Demonstration Sites

Fernglade Farm – Late Autumn (May) 2013 Update


Some of the 50kg worth of tomatoes growing this season

What a summer it was in the South Eastern corner of Down Under. The weather was just wacky, in that the farm received no significant rainfall between early October and late February. The farm received 60mm (2 ½ inches) of rain in very late February and then in early Autumn we went on to have the longest period of continuous weather over 30°C (86°F) since records began in 1853. It was unprecedented. Even today, as I write this article in late Autumn, the maximum temperature was 23°C (73°F).

Needless to say, I’ve spent quite a bit of time observing what worked and what didn’t work on the farm and these included:

  • The food forest sailed through the weather better than I did. It was only fruit trees in their first year that suffered and/or died. The farm is on tank water as the volcanic loam soils won’t hold water in an above ground dam. However, there are a few swales set up to recharge the sub surface water table and one of those swales collects water from a catchment area of over 400m x 5m of hard road surface. The fruit trees in the food forest received no more than a bucket of water each during the entire summer period and this was probably unnecessary;
  • During late summer, I brought in mushroom compost with which to mulch the fruit trees in the food forest and despite the dry and hot conditions the well-established fruit trees thrived;
  • Long term, I’m working towards more desert-like strategies and hopefully the food forest eventually produces a solid canopy which will shade the soil;
  • Predation from the local wildlife in the food forest has been more extreme than in other drought years as they have come to rely on the food forest as a source of food and water (which I provide for them). In an unexpected turn of events, the wallabies began consuming the citrus trees and have set quite a few of those fruit trees back a few years of growth;
  • Water systems were setup so that the bees, insects, frogs, lizards and birds were provided with permanent water sources so that they could maintain their populations as they all provide important services on the farm;
  • The raised vegetable beds required watering most days for a couple of minutes each and this system consumed the largest quantity of water on the farm;
  • The herb raised beds had much lower water requirements than the vegetables and many grew prolifically despite the lack of water. As it is now cooler weather, I’m transplanting the more successful varieties and spreading them about the farm;
  • The perennial vegetables were really quite hardy relative to the annual vegetables;
  • The experiment with the Hugelkultur beds has been abandoned as it failed and the plants mostly died. It may possibly have worked had it contained 10 times the organic matter than it did, but this is not an effective use of organic matter on the farm and would not be worth the effort. I’d suggest that Hugelkultur beds would work better in an environment that has a higher water table than here as the Hugelkultur bed would act like a wicking bed thus reducing the need to water and keeping the plant roots moist but not wet. As a comparison, the berry plants that were located in the food forest all survived despite not being watered and all of them grew during this difficult and trying season;
  • Now that the weather has cooled, I’m observing that both vegetables and herbs are starting to move into the food forest and establish themselves there as part of the understory; and
  • The final observation is that fruit trees planted with comfrey as a companion plant grew and fruited much better than those without. I am going to greatly increase the quantity of comfrey and borage planted in and around the food forest.


The go kart trailer under construction — all done with solar power


Moving the new water tank past the house using the
logs recovered from the hugelkultur beds

As the weather has cooled now that it is Autumn, I’ve been busy tackling some projects that were on hold. These have included:

  • Fabricating a trailer for my 110cc go kart which is used to bring firewood and rocks up and down the hill. Both the go-kart and the trailer are wide and have a very low centre of gravity so they are stable on the slope regardless of the load. I used to use a wheelbarrow for this purpose. Despite having ridden a motorbike in commuter traffic for at least a decade, I am uncomfortable with both ride-on mowers and quad bikes and they are a major source of injuries on farms in Australia. The plan is to eventually replace the petrol motor when it dies with an electric motor which can be charged off the solar power system;
  • The summer revealed a definite need for additional drinking water supplies and I have since purchased and installed a secondhand water tank with the site being excavated by hand using a mattock and shovel. During the summer, I also set up systems so that water can be easily moved from any one collection point on the property to another; and
  • Over the next few weeks I’m installing a secondhand wind turbine so that I can completely remove the need for a petrol powered generator. Last year, I had to use the generator for about 50 hours during a 6 week period centering around the winter solstice (21st of June).

Thanks for taking the time to watch, and I’d appreciate any suggestions at all as to how to hold water above ground in a dam given the exceptionally well drained volcanic loam soils. Please be economically realistic with any suggestions. Few dams in this area hold water above ground and most of them drain within hours of receiving large quantities of rainfall. The swales here drain within half an hour of collecting water.

14 Comments

  1. Hi Chris

    Always good to see your updates and learn how you cope with the dry climates – we will need some of the same strategies!

    Cheers
    Dylan

  2. Thanks for your update, well shared. I was especially interested in your comments about hugelkultur. I’m trying it out for the first time this year on a very small scale with the wood buried underground and the garden on top of that, making it end up just above natural ground level. I did it like this because a) its in a limited area in a community garden, and b) my climate is extremely hot and dry. I figured any moisture would absorb better into the wood underground with no drying wind or sun. I will plant perennials like rhubarb and kale I think.
    Can you please detail what mix you used for the potato buckets, I haven’t succeeded with container spuds yet.
    Thanks again for sharing your knowledge.

  3. Hi Chris, enjoyed your updates as ever! I’m growing asian pear in the UK – opposite end of its range I guess!

    Sealing dams – I’ll be interested in what you conclude. I once asked Geoff Lawton about this with regards sandy landscapes in Vietnam(can’t get much sandier)! He suggested gleying by mixing chicken manure with sawdust. Haven’t tried it, though.

    Sepp Holzer makes dams in soils without enough clay – but tends not to be very specific about exactly how much clay is in the soils. He vibrates the soil to mix down the smallest particles to the base (using machinery, usually). Describes it (roughly) in ‘Desert or Paradise’ – but hard to see how that would work if the soil particles are too big, but you could ask the folks at Tamera Peace Village (Portugal).
    Obviously the Permaculture Manual talks about gleying (bring in bentonite?) and also internet forums describe mulching up pits with green matter and animal dung and compressing it (e.g. running pigs in it) and watering it so it breaks down anaerobically (e.g. cover it with cardboard), forming a watertight bacterial seal (as I understand it…).

    I also have sandy soils where I’m working and consider experimenting with these kinds of approaches – but haven’t yet, so don’t take my word for it! I’m thinking of practising by creating one or two frog ponds to see if the gleying works.

  4. Hi Chris,

    We love your updates and have been following them closely as our property with the passive solar house has a very similar profile to yours except that we are in South West WA. Would greatly appreciate if you could provide a bit more detailed info about the systems you setup so that water can be easily moved from any one collection point on the property to another. I am also curious about the size of your solar array and the battery capacity and system voltage.

    Thanks for sharing. Much appreciated, Chris.

  5. Hi Dylan. Thanks for the thoughts. Yeah, dry climate strategies are being implemented here right now, so stay tuned for updates. I’m hoping long term that the food forest provides enough canopy shade to the herbage which will reduce evaporation. Recently, I’ve planted out over 400 cuttings of comfrey as companions in the food forest too.

    Hi Rhonda. Your ideas of putting the logs in the ground for hugelkultur is a good one and will reduce the chances of the system drying out. Rhubarb is a great plant with a huge root system which makes it really hardy once established. A lovely person locally is about to show me how to divide a very old crown (her grandfathers), so I’ll update about that when I find out more. Kale is an annual here, you should post about it, if it is longer lived at your place. I came across someone recently who was experimenting with cutting back annuals hard so that they lived much longer. With the potato buckets (with the open bottoms), I use a mix of composted woody mulch which has the benefit of being very well drained. The mix is like a compost but has a slightly higher carbon ratio. Garlic seems to do well in this mix too (30 varieties here as part of a growing trial in the local area). Potatoes are starting to spread like a weed here, so it is interesting to see where they turn up about the place. Mushroom compost may be a good source material too for potatoes?

    Hi Tom. Too right about the nashi pear. They love the hot conditions. How are your nashis growing? I’ll try the chicken manure and sawdust mix and see what the outcome is. Thanks for the advice. Yeah, a neighbour tried a dam by bringing in bentonite and unfortunately the yabbies (a local crustacean, very nice to eat) bore holes in the clay and the dam just drained and left a big hole in the ground which shows where the water table is at. A very expensive lesson. The compaction and manure approach may be worth trying too? The swales here drain in minutes, but the sub surface stays moist during long hot summers and on a positive note, it never floods. The local creek runs underground before reappearing in the valley below and I really don’t know how much effort I should put into fighting nature? I just don’t know. Thanks again for the advice and tips. Fortunately the frogs here (southern brown tree frogs), seem to be able get by happily with the water sources I provide for the reptiles and insects so the population hasn’t been too stressed during the hot summer. A frog pond is a great idea as the more diversity you put in place, the more resilient your garden will be. Setup systems and they will come!

    Hi Chris. SW WA is an amazing and beautiful part of the world. You had a pretty rough summer too. How is your place going? The Gloucester Tree at Pemberton was a bit too exciting for me when I was over that way about a decade ago! Yeah, as to water, an explanation won’t make sense without the plan of the place drawn and you can see the incline and locations of storages. The plan in itself may make a good post? Are you on a flat or sloping site? I’m on the southern side of a mountain at about 700m above sea level so solar is not as good as it would be on a flat site in open country. The solar array is 3.8kW and the batteries are 1,200Ah at 24v. Outside of the 3 weeks either side of the winter solstice (21st June in the southern hemisphere) the system produces more power than I can use. For those 6 weeks though it is a bit touch and go (the other day they were as low as 45% state of charge). This year I’ve been experimenting not using the generator to see how the system copes as I just don’t know. They’re up to 70% now, but there’s still 3 weeks to go and anything can happen in that time. This winter has been more cloudy and rainy than most in recent times. Are you off the grid or using a grid tied solar system?

    Regards.

    Chris

  6. Hi Chris,
    Thanks for the update, always enjoy your updates and the way you are always experimenting.
    I remember from a permies.com story that the huglekulture beds need watering unless they are at least 6 feet high. I didn’t see how big yours were but the lower they are the more water they require.
    I am going to experiment with windrows left by a bulldozer a couple of years ago. However we need to get hold of a cheap tractor with loader first for dumping soil on top.
    Keep up the good work.

  7. Hi Chris,

    Have you thought of plastic liner to hold water in your dam ?
    They seem popular in the US even for reasonably big dams.
    I know plastic is bad but it’s sometimes useful too.

    Keep up the good work !

    Cheers
    John

  8. Hi Kerry. Thanks. Yeah, that makes sense. Unfortunately the beds were only about 3 feet high as I couldn’t afford the organic matter and this is probably why they dried out. Good thoughts. The amount of organic matter required to mulch and fertilise the entire food forest of 300 established fruit trees, herb and vegetable beds is far less than required for a large 6 foot hugelkultur bed! Fungi arfe starting to break down some of the eucalyptus logs without assistance anyway, so I’ll watch and see where, why and how because in other places it isn’t happening.

    I like the windrow idea too. The soil will inoculate the windrow helping speed up decomposition which is a good outcome. You have to balance it off though with the fire risk and the overall humidity of your area over summer. Good stuff. Thanks again.

    Hi John W. Thanks. That’s a good use for plastic. It may just be the best option here.

    Hi Susan. Thanks. I enjoy your article series too.

  9. Hi Chris,

    Sorry for the much belated reply. For some inexplicable reason, in the last few months, my email provider (gmail) started to divert replies to my post on the PRI web-site into the spam folder.

    Summer in SW WA was tough but we survived it with only a couple of fruit tree losses but we did spend an inordinate amount of time hand watering the newly planted first stage of our food forest from our also recently implemented gravity feed main irrigation line – haven’t had time to implemented a drip system yet. Also manage to put in a couple of swales last winter to good effect. Last few months (particularly April & June 2013) have been very dry.

    We are on tank water only and our land slopes roughly between 7 and 10 degrees East (2/3) & North (1/3) – didn’t realise you were on south facing slope. Our first priority when we moved in early 2012, was to install a large carport + open undercover workspace area plus a new 110,000 litre water tank, so thankfully still have a decent amount of water left. Haven’t had time to go off grid yet but it is a priority and another reason for investing in the large open carport / workspace – roof area for solar panels + water catchment + somewhere to park car and work under cover.

    If you are ever in WA you are welcome to come visit (or stay), we have nice passive solar house and only about 2.5hr drive south of Perth. Love to keep in touch directly as your experience and updates have been an very helpful.

  10. wrt. to Holzer’s methods of making earthen dams (request a copy at the local library of his books, his latest (desert or paradise) is fairly detailed, but i would not rely upon them alone for something like this).

    he uses a digger to lift dirt and then drop it in piles. in the process the finer materials stay in the center and the coarser materials fall outside.

    the fine materials are what are needed to use in the dam along with being sure to tie it into the surrounding earthen layers. he digs down to impermiable layers and then trenches to tie into that layer. in the trench he uses clay to form an impermiable core. this core is then protected on each side by the finer materials and then the coarser as it goes outwards.

    the bottom is fine materials too, to settle and compact them he fills the dam part way and then uses the bucket of the digger to vibrate the mud/soil/water which settles and seals it up somewhat.

    proper care and planting to prevent animal burrowing and plants which will not topple in the wind is important.

    also being patient as it may take several years to recharge a depleted aquifer.

    the other issue is that if the site is not well chosen then the water may go out the sides or it may mean you have to put the impermiable layer further than you might initially expect.

    a geologist/civil engineer should be able to work out the soil layers and site requirements for an earthen dam. i’d not do anything large without consulting one as you don’t want the expense to go for nothing and you don’t want a dam failure causing neighbors downhill to be damaged or upset.

  11. Hi Chris. Yeah, it would be great to keep in contact directly and swap info as we are in such similar climates. Can you drop us your email address on the permaculture global website as a private message?

    Glad to hear that you survived the summer. Yeah, it was the first year fruit trees that suffered the most, although being on tank water meant only about a third of a bucket each just before a heat wave. The rest of the fruit trees didn’t seem to notice the weather extremes. The swales will serve you well in getting water into the ground, they really do work.

    The actual site here faces SW. The east facing bit on your site would be good from shading from the afternoon sun? How does it perform in the summer?

  12. Hi Chris,

    Sorry but could you provide a link to the global web-site. To avoid taking this thread too far off topic, I will PM you a lot more background and some photos about our situation. We have certainly learned a lot in the last year and a half and, surprisingly even to us, seem to have achieve quite a bit when we look back in retrospect. I think the strategic focus of the permaculture plan we did just before we moved in probably had a lot to do with keeping us focused and on track when the things seemed a bit challenging.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Articles

Back to top button