LandSoil ConservationSoil RehabilitationSwalesWater Harvesting
Swales Filled by Melting Ice and Snow (Texas, USA)
We just harvested over 20,000 gallons of ice and snow melt into our swales.
Last week we had about 4 inches of snow and ice — mostly ice. It totally coated the roads and shut down the city for about four days.
Yesterday (7 days into it) we finally got a really warm day and major melt. This is the result — 20,000 plus gallons of water gently soaked into our land vs. running down a bar ditch.
The picture at top is of the swales two days ago, and below is the day before the video was shot during the height of the melt off:
And here is a 5 minute video the day after the last photo was taken:
interesting ..thanks for posting
WOW Didnt know it ever snowed there! in Australia we were of the opinion that it was always hot n dusty! praise the swale! huh?
I never gave much thought to the importance of a swale until Geoff’s last video explaining the hydration effects at significant depths. WOW! Now I get it.
Our urban 2 acre yard is overgrown and hardly gets any sun. Although we get some lettuce, for three dismal years the garden has not yielded a single tomato. Rapid run-off from the neighbor’s nearly treeless yard had caused the beds to become a mud-soaked bog, so I dug a deeper ditch to divert the water and raised the beds by a foot. This has also resulted in swales surrounding the patch. A newer greenhouse design prevented this same ice storm from collapsing the 3/4″ PVC for a change, and I’ve got almost 100, 1″ starter plants underway. All this in 40+ year old organic composted soil.
Awesome job, Jack! Those swales are sexy. Love seeing the projects of my fellow PDC classmates here.
Jen in Phoenix.