developing flow forms naturally more than design

Discussion in 'Designing, building, making and powering your life' started by gardenlen, Mar 12, 2013.

  1. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    g'day gang,

    ok we have berms in place, all individual plantings have their own berm on the lower side, where we remove soil from our mound we leve hollows, we have many hollows eiterh natural or caused by tree removal. we keep run off on site as long as possible.

    we are building our chook condo' 6mX3m and 2m high.

    anyhow it is such that any run off will stay on site, and end up under the gardens and around some fruit trees.

    would like to get some ripping swales done but can't afford it last time we had our tractor with a ripper, great stuff.

    anyhow that'll do for now

    len
     
  2. eco4560

    eco4560 New Member

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    Excellent work Len! It's nice to see how people find solutions to the problems without tossing handfuls of cash at it.

    Will you put chook house pictures up on your website once done?
     
  3. Pakanohida

    Pakanohida Junior Member

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    Wow, color me confused.

    I thought this had to do with making flow forms.

    IE - https://www.flowform.net/




    Not trying to start a disagreement, I am just very confused as to the subject line and what is going on.
     
  4. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    dunno if i can unconfuse you paka'?

    but flow form is a wide term many take/waste time and space building things like that link demonstrates.

    a natural flow form is when say water moves from the top of your block across your block, this is where swales and berms come in to arrest that flow and put it into the sub soil.

    so the way i see it if you don't have a natural flow form don't waste too much time and effort creating one.

    our other flow form is what we grow and eat the waste thereof goes back into the gardens, as well as what comes into our property gets recycled on site, so all we dump is plastics.

    len
     
  5. annette

    annette Junior Member

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    Hi Len

    I'm thinking of doing this too, just individual berms for each tree rather than one big swale and berm. Just a question, did you design it so that the berm around the tree would overflow into another? Like a zigzag sort of design? How big are the berms around each tree?. Is it like a semi circle? How far apart did you do them?

    thanks
    Annette
     
  6. Pakanohida

    Pakanohida Junior Member

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    Even more confused now. Flow forms are nothing new, the technology has been around since the 70's. It is a technology that not only increases oxygen to the water, tremendously helps with grey water cleaning & more.

    It is not a waste of space by any means. It is technology based off of Schauberger's work in Austria, but developed by John Wilkes & others. The premise is water should never stagnate, but rather, as every flowing body of water tries to flow from side to side.

    To understand just how helpful I suggest reading:

    https://www.amazon.com/Flowforms-Rhythmic-Power-John-Wilkes/dp/0863153925

    All information was backed with scientific research starting with construction and design all the way to increase oxygen, but decreased Nitrate in ponds in winter, and more. The term, which is patented, has nothing to do with making them.

    Is the flowing of water back and forth on the property what you are trying to do?
     
  7. Pakanohida

    Pakanohida Junior Member

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    I need to add this information as well:

    I do not view this as something that takes up nor wastes space. It is not a broad term either, it is a tool, hence the confusion since it sounds like you are trying to emulate what water wants to do, ie. flow from side to side and not stagnate.
     
  8. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    you lost me paka',

    taken something simple by nature and introduced unnecessary science. it is all common sense really.

    i have water that want to flow over and through our property when we get heavy enough rain, now we slow that flow down so the water soaks into our sub-soil which is a good way of storing water, we've done it before very simply and got great almost cost free results.

    annette; the berms around the downhill side of single plantings are generally about a meter and/or a bit long, and yes we need excess to flow around one end, so we don't get a was out., now if we did a medium density or high density plant then we would stagger so one berm fed another at overflow just like the key line principal.

    so when we plant in rows the whole of a row becomes a berm.

    our current berms are around 6 meters apart, we will put more in at later stages but for now the soil here is getting something it hasn't had for a very long time, that is water into the sub soil. and ripping would be great if money ever becomes available but for now we'll use what dirt we have and slashed grass rubble berms.

    len
     
  9. Pakanohida

    Pakanohida Junior Member

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    Swales, berms, diversion ditches, and so on are not flow forms, that's my problem I think. I am using a scientific term(s) for something that exists and helps man... ..you are doing something different that makes no sense to me based on my knowledge, use, and evolution of a flow form.

    Secondly, to be glib and write out,
    Makes me infer that you have not bothered to actually read what I had provided since I am trying to understand what you are doing nor what a flow form really is or used for.
     
  10. mouseinthehouse

    mouseinthehouse Junior Member

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    Paka, not sure that flow forms are recognised in the scientific literature in the sense of that illustrated in the link?
     
  11. Pakanohida

    Pakanohida Junior Member

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    The first link I was showing what they are, no more or less. However this...

    ..this book certainly does. All the information about E. Coli counts in grey water ponds cleaned with a flow form & plants on an island for a school near a northern Ocean which was the first installation ever done. As well as other scientific information, evolution of them, etc. Such as, to quote


    RE: Cosmetic, this international company uses flow forms.
     
  12. mouseinthehouse

    mouseinthehouse Junior Member

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    A lot of the claims made around flow forms are not recognised in the scientific community and do not stand up to scientific scrutiny. But there are certainly factors around water flow and movement and interaction with other biophysical elements which are well documented regarding oxygenation, purification, sediment and nutrient deposition etc. 'Flow forms' may have some of these elements.
    The distinction comes in when some try to claim physical properties or characteristics that water does not have and this is often linked to some sort of mythical, spiritual element which for a scientist has no place alongside science. If, however, one is inclined to believe this type of thing then of course that is one's prerogative but there are a lot of charlatans out there on the net marketing products for all sorts of things which have no efficacy whatsoever and some of these are linked to pages on 'flow forms'. Caution needs to be applied. :)
     
  13. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    you can pursue whatever angle you wish paka,

    i stated in simple terms what we are doing i'm happy with past results and future ones

    len
     
  14. Pakanohida

    Pakanohida Junior Member

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    I cannot agree with this statement at all due to reading the book, and seeing the installations along with the before & after data.

    I do understand that a garrish website and claims (by more then this person) that water has other unknown properties is beside the point. It is a device, based on observation, that does have positive impacts on water, and other uses. It is even in the Permaculture Designers Manual, to quote directly from page, 102...
    However, my point still remains, what is really being done since this is really not dealing with flow forms.
     
  15. Pakanohida

    Pakanohida Junior Member

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    Really? I am having a hard time understanding what you wrote at all since most of it comes across choppy at best in this thread.
     
  16. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    wow another critic,

    take care paka
     
  17. Pakanohida

    Pakanohida Junior Member

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    Critic? I am not being critical, I am trying to understand, very large difference. :think:
     
  18. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    that's ok then, but why denegrate what i am doing?

    i am always out there trying to encourage others, we have a well visited web page, never see anyone in a critical mind set achieve in those quarters.

    there's a saying paka, KISS = Keep It Simple Stupid, got that from a yankee motivational speaker speaking to middle managers.

    add in: hydroponics is a flow form, knew a piscatorial scientist (he discovered and name the "blue mullet fish" in qld. his flow form was all water for his fish tanks (cement) so water started at teh top being pumped in and flowing through all tanks to the bottom, where he emptied it into the sewerage. bit of a trap for him was the council lined all water mains with cement, killed all his fish. but being an exalted scientist he could go collect more.

    len
     
  19. annette

    annette Junior Member

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    thanks Len

    cheers
    Annette
     
  20. Pakanohida

    Pakanohida Junior Member

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    :emo:

    From my very 1st post I said I am not trying to start anything. I am trying to understand what you are getting on about. I merely stated that the link provided is what a flow form is. You turned around and dismissed me and it with, and I quote message #4, line 2...
    :think:

    Which is why I then provided research material in the form of a link to a book (which is found in some libraries already). Which again, you dismissed very out of hand, which goes against.
    You are not always trying to encourage others, I could cite numerous posts, but instead I will keep it to this thread considering you dismissed very out of hand the technology without even reading up on it at all which is very obvious by your comments. I then provided additional information for Mouse.

    :think:

    Lastly, and again, that is NOT what a flow form is. A Flow Form can be part of a hydroponic system, but it is not the system itself, nor is it anything other than those structures which have important purposes. :nerd:

    Maybe there is an English communication gap due to regionalism, maybe not. All I know is what a flow form really is, how they work, and how good they are.

    I sadly have no clue what you are getting on about.
     

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