Swales!

We have taken advantage of the nice weather in January to build some swales.  The first one was to both clean out the catchment area at the bottom of our driveway ditch and to redirect water that was flowing across the bottom of our driveway into the road.  It went something like this...

We had created a wide, shallow drainage area after the culvert under out driveway.  This allows any sediment to settle out before the water flows on which keeps valuable topsoil on our property and not in our neighbor's pond.  The catchment area had completely filled up, so we dug out this valuable resource.

Kids and Jeremy filling the wheelbarrow

Then we moved the soil and created a berm/swale along the south side of our driveway to redirect water into the roadside ditch instead of across our driveway.

Catherine by the completed ditch

Jeremy did some additional swale digging this week also.  He dug out the next 2 grape swales behind the hoop house so that we can move our grapes from their temporary bed in the garden up to their permanent homes.  That will free up some valuable planting space in the garden and will give the vines a chance to really grow.  Eventually, this hillside will be a small vineyard.

Swales on contour to catch water for the grapes.

Jeremy's been busy on some other fun projects, but I haven't gotten around to getting pictures of them yet.  It will have to wait for another post.  ;-)

We also have a ton of little herbs and onions growing on the seed stand now.  They're coming along nicely and I'm looking forward to starting this year's cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower soon.  Spring is coming...