Aerial photo of Kirwin, with Milkwood top left-ish. Taken in about 2002, we think. 

Standing on a bare hilltop, with the creek below and a small creekflat to the left, it all seemed so easy when we first got here... all we had to do was figure out where to put some structures, avoid the big trees, and build a bridge over the creek to get in. Grow something on the creekflat, put in a vegie garden, and get water from the sky... and the rest of it all, all those complex ideas and fiddly bits, could just wait till we were nicely set up.

 However, the more we sat and looked, and the more we thought about it, we realised that establishing a well-functioning Permaculture system was going to take a bit of planning. Rushing in putting down a driveway, and putting up a studio, wasn't an option. So, we went back to the basics of Permaculture design: Water. Access. Structure. In that order. Hard to stick to, when it gets down to -17 here in winter... but we're still here, now on the sunny-side of that first winter, and we're now ready to implement our Permaculture design for Milkwood.

 Milkwood - Permaculture Design

I know the above design may look fairly un-interesting at first glance - but I assure you it is TREMENDOUSLY EXCITING and, in addition, quite a damn fine Permaculture design, as far as designs go. The blue bits are dams, the dark-brown lines are swales, and the yellow thing is the studio, with the kitchen garden next to it (the little green bit). The lighter brown lines are the access roads, to enable us to get vehicles everywhere that we need to during system establishment, and the greeny-blue line is the existing creek.

 The swales are the thing we are most excited about. Without going into a lengthy explanation, swales are water-harvesting elements (they look like long ditches), made exactly on-contour within the landscape. Basically, everything uphill from the swale (in terms of rain + nutrient run-off) flows downhill into the swale. At this point, the water is captured, and ends up sitting in the swale, rather than rushing off downhill to the creek. The swale then fills up along its entire length, until the overflow pours into the dam that is attached to it at some point.

If you have a series of these systems, you end up with long canals of water in the landscape, everytime you get a big rain. The water quickly soaks into the downhill side of the swale, making the downhill side of the swale a *great* place to grow trees. And your dams fill up. And your trees grow. And the whole landscape has heaps more water in it, not just on it - you want to store water IN not ON the landscape if you possibly can. Which makes the creeks flow for longer. Which nudges everything towards a more stable ecosystem. Which is not just good, but great. It benefits us, our food production, the wallabies and the water table. Hurrah.

 Milkwood - Permaculture Design with Aerial photo underlay...

So that's it. Three dams (plus the one at bottom left, which is on next-door's land, but will feed our system), three long swales. Some access, and a studio-site. Which just happens to be right next to the middle dam. Which will provide thermal mass and temperature stabilization (not to mention reflected light in winter). And which will also mean that we can jump off the front deck of the studio into the water. To swim with the fishes. And the ducks, and the yabbies, and the frogs, and the turtles.... 

Now all we have to do is... do it. 

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Comments (12)

Stuart said:

The harvesting water plans look great. Knowing first hand how deep those dam(n) holes are, I think you'll have plenty of water. Good luck!

January 17, 2008

Steve Balogh said:

looks great! can't wait to see the updates on building (earthmoving) progress. Signed, A lurker

January 17, 2008 | url

Guy Stewart said:

Looks like a fantastic plan guys! I've been working on some similar(although hand tool scale) on-contour drainage ditches here too. It has been raining every day of the new year (and a fair few before that too). So far recorded over 500mm in 17 days. At one point the ground was saturated and everything was becoming run-off. That is a first for us on this sandy site. Earlier in the history of our block there was a machine sized swale dug. It is the spill way for one of our sandy bottom dams (that act more to slow the water movement than store it). We saw it in action for the first time - flooding a good long section of the landscape that is dotted with fruit trees. I wish I could be there to experience the works with you - perhaps down the path a bit there will be a milkwood permaculture short course that matches my free time! Good luck!

January 17, 2008 | url

Kiashu said:

Looks good! I expect to see lots of photos of you lot with shovels

January 19, 2008 | url

Sam H said:

Great stuff guys . Just did a course in Melbourne with Geoff and Bill and am seeing the words of wisdom transfer directly to your design. I am sending a New Yorker sound guy your way . He just did the course with me and I told him about these very interesting characters that have this place called Milkwood. He will contact you soon.

January 20, 2008

Stuart & Gabrielle said:

Happy New Year, guys! The plan looks absolutely superb and, with your arty skills, the presentation is world class. We're looking forward to seeing it develop. And, if you still have water problems once it's all done (we doubt it) perhaps we should rig up some sort of pipeline from Brittany, because we've too much.

January 22, 2008 | url

Jason said:

Hi Guys, How long have you been on the site for? Are you familiar with weather patterns in the area, rainfall per year, frost and such. How did you factor these things in to your design? Are you going for a passive solar design with the studio and other living quarters? And what materials will you be building with? Are you planning to implement such systems as gray water filtration through reed beds? I watched the composting videos and thought they were pretty cool. Also, in terms of electricity, do you intend to gather power through wind, solar or other mediums? If you generate more power than you need you can then feed it back into the grid and make money from this to support further developments. Is there a co-op in your local area, or perhaps some form of trade/barter system for acquiring those items that are not so easily grown/made yourself? I think you guys are doing a great job. Keep up the good work.

January 26, 2008 | url

Nick said:

Hi Jason, We've been here for just over 12 months, but our family has owned the property next door for about 10 years, so we have a pretty good idea of the weather around here. We get down to -12c in winter and up to 40c in summer, frost for up to 4 months of the year, occasional snow. Our rainfall is approximately 700mm per year. The design is all about moderating these extremes, creating micro-climates and interacting with the natural forces that flow through our property. Wind, rain, sunshine and frost. The studio is likely to be infill straw-bale with natural earth render, maybe a little rammed earth on the northern wall. It is completely passive solar with the addition of 1.5 million kilograms of thermal mass with a reflective surface directly downslope to the north it.... it's called a dam. The grey water system is still in it's early design stages, but we are planning to incorporate a worm farm prior to the reed bed to act as a living grease trap. Electricity will be solar, but we are still weighing up the options as to whether it will be grid connected or stand alone. I have a great book on DIY wind turbines so id' like to give that a go at some point. Grid connection is not really about making a profit, electricity is so under-valued that you would be crazy to grid connect to try and make a profit. We have a farmers market in mudgee, so we have been thinking about maybe selling excess there, but probably only high value stock... maybe seedling trees. Thanks for taking an interest. Nick

January 27, 2008 | url

NIck said:

Cheers sam, William and Helen arrived late last night after a bit of car trouble and getting lost... we are just about to give them the tour.

January 27, 2008 | url

Jason said:

Hi Nick, I LOVE strawbale construction : ) Sounds like you guys have put heaps of thought into the development of this project. My mother was an organic primary producer in QLD up until a couple of years ago. She had been using wind generators combined with solar panels to power her property for around 10 years and still managed to make enough power to feed back into the grid. Admittedly, it only made her around $20 a month (depending on how much television she watched), but it was still helpful. Is the creek on your property flowing? I understand there are many areas where construction cannot be within a certain distance of a natural creek/river, but, if you are able, perhaps hydroelectricity could be an option?

January 27, 2008

Nick said:

There is surely something wonderful about strawbale The creek usually flows, sometimes it drys up in a drought. The local council requires that you can't build within 50 metres of the creek and to build anything within 20 metres requires approval by the state government Department of Natural Resources. We would love to do micro hydro, but the creek only has a relatively gentle fall as it flows past our place and the volume of flow is often quite small... maybe one day we'll try something out.

January 28, 2008 | url

Monica said:

Cool! Even I can understand what you're doing now...

February 06, 2008 | url

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