
Don't start with a swale.
If you do that then all you have done is dig a ditch.