I'm experimenting.  Trying new approaches to permaculture design.  Now, I'm definitely not the first to come up with a swale pathway, but I've added another little feature... a deeper depression below the swale line which acts like a little dam.  All the soil that I dug up from the hole I mounded up in a semicircle - similar to what you would do with a banana circle. 

My idea was to capture any run-off from the rain into the swale which would then overflow into the "dam".  If we had that much rain that the dam filled up, it would run back into the swale and the swale would overflow at the end back into my Australian Native trees.

I have a little birdbath which gets used by the birds in the area.  The crows love dunking their dry bread in this birdbath.  Of course, it gets messy very quickly, so the water has to be changed almost daily.  I don't mind doing that as the left over water waters my trees and it brings the birds into the garden who leave a little manure for my garden too :).

At the back of the mound I have lemon grass, a lemon and lime tree and an avocado (grown from seed).  On the mound I have a curry tree and just on the edges of the depression I planted a mulberry and a bay tree.  The mound itself is covered with sweet potato.  It is quite rampant but very easy to control.

We have had a terribly hot and dry summer - over 31 degrees centigrade for 16 days.  Nothing that you care for will survive in that sweltering heat so yes, I had to water my plants, but not as much had I not had my little depression.

My plan is to make another one of these swale pathways with depression and mound in another part of my garden to capture any run-off and of course, grow more edibles :).