Draining the earth

Since my neighbor was going to rent a Ditch Witch to do some rerouting of water in preparation for his new driveway, I decided to get it on the action and try to drain some perpetual wet spots that haunt my precious flat land. As you might have guessed, flat land is at a premium in the hills of East Tennessee.

I put in about 125 feet of 4-inch perforated tubing on a bed of gravel and then covered the black tubing with gravel. In the photo, not all the tubing is covered yet.

When I dug down about a foot, the trenches filled with water. I had to hook my truck winch to the Ditch Witch in order to dig through the muck. It's the first time I have ever Ditch Witched. To those who run one of those ugly beasts for a living, I salute you. I got the Witch back to the rental place as fast as I could.

The rains came and the drainage worked

We received almost two inches of rain last night in three to four hours. I checked the recontoured drainage around the garden this morning and I think we have the majority of the problem solved.

Just to the left of the well, you can see that the land slopes gently down to the creek. In the back of the garden (outlined by the posts), the water is directed away from the garden by a small levee at the side of a freshly cut road. I couldn't find much new silt in the garden.

There was no standing water this morning even though the ground was thoroughly soaked.

I will be planting grass on all the bare spots this fall, and the garden fence will start going up this week. Only four months late, but who's counting.