Swales

I have a bit of really dedicating to research. When I get in the mood to learn about something, I really commit.

Today on a local Facebook gardening group, someone posted a video which linked to a cool page about "greening the desert". Basically, at one point, huge swales were built in the Sonoran desert (where I live!) and one of them has become an oasis.

Being who I am, I went in to hard core research mode. I found the coolest swale guide! It even includes a list of saline tolerant plants!

As you can probably tell, this is a big deal to me. Living in the desert is hard. Growing in the desert is hard. Raising livestock in the desert is pretty impractical, to be completely honest.

We have a few problems that are unique to living in the desert, besides just the lack of rain. We get about 10 inches of rain a year. Let that sink in. Now, getting so little rain means 1. our soil is very salty and 2. our dirt is hard packed and water just runs off (erosion!) without really absorbing and redepositing in our water table.

So what's a swale? Well, the easiest way I can explain it is: A swale is a trench (filled with organic matter) with a berm (full of plants of varying root depths) beside it. The swale is supposed to help catch water and allow it to seep in to the water table and prevent run off and the berm with plants helps to prevent erosion as the water sinks down. Trees are planted nearby to help prevent evaporation while the water is still filtering into the ground. The swale helps water the plants that grow along the berm (further inhibiting erosion by helping to establish strong root systems) as well as helping water the trees. Beyond this, it helps create a fertile area for plants to grow and improves the local water table. This is all great. Modern agriculture is rough on the land, but by creating swales and  by planting  in the berms, perhaps it can help the desert thrive? 

So I did more research. Swales are actually pretty highly recommended regardless of annual rainfall, but swales in the desert need to be built differently because we do not have steady rain year around, but instead intermittent flash flooding over about 3 months.

I've reached out to a few local homesteading groups in the hopes that some have first hand experience. As we're hoping to find a property with a well (or install one after the fact), it'll be really important to manage our water table efficiently. I can't think of anything worse than running out of water in the desert.