Drainage – My garden Cesspool.

I’m not sure if it was the mucky shplucky smell, the dead zone, the disease on my tomatoes or the lake under the bean tunnel that give it away. But it has become very apparent that the garden has drainage issues. On our sloped lot, most of the runoff cuts around the south side of the house through the garden before making it down to the street and eventually into the Neuse River. The garden sits in a low spot that retains the water on its downward track. Considering we’ve had several years of drought, I figured it would be good that it served as a catch basin during storms; however, most recently we’ve stayed fairly wet.

I noticed in the spring that every time I watered the garden, there were issues with water pooling, but this rose to a whole new level with the tropical depression Lee in the past two days. I went outside in between downpours and dug a trench to dewater the beds. Given the smell of the soil, I suspect that the water table has remained too high for one section in particular that simply won’t grow anything – not even weeds. The mosquitoes have loved it unfortunately.

This coming weekend, we will install a tile drain to help move the water out. I’ll post pics of the process and the completed project. This is the type of stuff I went to college for. We’ll see what I learned…