Drainage for a garden

Gunny · Mar 7, 2013

Since you've had the garden there for five years, I agree with Halftrack, you've probably got a hard pan and a good subsoiling will more than likely take care of your drainage problem. The good thing about it is that it can't hurt it and it's a lot faster and easier than ditching and moving enough soil to create a slope. If you can find a mole ball to drag through the soil with the subsoiler, you'd increase your drainage a whole lot.

Eyecatcher · Mar 7, 2013

OK -What's a mole ball?

City Farmer · Mar 7, 2013

Eyecatcher said:
OK -What's a mole ball?

Eyecatcher said it before me, whats a mole ball? If I do subsoil, how far apart are the passes?

Fossil Farm · Mar 7, 2013

From you're description, the garden is in the "flood plain" of the small ditch next to it. Same as a river system, just on a smaller scale. You will not be able to drain the groundwater out any lower than the water level in the ditch. If that is where you want the garden, raising the beds above the existing ground level looks like your best solution. Just depends on the drainage area the ditch drains if it will continue to be a problem in future wet years.

Stick895 · Mar 7, 2013

mole ball Mole ball

Ted Summey · Mar 7, 2013

It looks to me that you need some way to get the water to run to the ditch. By using your turning plow you should be able to "back bed" or turn the soil in a direction to create enough fall in the garden so you get gentle run off. It may require creating a swale around your garden perimeter to create a path for the water. Running your rows perpendicular to the swale will allow water to run out of the garden. Planting your veggies on a hill/bed will also provide needed drainage especially if you do run your beds close to 90 degrees to the swale. The swale doesnt need to be deep and it would be a benefit if you can get grass to grow in it (aka sodded waterway). From the list of attachments in the OP, it looks like a bedder/hiller is the only additional item needed. You should be able to get a walk behind tiller between the rows if you use the 3000 to make them.

I don't think you need socked slotted pipe. That would be overkill and an unnecessary expense.

City Farmer · Mar 7, 2013

Fossil Farm, you might be on to something. Is it the water pressure from the creek holding the surface water up until the creek goes down? The garden never floods from the creek but it doesn't drain off after a heavy rain for a couple days either. I think I'm going to split the garden in two. The front high half I'll sub-soil and the creek half I'll mound and sub-soil. If the furrows drain well this season I'll go back to just planting on the ground. Here's another picture from today of what I'm dealing with.

dave1949 · Mar 7, 2013

You could dig a hole with your backhoe, say at one end of the garden about in the middle of its width, and find out where your water table is. If the hole pretty much fills with water and stays at that level, all the subsoiling in the world isn't going to solve the problem of saturated, water-logged soil. Neither will drain pipes that are laying in saturated soil with no place to drain to.

If you have to garden in that spot, which I would say is unfortunate to begin with, then raising the garden is the thing to do. Either using hills, mounds, fill or whatever. One problem I see is that your garden is going to wash into the creek little by little and that will be accelerated by improving the slope for surface drainage. Your top soil fines and nutrients are going to go in/down the creek.

If the MI DEP/DNR will let you get away with it, or issue a permit for it, I would dig a pond that the ditch flows through and use the spoils to build a raised platform to garden on. You could save the topsoil to the side and put that on top of the platform when it's done. It's probably a good way to get in trouble, on the other hand, you are too close to the ditch to begin with for disturbing soils and if someone wanted to be picky, you will be in trouble for that too.

City Farmer · Mar 7, 2013

Yeah, I know its a bad place for a garden but I have no other place to put it. A buddy told me to subsoil and plant pumpkins for the kids and watch it for a season. The front 50' is always fine, its only the 30' closest to the ditch. The drain commission told me I could do whatever I wanted with the water in the creek but I couldn't change any of the elevation. How long of a chain do I need on the mole? I was walking down the isle here at work and somebody broke a parallel lift and threw it in the scrap hopper. I think its a great start for a mole. It has a 3/8" chain on a 3-1/2" dia. shaft. I cut a piece of 4"dia.x6", tapped a 3/4-10 hole in the back. I'll have it welded up tomorrow. I'd like to put more of a bullet on it but I'm not going to worry to much about it.

dave1949 · Mar 8, 2013

City Farmer said:
Yeah, I know its a bad place for a garden but I have no other place to put it. A buddy told me to subsoil and plant pumpkins for the kids and watch it for a season. The front 50' is always fine, its only the 30' closest to the ditch. The drain commission told me I could do whatever I wanted with the water in the creek but I couldn't change any of the elevation. How long of a chain do I need on the mole? I was walking down the isle here at work and somebody broke a parallel lift and threw it in the scrap hopper. I think its a great start for a mole. It has a 3/8" chain on a 3-1/2" dia. shaft. I cut a piece of 4"dia.x6", tapped a 3/4-10 hole in the back. I'll have it welded up tomorrow. I'd like to put more of a bullet on it but I'm not going to worry to much about it.

Oh well, that's a shame really. I could see a nice duck pond and winter ice skating there.

As it is, you will adding to the nutrient load (phosphorus and nitrogen) in the water and adding silt build-up to the ditch. I know the regulations are well-intended, but they sometimes rule out the best land-use solutions it seems. Here, you would probably have to maintain an undisturbed vegetative buffer within 50' of the creek.