How much top soil is left for conventional farming in the farm belt? Isn’t traditional farming shooting ourselves in the foot over the long term? For short term profits.
Maybe we can expect a second green revolution based on gmo crops or some other as yet unforeseen phenomenon but it makes sense to me to not rely on that.
Fisherman , if left unchecked, historically exploit a natural resource until there’s nothing left. Farmers are doing that with top soil and unreplenishable aquifer water.
I’d be attempting to use the native clay soil that I dig up in the area rather than purchasing truckloads of top soil from elsewhere, if that’s the concern you’re bringing up. The only thing being brought in externally for this project would be composted manure, everything else is sourced locally from the forest on the property and the clay it grows on. The idea is to create a food forest of sorts from all the native biomass available around me. The felled trees were not cut specifically for this purpose, but to clear the area for the homestead to be plopped. Instead of letting them decompose in piles above ground, I thought it’d be a good idea to bury what logs I can and let them decompose under the ground, amending the disturbed clay soil over time.
The main issue is that before my parents plopped the house on the property it was a healthy forest with wonderful top soil, but a mound had to be created to plop the house on top of, destroying a lot of the forest aged topsoil and bringing up all the red clay and rocks that originally lie underneath. While it’s certainly sad that a small ecosystem was destroyed, I’m attempting to make an effort to restore a smaller ecosystem that can thrive for years without much human intervention. I do not plan to industrially farm in the area, I mentioned fruit trees and vineyards as something that may be able to grow on the slope, but a sustainable food forest with native plants that replenish the soil is the overall route I’d like to take.
Although, I wholeheartedly agree with your point that large agriculture and in the same sense fishing, depletes the local resource, causing successive crops/yields/quality to diminish and somewhat destroy whatever diverse ecosystem was there before. I wouldn’t be making a profit off any of this, my parents wish is to live fully off-grid and I’d like to start something sustainable for them, so they can rely on the land they bought.
The greenhouse looks nice. Gothic arch is a great design.
It looks like soil erosion is an immediate concern. It only gets worse when ignored.
I was commenting tangentially and not aiming that at your pursuit.
I never thought about trucks of top soil , that could be a problem but I’m guessing a lot of that is manufactured from humus? @AgTonik do you know is bulk top soil stripped off the earth or manufactured?
What I was referring to is the tilling paradigm that requires chemical fertilizers and pest management to be practical. Tilling slowly causes top soil erosion due to wind shear across the ground surface. Slow and steady. I thought I had seen some more alarming charts / statistics but what I’ve found just now is we have lost 1/3 of the top soil in the farm belt since the green revolution (repurposing nitrogen from ww2)
What you are doing, working to amend clay soil , is admirable and what all the farmers might be doing in a century!
That slope doesn’t appear to great to handle some lifted terracing. Even if you go with trees/vines - you’ll still have that terracing come into play, if only to manage how water is getting to your plants.
Using that hugulkultur method, you can layer out terracing as well (I mean you’re digging trenches, which is a leveling/grading method). So you could plan for what you want to be there. Try to remember that trees as awesome! And @Future knows quite a bit about food forests if you want to ask questions. Row trees are different than a food forest though. Just keep it in mind.
You could totally throw down on terrace grading and hugulkultur with that forested area you have. I planted into mine the very first year - those plants were stupid happy. I’m adding 4 more this year. Yes they are a pain in the ass… but people keep dumping perfectly good wood in the ally behind my house, so I’ll keep using it to do all kinds of stuff - including burning when its the good stuff. I had some issues with skunks/woodchucks, so keep that in mind. The skunks stopped their shit when I covered it over with compost/sod. The woodchucks just have to be relocated (or I suppose you could eat them…)
How steep is your slope, it looks like 10-15 degrees in the photo, but maybe its a perception thing. If so - consider the terracing - they don’t have to be really steep (especially if your slope isn’t that far). you could make 4-5ft terraces with a 6-12 inch drop. And you could get that “drop” just by how you want to place the trenches and the mounds on top. Looks like you probably have enough wood - then its just deciding where you are getting your compost and dumping/moving it.
If you are doing it all by hand with a shovel, sure very hard - years of work if you are also working a job, etc. But if you are using a bobcat well, that’s just a few days worth of moving things around and getting them ready.
Think about it. 
Its 100% both options. You can look into the different places near you. Where I’m from and where I live now both had different options for where the soil would come from. One place was very much a “took it from place A to place B” and you get what you get. Hehehe.
The place I ended up deciding to go with was one that takes lawn debris, food debris, farm debris and mixes it in with construction removal. So its a combination of composted materials and materials that were a waste product from construction sites (soil removal activities).
When I was in KC - there was a place that combined river dredge with compost as well.
Lots of options - in Colorado, there was mostly construction soil removal combined with cow and chicken manure. So many options out there - I bet there’s more than one where you are.
Sometimes I wonder why I am so interested in soil… but then I remember that I GROW THINGS. <3
Welp, @Cassin called me out in DM, so I thought I would clarify . . .
Don’t get me wrong from one sassy comment about regenerative farming and not valuing your time. I’ve done JADAM and regenerative Ag for years and often play devil’s advocate. I run Linux for the tools for OSINT business, but that is an edge case for most people. I’ve done organic craft soil grows and managed 150 flower lights and consulted much larger as a salty cash cropping farmer.
I do care about reducing agrochemical fertilizer and water usage to grow more efficiently when Bayer-Monsanto wants to push their unhealthy solutions on farmers. For most mainstream and row crop farmers it is about striking a balance between input cost and doing the right thing. And at the end of the day, I genuinely care about soil and people’s health.
AgT
I’m reviving this real quick to ask any readers if they’ve created any small ponds or bodies of water without the use of a plastic pond liner. Substituting the liner with, say, a thick layer of bentonite instead? My local area averages about 58 inches of rain per year, I was looking into the feasibility of maintaining a “natural” pond without a main source of water (ground water, river, etc.) And my avg amount of rainfall seems to meet that criteria.
I’m also curious about generating hydroelectric energy from said rainfall. I definitely think these ideas might be a little too ambitious, but as said earlier I’m curious about its feasibility and potential to generate energy on rainy days. We run strictly on solar power, off the utility grid, and if solar batteries run out, the propane generator kicks on. On cloudy/rainy days, this can be an issue if you want to save money on propane.
As far as generating hydroelectric, in combination with the sloped food forest or orchard design, I was thinking of maintaining a large reservoir to hold rainwater, that feeds into two trenches parallel to the slope on either side of the orchard, which flow into the “natural” pond at the bottom of the slope. In the trenches would be some form of hydroelectric generator to utilize the flow of water being generated. This is all probably a stupid idea, since I’m new to all of this. I may be misunderstanding how things will actually work.
As you can see the project is still in planning, but progress has been made on collecting materials. I have a lot of cardboard saved up and there’s a local landscaping place with plenty of mushroom compost. I’ll be laying down cardboard and compost all over the property to cover all the tall dandelions, pokeweed, and other rather ugly weeds. Though I won’t completely exterminate them or even try, since I’m sure some of them are important for the local ecosystem. I still need to further research the local plant life to make sure I don’t plant anything negatively invasive.
Thanks for reading guys, just let me know your thoughts!
100% you can do this. Many larger ponds and smaller “lakes” don’t have any liners. They go with different kinds of materials (usually a local substrate so you don’t have to cart it in). They can still get holes and leak, and then you have to go down and repair them. You can test your soil for clay content - and if its not sufficient you might have to blend in some other clays. Its its super clay - you can also mix it with other things to diffuse the clay a little bit if you wanted. 
I’ve done this at two urban farms - one of which is now using that pond to generate water for their off-grid potable water supply, using a series of pumps sand and carbon filters.
You want your substrate to have at least 20% clay in it, the more you have the less water will seep out of your new water feature. You can make these pretty darn large as well - I have one that’s like 4 acres. One time we had a drought and it got a big ass tree in it, that caused an issue as when it started to fill again that tree made a huge “leak”. Had to cut it down, pull out the root ball, and backfill with more clay. All in scuba with underwater gear - as by then the pound was +20ft deep. hehehe
I don’t know about using for hydro-electric power… I’ve never done that except on the smaller scale back in school. Let us know how it turns out!
Thanks a ton for your input Cas, it’s really appreciated! Honestly, dunking into the pond to fix a leak like that sounds super badass, seems like you’re the perfect person to chime in!
I’m pretty sure I’ve convinced my dad to go along with this project, since the little creek on our property is dried up. He’s real disappointed about that, we suspect someone uphill dammed off the creek, which brings us to the rain water/pond idea. We also think hydroelectric (in this setup) won’t produce enough energy to be worth it, but I’ll continue looking into that as well.
With all that said, I’m definitely going to keep this thread updated. My family has a lot of other projects to work on around the property before we can get to this, so I won’t be able to make updates for quite some time. Even if/when I move away, I intend to visit and work the land every once in a while.
Water rights in Colorado was big. I worked at a hot springs and we dammed the creek so we could empty and clean the pools. We always had to be careful to keep a minimum flow otherwise we got in trouble because ranchers down the creek had water rights. Not sure if this is a thing in your area though.
Linux for life. Gang shit
I’m running Debian on a separate partition on in my tower. I realized I could setup two m.2 NVMe simultaneously on my motherboard, so I said fuck it and now have Windows 10 and Debian pop up on a grub bootloader. Really fun stuff, I love how Linux feels so far.
@AgTonik what software are you running on Linux? Do you reckon there’s anything I can install to help me plan out these projects?
You ever tried out home assistant?
Are you talking about that app that automates electronics around the house and stuff? I’ve been considering it, because I want to eventually automate the greenhouse to have smart lights and ventilation and what not (powered by solar). I’d automate things in my parents house too but my dad already has a bunch of stuff automated in there like the thermostat and security cams for example.
Might as well start making this little cabin I’m in into a high tech smart home hahaha
Ive got mostly clay soils with some small medium rocks. Im going to burn my fields and then lightly disc that in. Takes a long time to get it built up.
Yea… Lots of fun stuff to play with. Makes learning Linux and Microcontrollers son much fun.
i just bought 11 acres in Arkansas w a 1 acre pond and a 1/2 acre pond we will be growing regeneratively out there in 2024 for sure. Likely a heavy clay soil, we will amend with gypsum and heavy organic matter and soil test after the initial amendments have been added.
I think we have rights to our creek since it clearly runs through our 10 acre property. I believe that would give us the right to confront whomever has it dammed off as they need to allow us access to our water. That’s if someone has it dammed off and it’s not just naturally dried up.
I have to go walk up along the creek wearing so bright orange so I don’t get shot while investigating 
Also, on the topic of hydroelectric energy from a man made pond; I found something called a Wirtz pump, which can essentially pump water uphill without electricity, which is nice because I’d be utilizing fluid dynamics and gravity in order to generate electricity.
Uphill would be a rainwater reservoir, water from the reservoir would be metered out into sloped trenches on either side of the orchard, at the bottom of the trench would be a hydroelectric turbine. The flowing water from the trench can fall on the wirtz pump (imagine a watermill) in order to propel it, pumping water back up to the reservoir. I’d like to think this would work, but the impossibility of perpetual energy is nagging at me.
I may have to draw this idea out to get your guys opinion.
@Miles-Beyond that’s some gorgeous land you have there. I find controlled burning to be very very interesting, I can imagine all that charcoal and biochar being super beneficial to the soil. Also, if we make this pond, I totally intend to use the organic sludge in the garden. Might put some local fish breeds in there if it’s large enough.
PS. Just wanna thank you guys for keeping this thread alive. I’ve been on that sustainability kick lately, and it’s been making me consider getting a degree in Environmental Science (or engineering) and Urban Planning. I’m really inspired by Solarpunk ideology as well. Think studying for that is a good idea for me?
For those who aren’t familiar with the Solarpunk trope, here’s a video that I think is a great example. Andrew explains it very well.
