- Home>
- How to Irrigate without Expensive Sprinklers and Build a Natural Pond
Technology is a funny thing – in so many ways, it’s made our lives better and easier, but in a lot of others, it’s over-complicated seemingly simple tasks, more often than not in a scheme to get us to think we need to buy stuff to do stuff.
That’s just not the case.
You don’t need sprinklers to keep your gardens watered, any more than you need to water them two or three times a day to keep your plants happy. You can create a simple, effective water solution on your property that not only keeps your garden watered and lush, but also manages water runoff, and creates a beautiful ecosystem as a result.
With just a little bit of learning and some hard work initially, you can use hugelkultur and swales to keep your gardens watered, create a more resilient permaculture garden, and manage excess water, without drainage ditches, plastic irrigation line, and big expensive pond liners.
You might need an excavator, depending on the scale of what you’re doing, but a shovel and some sweat will get the job done just the same.
This video series won’t just show you how to make the most of water on your property – it will also help to support endeavors to make sustainable homesteading and self reliance more realistic for everyone.
Permaculture in a nutshell is this crazy idea that maybe Mother Nature knows what she’s doing – that the best systems, in both agriculture, building, animal husbandry, and well, everything – are based on self sufficiency, and modeled after what is already working in nature.
, Paul WheatonI’m known as the tyrannical dictator of Permies.com, the largest permaculture forum on the web. As a certified master gardener and permaculture designer, I’ve built an online empire around what I call, ‘infecting brains with permaculture’.
Most recently, I’ve worked with rocket mass heater experts Ernie and Erica in developing a 4 DVD set on all things rocket mass heaters. My recent work with natural buildings based on Mike Oehler’s designs have resulted in the creation of the Wofati, a semi underground natural home design.
I’m also proud to have been crowned the Duke of Permaculture by Geoff Lawton and the Bad Boy of Permaculture by the Occupy Monsanto movement.
My hope with this DVD set was to help the regular Joe’s and Janes of the world to get started with their gardens, and know that there is a better way. I wanted to create a video series that was inspiring, practical, informative, and a great starting point for people looking to start switching over to doing things simpler and more sustainably.
I’m on a mission to spread this knowledge as far and wide as I can, while simultaneously helping to fund keeping the largest permaculture forum on the web, Permies.com, up and running, so brilliant, hard working permaculturists from around the world can continue to connect and learn.
Permaculture is a huge topic, and one that can literally be applied to just about any part of your life and homestead, but this video series starts out with the most crucial component of life: water.
I did some workshops on building hugelkultur, swales, and sealing a pond without a liner, and thanks to popular demand, they got turned into this DIY documentary of sorts.
So many times, it seems like the only solution to a problem is an expensive one – excess water runoff means you need to put in drainage ditches. Dry gardens either mean you need to water daily or install an expensive sprinkler or irrigation system.
You have to buy stuff, and dig stuff, set stuff up, and perform maintenance on that stuff, and pay someone to install the stuff, and all the while, it is just becoming a black hole for your cash.
Get the videos now and start building tomorrow.
Learn the simple secrets behind easier gardening and less invasive practices, and get your land working for you in this digital set!
In this video series, my workshop students and I do some critical landscaping to solve a simple problem – too much water runoff. In this movie, you’ll learn:
It’s the plastic-free way to build a pond, and you’ll get to see it all unfold right here as the team pulls together to create an oasis from a destructive deluge of rainwater runoff.
A swale is a simple concept really – it’s just a flat ditch, one that is designed to hold onto and gradually disperse water, rather than divert it.
In this video, I show the workshop participants how swales can be used to hold onto precious water, without overwhelming a landscape. Here, the team connects a finger on the pond to a swale, where the land can act to hold onto any excess water, without the land flooding.
You can use a swale to hold onto moisture in an area, and keep other parts of your property from flooding, acting like a sponge to slowly release water into the landscape. You’ll also get a demonstration is using laser levels – a handy tool in evaluating slopes and inclines in a project like this.
In this video, food production is discussed – how do we use all of that saved water to create a productive garden?
Hugelkultur is soil on wood – a gardening practice that uses piles of wood within garden beds to act as both a nutrient booster and sponge, holding onto water and slowly releasing it to the plants.
In this video, I explain:
There is so much to learn in this one – hugelkultur will forever change the way you garden, and paints a beautiful picture of how permaculture creates a system where both planters and plants just don’t have to work as hard!
“These videos gave me the kick-start I needed to build by first hugel raised beds, and know I know how to build my own pond without the expense of a a liner!”
Rick
Pollinator, permies.com
“…all three films are loaded with knowledge and well worth watching. I especially liked the one about building hugelkultur bed on a terrace.”
Richard
Member, permies.com
“Overall a good primer on basic earthworks construction.”
Dave
Member, permies.com
If you have any issues or questions on the videos, contact us at gir AT richsoil DOT com.
ClickBank is the retailer of products on this site. CLICKBANK® is a registered trademark of Click Sales, Inc., a Delaware corporation located at 917 S. Lusk Street, Suite 200, Boise Idaho, 83706, USA and used by permission. ClickBank’s role as retailer does not constitute an endorsement, approval or review of these products or any claim, statement or opinion used in promotion of these products.