Draining my backyard swamp

[deezler]

Yeah good advice in here so far. Since you appear to have modest elevation to work with, all you truly need is to contour the land so that nothing puddles and it all gently flows away, down your swale.

Your original idea to put wood underground and cover with mulch would have been a total disaster of soupy black muck in a couple years. If you do import material to raise the land, go with sand or sandy loam.

But other people from NC have been on here complaining about the excessive rainfall and wet conditions. Since you just moved it, I would give it a bit and learn the seasonal nature of your property.

 

[VoyagernOK]

My entire backyard has had standing water since I moved into my house in December. I suspect it's primarily due to compaction, as the previous owners had a good 15+ trees cut down back there. The standing water seems to be in all the ruts created by the tree trucks. Fortunately for me, they left all of the logs stacked on the edge of the yard. Unfortunately, they're far too big for a chipper.

My plan is to scrape the entire back yard down about 8 inches or so with my FEL. Next I'll cut the logs into 4 inch strips, and use them like pepperonis to fill in the excavated yard. The next layer will be mulch and other compost type material, and then I'll finally cover it all with the dirt I originally dig up. Any input on this idea would be appreciated, not entirely sure if it's the best way to do it but it's the best way I can think of using the materials and equipment I have.
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The drainage swale you dug should work, provided it is in the low spot of your "swamp". Once it dries out a little, plant some sort of grass seed over the whole area. Vegetation soaks up a ton of water. Depending on where you live, a creeping kind of grass would be great, because it will eventually grow into the drainage swale and protect it from eroding further.

Nice pupper dog!

 

[VoyagernOK]

I did start a swale yesterday, and it's difficult to see but the yard does have a gentle slope towards a creek behind the yard. Would the swale along one edge be enough if I can fix the compaction issue? Or do I need a drain through the middle as well? I was also thinking about a dry well. My thought behind burying the disks was to raise the overall level of the yard, but I think it would require several loads of mulch and fill dirt to prevent the lumps. I'll get some better pictures today to try and show the whole layout. View attachment 691085View attachment 691086

Unless you always want to have a muddy ditch through your yard and as you have a creek to drain it to, this looks the perfect application to install Hydroblox. We've used them successfully to drain flooding areas and they work better than any french drain and better than most ditches, in my opinion. Plus, you can have a perfectly smooth dry lawn then.
Just search for Hydroblox videos in YouTube or go to Drainage Stormwater | HydroBlox, Inc. | Bradford Woods
You can install these yourself in short order.

 

[PatInNY]

Let the swale do the work of starting the drying. Here in NC we just had the second wettest winter on record (just 0.03" shy of a new record). Things are finally drying out around here. Depending on where in eastern NC you are, you may also be dealing with clay near the surface. The suggestion of the cereal grasses to break up the compaction is a good one for our area but you may have to do it over a number of years if the clay is close to the surface.

If you find the single swale isn't cutting it, you can then move onto the second one up the middle or do a buried drainage line (or lines) through the center if you don't want to see the swale there next year.

 

[MACflyer]

Let the swale do the work of starting the drying. Here in NC we just had the second wettest winter on record (just 0.03" shy of a new record). Things are finally drying out around here. Depending on where in eastern NC you are, you may also be dealing with clay near the surface. The suggestion of the cereal grasses to break up the compaction is a good one for our area but you may have to do it over a number of years if the clay is close to the surface.

If you find the single swale isn't cutting it, you can then move onto the second one up the middle or do a buried drainage line (or lines) through the center if you don't want to see the swale there next year.

In digging the swale, I hit the clay layer about 8 inches or so below the surface. I have seen substantial improvement in the two days since digging it though, even now water is still flowing through it pretty good. After the middle parts dry I'm going to see if I can regrade with a box blade. The bottom part of the yard has a sizeable slope, while the top part is flat. I think if I can grade it all and make a continuous gradual slope, while grading out the current ruts, that might be sufficient. If it's not, then I'll add a drain, something like the hydroblox maybe. Finally the cereal rye to help the overall long term aeration of the area.

 

[swines]

I know you want the area fixed now, but the key to success, in this case, is patience. Document the problem areas with photos and sketches and then wait for the area to dry out. THEN fix the problems. When you drive on wet areas, you're just adding to the problem with more compaction. The drainage swale is a great start, now leave it alone, and let the area dry out. Grade the area carefully after it dries out. Grade so that the yard is sloped to drain to a natural drainage point. If you have to, bring in loads of additional topsoil to achieve the grading and ground level you need to fix the area permanently. Using the logs as fill material is not going to work in the long run because they will decompose at different rates and you'll end up with soft areas that will settle and sink. One of the problems with wood is that some trees may contain naturally occurring allelopathic chemicals that theoretically could be leached into the soil and affect plant growth. My advice would be to either have the logs chipped and use the chips as ornamental ground cover, burn the logs, or use them as firewood.

With projects like these, sometimes your worst enemy is your own enthusiasm to fix the problem. Relax. The area will still be there after it dries out and you will be far more successful fixing it when you can work on the area without worrying about getting stuck, further compaction, etc.

 

[barts]

We recently went through this. If you want to keep an area dry, you need to stop the water flowing in from uphill, and provide means for rain that falls on it drain away as well.
We had water draining off the driveway into the garden area, and threatening to wash out a steep rock path. The uphill trench ended up being about 2' wide and 3' deep, with a 6" layer of drain rock (1"-3" smooth river rock). A drain pipe was then laid in, wrapped in landscape cloth with more drain rock included inside, and surrounded and topped with more rock; the very top layer of rock is road rock to keep things in place. The drain was led and daylights downhill. This has been working like a charm this year, despite a lot of rain. There's sometimes an stream coming out of the drain like a garden hose running hard - a lot of water that no longer saturates the 30x30 area south of the house.

 

[Mulga88]

My entire backyard has had standing water since I moved into my house in December. I suspect it's primarily due to compaction, as the previous owners had a good 15+ trees cut down back there. The standing water seems to be in all the ruts created by the tree trucks. Fortunately for me, they left all of the logs stacked on the edge of the yard. Unfortunately, they're far too big for a chipper.

My plan is to scrape the entire back yard down about 8 inches or so with my FEL. Next I'll cut the logs into 4 inch strips, and use them like pepperonis to fill in the excavated yard. The next layer will be mulch and other compost type material, and then I'll finally cover it all with the dirt I originally dig up. Any input on this idea would be appreciated, not entirely sure if it's the best way to do it but it's the best way I can think of using the materials and equipment I have.
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[Mulga88]

Firstly dont bury logs. When they rot you will have big deep trenches for ages. Catch the water at the highest area and use drains or pipes to move it down. Do same for roof gutters. If you cant afford tons of fill, why not build a dam as a feature duckpond. The excavated material can be used on the rest of the areas. When using piping get as big a diameter as possible with smooth sides and direct it towards nearest drain. Piping helped reduce our problem

Mulga88 Australia

 

[MACflyer]

Thank you everyone for the excellent advice. The swale is already doing wonders, and I'll find some other projects for my new tractor until it dries out enough to continue working the yard.