One of the goals of permaculture is to hang on to the water that you get. To keep the water available for plant and animal life. Once green things are growing and shading, the sun isn't able to bake as much of the moisture out of the soil and then you are on the road to true fertility.

We've begun some efforts to hold onto some of our water and to slow the process of the sand and soil moving of the top of the hill where our domestic area is perched and we hope to keep it for the foreseeable future.

Swales

These swales (long ditches running 'on contour') slow down the movement of water running downslope, catch and hold enough of it that we even get a little standing water immediately after a good rainfall. This water soaks in and is then available to the plants in the immediate vicinity. This process also catches sand and soil that would otherwise run away from us entirely.

We are pleased to find that the swales also work to decrease the erosion we experience from wind during the dryer seasons. We have to maintain and redig the swales frequently, but they are a cheap and low tech way to move towards water and soil retention.

The next step will be to do plantings along the tops of the swales so that the roots hold the dirt in place and the plant can use the water that collects there.

Gabions

We have a couple of sizeable washes running through our property. One is big enough that we had to install a culvert with a pipe running through it as part of our driveway.

A couple of times a year, huge quantities of water rush through these washes. Our first experimental gabions have worked quite well at slowing down the water enough to create a small standing pond. The water you see in this picture will soak in and disappear in a fairly short time, but it is better to keep it here than let it run off and away taking soil with it.

Properly designed, a series of these water speed bumps might enable us to even create a stock pond on the property. The lower field has enough clay in the soil that we could attempt such a construction project.