g'day luisa,

how's the property going? roughly where is it situated ie.,. s/e qld, nth/west nsw??

sounds like a bit of a challenge, maybe you could post some pic's on the web somewhere?

anyhow we had a block (70 acres) we bought it was agriculturaly degraded land, but our research indicated the land could be revived with a gentle touch and that is waht happened in under 5 years we had improved the moisture holding capacity and this refelected in the qulaity of the pasture grasses that grew and how easy it became for young trees to grow when we planted them.

anyhow take a gander at our site the permaculture essay may hold some keep it simple ideas for you.

len

Here is a link that might be useful: lens garden page

Hi Len (and anyone else reading !)
I'm in central Queensland and boy did it get cold the night before last!!! +4 deg C !!! geez how do people survive in these cold climates!!?? bet the Canuks have a laugh at me!

Yes I have checked your site a number of times over the past 2 years, since starting to establish my "rainforest" patch. I am trying to pull threads of my life together and thought a quick SWOT at this point might be useful.

Strengths (S)
plenty of year-round sun (10hr/day winter, 14hr/day summer),
creek flat soils,
owner with good solid govt job hence $$ to put in,
land does not need to support us yet hence time for rehab,
cheap access to treated town water,
weeds mostly cleared now, and
riparian strip rehab completed.

Weaknesses (W)
soil structure pretty much destroyed,
owner with limited time,
very hot in summer! paddocks exposed,
house yard has to be kept clear for vehicle access,
in-town situation can be limiting, and
have some petty crim neighbours.

Opportunities (O)
plenty of open land to rehab,
many trees already established (some suckering and seeding into the open),
water from rainfall drains internally,
soil still grows good trees if they are established properly, and
plenty of time to allow rehabbing.

Threats (T)
debt to pay off,
suburban pressures (land mgt and animals).

Nice thread on finances by the way Joel.
The owner has to go now and earn $$ but talk to y'all later.

Luisa

This is hard to advise about, in any detail, with info we're getting as brief written text, over the Internet. You've got a good start on your analysis. Unless you bring in an expert consultant, you will be the person who will be the most perceptive about your land, who will know it best. Also, no one else can hope to understand your needs and aspirations in relation to a homeplace as well as yourself.

Sounds like you may want to do some organic gardening plus some landscaping, certainly including trees. There aree lots of reference books, and your local library will probably have many. I'm attaching a link that provides the briefest, most basic of intros to Permaculture, including a book list at the end.

You may want, in some places, to plant some fast-growing trees that can provide shade for slower-growing, more ultimately desirable trees. You can probably research these through local plant nurseries.

You may want to enrich some of your soil at the patch or field level, in which case planting it for a year or two to some legumous field crop which you then till under, when it matures, may be a good approach -- if you want to go "no-till" after that, that's your choice.

Also, if you read the article I've put a link to, think about the design considerations of placements or "zones" when laying out your land design... it's a pretty natural thing to do.

Hope this helps just a bit...

Joel

Here is a link that might be useful: Thumbnail intro to Permaculture

g'day luisa,

how much rainfall do you expect to get to work with? when you say central i guess that means west of the range or thereabouts? i lived in rocky for a while, so guess that is a lot more east or maybe not? the closer to the coast your are and if east of the range your chances of rain are increased. a good rain guage is a valuable tool so you can create your own records and so you know when rain falls if it is enough or too much etc.,. the coastal strip is usually considered to end about 50k from the coast max' once you get beyond that to the west then rainfalls can decrease rather dramatically. then there are going to micro climate considerations these can improve you position or make it worse.

not sure on the aspect of the land, and being used for agriculture will almost ensure all or any true top soil is gone to errosion. so basically as with most who buy ex-ag and you are dealing with true sub-soil.

anyhow just by your brief you need to deal with the soil issue, by draining internally do you mean water just soaks right in and through it?

anyhow if so it could be what is classed as scrub country, so you will need to get swales and mulching the area going pretty much just ahead of your tree planting. so what you do now as you aren't relying on the land for habitation or food etc.,. is to prepare it all, and tree planting or creating rain forest groves?! might be better playing less of a part. so maybe you could describe the soil type ie.,. sandy loam, heavy clay or shaley/stoney soil???

if the water holding capacity of the soil isn't there then you could need to do a lot more watering just to keep trees alive in their young stage. do you have any knowledge as what the quality of the aquafa is (not advocating using it as it is habitat and in permacuture we should be very carefull in that area), but if you have some knowledge it will help you to select trees that will do much better (go for indemic native species),

eg.,. it could be salty, brakish with varying degrees of saltiness, or it could be fresh enough to drink? then there are variable like the levels of calcium (mot so bad) or there is another substance that alludes me right now could be phosporous but can't think right now, all these things are going to have a bearing on what you do at the surface. if i knew what the type of country was i could reasonably estimate at least the salt levels.

yes unfortunately nowadays in rural if it isn't welded down or bolted down it will walk.

imperative to plant along the contours get the mulching happening, get swaling going, if it is scrub country poor water holding capacity then get clean fill dumped on site and spread about especially if it contains clay. get locals to dump all their green material on site, hire a chipper when you have enough and chip it broadcasting it around.

now's the time to think home design for efficiencies a lot of head work needed and no heart work if you get what i mean?

len

Here is a link that might be useful: lens garden page

Sorry Len and Joel that I haven't got back to respond before now. Had some dramas that were rather distracting. Thanks for your advice, both of you.

The block is internally draining in that there is a natural levee along the creek bank and then there is a higher older creek terrace about 100metres back, so all rain that falls runs into the middle of the paddocks. There'd have to be a real deluge to have it overflow down the end, it seems to all soak in.

The soil was duplex and as is typical of over-cultivated duplex soils, now has a top layer of clay which bakes hard, interspersed with lots and lots of small rocks. Or at least that's what I always think it is cause that's how it is near the house. Further down is not too bad and at least the weeds cover the ground in autumn and I get them slashed now before seed-set so weeds going down, humus going up.

Zones are going to be tough. The house is on a suburban block tongue of the land out front (if you know what I mean by that). Hence the only vehicle acces is around the house, hence the house yard has to be kept clear, hence zone 1 has to be empty. No water tanks, no herb gardens, nothing like that. Storing tools and a worm farm is about it. We have a few fruit trees around the edges though.

I wiped out all the weed trees first up and have been reveging along the creek, letting anything native grow if it appears in the paddock. The rainforest patch was put in cause one patch was so bad nothing would grow there, not even forbs. What else do you do with really bad soil? you put in a rainforest, about the only thing that grows on such awful soil. They have shallow roots. So I had it ripped, fenced, put in a drip irrigation system, and then planted with a variety of rainforest trees. They exploded away! So now (less than 2 years later) we have a mature, fenced, sheltered, self-mulched, drip-irrigated plot, which looks so much better and we are underplanting with productive vines and backfilling gaps with fruit trees.

I have to go but pleased to hear from you and I'll be back. AND I'll check those links you gave me too!!

I shouldn't have said "mature rainforest", that's just stupid. I meant some of the _trees_ are now approaching their mature size.

And I shouldn't have said the _soil_ is awful, actually it's now recovering and not too bad; however, the soil _structure_ is very poor in some places and esp. the spot where the rainforest plot is, used to be really bad. We planted some fruit trees on the weekend and surprised how much it is improving now, even in places where it still looks crook on the surface.

And I also meant to say that I don't know much about soils and soil structure but I found this site while doing some net trawling and it describes part of my land to a Tee :

http://www.neon.net.au/community/environment/fguide/detosub.html

g'day luisa,

it would be pretty improtant then to get some sort of swalling happening to stop run off down slopes and put it under ground where you need it.

also be sure that all plantings are done along the contours so that they enhance the swalling or become part of it.

don't be too concerend with zones, they at best are only guides as to what you may need to fit your land, for the main you should plan and plant to suit the needs of you land to help the soil improve. to me it sounds like rips along the contours will be the best swaling you can do (economical and low imact on the landscape) that with rows of mulch and tree rows mulched along the line as well.

it takes time for soil to build to a workable stage but if you get the grass and weeds growing and slash and mulch them that will help. not sure what you mean by weed trees? but generally ibn permaculture there isn't any thing that is realy a weed.

anything that grows is a source of nitrogen and trace elements that can be mulched to improve the soil. gypsum is cheap once you have the rips done lay heaps of that around as well.

len

Here is a link that might be useful: lens garden page

g'day luisa,

if your soil is like what is on that link then you need to think soil building long before you need to worry about whether you need zones/permaculture design or not???

are you able to indicate what rainfall you may recieve a year?

i will itterate i would not treat anything as a weed right now well outside of grounsel, lantana and mother of millions, anything you can get growing on site the better and slash and mulch.

get the nitorgen fixers ggrowing right through from the wyncassia, pigeon peas, leucania to the casuarinas and acacias. check on my site on the property pics index there is a list of trees planted in their i have a list of legumous things that might inspire.

the very best that using p/c principals can offer you at present is swalling, using the contours & not treating anything like it is a weed.

the rest of p/c is just common sense natural organic methods, adding dolomite/lime and gypsum (by the truck loads it is not expensive stuff), organic matter even if you become the dumping ground for any of that green material from your local community. even clean solid fill even if they are clay you will be importing elements that may be deficient, so you main stay will be gypsum you can't use too much.

would suggest that if good rain is coming do some seeding of grasses stick to the native grasses though, especially if you have done those rip swales too easy.

len

Hello Len and everyone else,
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you hope my life settles down a bit now.

The hardpan area is the area visible from the paddock gate hence it colours my perception of the paddocks but not in a rose-coloured-glasses way. When I actually walk the paddocks and remember what they used to be like 9 years ago IÂm pleased and heartened with how much progress they/we/IÂve made. A lot of the hardpan (which was only 1/3 of the area to begin with) has now been converted to useable soil, even if itÂs not used for growing food right now. And I have enough experience with it now to know how to go about converting the remainder.

The area in front of the sheds was really bad  full Sun in Summer and hard baked. CouldnÂt even drill a hole in it with the hose going full bore. I scrapped enough depth to get some tree seedlings in, and used to water it with a circular sprinkler which wasted a lot of water but at least soaked the ground enough for some infiltration. Then I used any and everything I could get to shade the ground. I used 2 old timber pallets and grass clippings, used cat litter (pelletised paper), shredded paper, anything. Eventually I had the ground shaded and watered enough for the greeblies to move back in and now the trees are doing well. But this was a small area, wouldnÂt want to try rehabbing large areas that way.

The goose yard and the rainforest patch are also on ex-hardpan, further downslope from those first trees. Info on plants says whether they are Âfull sun or Âpart sun but in my experience this is too vague. Full sun in cold climates is not the same as full sun in the tropics  they need to specify hours, or temperature, or exposure conditions. Now that most parts of this area have half-day shade it is improving but still it required nursing of trees that are actually hardy full sun species.

IÂve had time so been doing some thinking about strategic directions. The three big issues to be overcome are : harvesting the rare but heavy rain events; rehabilitating the hardpan areas; and getting microclimates established to moderate the extreme heat (ie shade).

Installing rainwater tanks is both impractical and not necessary as we have town water. The money is better spent elsewhere. So hereÂs what IÂm thinking of doing.

One downspout from the house, possibly two, could have ag pipe fitted to collect roofwater and these could be laid along the ground beside the fence, dropping water into the paddock. This prevents water lying around the house yard and harvests it for paddock use.

The 2 sheds currently have no gutters or downspouts  when it rains water falls and lies everywhere, if enough of it, then it flows across to the front of the paddock gate and then down slope where vehicle access normally is. It is starting to develop into gully erosion but still very small and preventable. So I can put gutters and downpipes on the sheds and collect the water, preventing all-over mud (if/when it ever rains!). Then attach more ag pipe or similar to collect the water from the down spout and pipe it into a shallow basin nearby (where the aforementioned timber pallets rehab took place). The geese would then puddle in this mud, so I could then scrap off the top mud layers and use to heap up along the downslope edge of the basin (swale). Runoff then would infiltrate into the soil, so watering the trees over the long term.

Now the hardpan has two good points, it sheets water and is easy to drive on even when wet. So I can use those two points to my advantage. IÂll set up vehicle access lanes. Between the rainforest and the immediate neighbours backyards, and downslope of the paddock gate, thereÂs a large triangle of open hardpan still to be converted. I can have this ripped, and plough lots of cow and horse manure in (I can buy this cheap locally) and fence it off, leaving room for vehicles between the various fences. Then plant it with a mixture of herbs and vegies. Any water running off from further up will infiltrate when it hits this planted area. In other words it will act as both garden and subsurface dam. It gets full Sun in Summer and Winter.

Those are the plans in my head at present. I need to think some more about them and see what refinements I can add. If anyone wants to contribute ideas, questions, criticisms, IÂd be pleased to hear from you. I am using this forum as a sounding board for my thoughts so apologies about the length of this post!! Explaining it all to you guys has helped me to think through my ideas so it has been a big help already.

Kind regards,
Luisa

g'day luisa,

good to see you back.

rainwater is a resource and in permaculture manging and saving resources is part of the agenda, town suplied water nowadays can't be relied upon so we need to move away from using that as much as possible.

the other way to save the valuable resource is to store it in the structure of the soil on you property, you don't mention much in that area. distributing over the surface is probably not the best way of managing that resource (unless of course you get heaps and heaps of rain??). do you know aht you can anticipate getting in rainfal, per year? keep in mind you need to direct run off to underground or into the soil and permiation isn't going to get it deep enough, again unless you are in a very high rainfall are like fnq/darwin.

can't recall if we have mentioned this before but have you given consideration to swalling the property to get that water into the soil where you need it the most? the most cost effective way for you if you are on a budget is to rip with a single ripper along your contour lines. you need to have some perception of what rain you may get to determine how far apart the rips should be or any swale for that matter.

on the matter of ploughing/tilling this again is not a regular consideration in permaculture as this action looses valuable moisture from the soil can cause water errosion in heavy following rains or wind errosion. it also damages the soil structure which is something you need to keep in good stead if you are going to get long term results without lots of effort. remember permaculture is also about productivity that is output matched against input (money/effort) the lower the input against the production/output the better you are.

that is why i found rip swales so much better in the system as well as raised bed gardening (bludge gardening i call) once you have the beds made the hard work is over, too easy. and in your case i see raised beds as being a real boom for you, they can be built along the contours again and act as swales as well.

so with your tree planting along contours and in the food trees mulch not just around them but along their rows you again develop swales.

water is always going to be your most valuable resource, and my recommendation would be to allocate funds to tanks or some sort of water colection so you allocate the use of the resource in a more managed way. you won't regret the move.

are you collection mulchable material from locals as yet? it stil sound like you need a big injection of organic matter into you land.

len

Hi Len,

thanks for your posts.

I want to plough in the manure but it would be only once, I'm not planning on regular ploughing. Just to break up the hardpan and get some organic in to get started.

The hardpan area is slightly upslope of land which is still in good condition, and what happens is the water flows across the hardpan and then permeates into the soil. It must permeate into the soil because it never flows off the block and the neighbours stormwater runoff also flows into my paddocks and then permeates.

I expect to be buying in organic matter regularly for quite a while. This is not going to be an issue, it just has to happen.

I can not see where tanks would fit in my yard as they would block vehicle access (which I will still need for some years yet - I have the paddock slashed once a year and am getting on top of annual weeds that way). Town water is plentiful and cheap. I can't even put an underground tank in the back yard cause the sewer and electrical lines run at right angles to each other across the yard. Instinctively I want tanks but can not work out (yet) where to put them that would work. I have gone over this many times in my head. I'm trying to design systems to work long term.

Additionally, little of my water use is in the house. I even have illegal greywater collection and reuse systems set up which has cut back use of town water. Most of my water use is outside, away from the house, and I know soil is the cheapest place to store water, that's why I think that getting the soil healed (reconditioned) is the first step, and part of that is redirecting the flows to where they are going to be most useful.

One thing I do know is that if I start where I can and make some progress in the right direction, other opportunities will come up later as a result. I have seen this happen many times in many endeavours. eg if I put gutters and downspouts on the sheds, this year the water may be redirected into a shallow basin, but in X years time those downspouts can be reworked to feed into tanks when the situation is right. Spending on these sorts of infrastructure is never wasted.

The trees I have used in the past include Acacias and Casuarinas and will continue with them, they not only are nitrogen fixers but have tough roots which penetrate even hard soils and they have been big helpers with getting the ball rolling.

I'd better go now, talk to you again some time,
Luisa