The first short hugel swale is in. I took a week of holiday off work to do this construction. I had some other work to do as well, so the following description is the result of about 5 days work. Just me, my tractor and my trusty Yamaha Grizzly atv (nicknamed JOAT - Jack of all trades, which it truly is).

The structure is comprised of several parts. The first is a trench about 20 foot long, 3.5 foot deep filled with downed trees and woody slash. (One main purpose of the hugelbed part of our structure is to dispose of slash which otherwise would remain a fire hazard amongst the trees.)

Uphill of the trench is 4 foot of ground with the grass and topsoil removed that has been dug and dropped in situ to be the bottom layer of the berm.

Uphill of the berm is a 30' long by 5ft wide swale.

I dug the hugelbed first, filled it with wood, then covered it with the subsoil. Then disturbed the ground under the berm-to-be. Then removed and set aside the turf and topsoil from the swale-to-be. The subsoil from the swale was spread over both the intended berm and the hugelbed. The saved topsoil was then spread over the combined berm and hugelbed.

The turf was then laid in the swale as a grassy lane.  I then worked over the berm, breaking up the clods and smoothing the surface. I then mowed and swept the lawn around the house and used the clippings as mulch for this project. The combined hugelbed and swale was covered with curlex blanket and pegged down with 50 bamboo poles. The swale is about 30' long - it sticks out beyond the hugelbed trench, which has been left open at one end, to find it when I extend the hugelswale for the remainder of the 110' planned length.

This first escapade is intended to demo to family and friends what I mean by a hugelswale, to observe how it works for the next 4 months and to use it as the template for the excavator driver to follow in digging the remainder of the planned hugelswales for this year. I hope to establish about 550' this year (but that is dependent on available time and money).

Unfortunately, I ran out of time and did not get a chance to plant any of the eventual overstory species, but in retrospect, that will be a good thing. The berm has been seeded with inoculated hairy vetch and field pea. The slope uphill of the swale is seeded with buckwheat, not mulched as I ran out of time. The grassy lane in the swale has the saved turves, but has been overseeded with crimson clover. The peas, vetch and buckwheat will be chopped and dropped this year as green compost. Where I have brush hogged this year, there is woody mulch that can be raked and used as well. A final thought on curlex. I have read negative comments because it uses plastic netting to hold the wood shavings together - not organic. However, it is plastic that biodegrades in sunlight. I am giving it a try and will report back here on what happens. It seems very useful for the purpose of holding mulch and protecting loose soil. 

I will ignore this hugelswale for 2 months and see what happens. Worst case scenario is that this little structure becomes a fun bit of territory for playing with the atvs. Best case scenario is it works as planned and the OH is sufficiently impressed that I can go ahead and spent time and money completing the rest of the plan.

Lessons learned...I had visions of saving the cost of the excavator by digging the hugelswales entirely using the backhoe on my tractor. That is not going to happen! I don't have enough life or holiday to spend another 20 weeks doing it that way. A backhoe is just not the right tool for this job.....possible, but not practical. I will either rent an excavator or hire one in with a driver. Second lesson, I didn't go deep enough with either the hugelbed or the swale. I say that  in part because the subsoil is about 50% clay and in part because I intend to build a lot of topsoil in these swales, which will cause them to get shallower over time. A rainstorm the day before I finished demonstrated that the water will sink, but not very fast. The deeper you go, the more subsoil has to be heaped onto the berm and the wider the berm has to be to accommodate that subsoil without exceeding the material's angle of repose. So the extension to this structure will be at least 3 ft wider in that dimension. I have gone too steep with the berm, but I expect it will settle significantly and will probably be OK. The curlex just loves boot lace hooks and the boot treads and therefore is a bit awkward to walk or kneel on, and it rips relatively easily. I intended to plant through it. Next time I will seed first, at least for the green manure.