suburbanite farm sustainability in the suburbs

The French drain thing did not work at all.  There was just not enough height on the wall below the under house vents to have a pipe buried with enough slope to drain down towards the drain.  I swear so often I look at some of the bodges around this place and think: who the hell did this?  Who thought it would be a good idea to cement a drain in above the ground level?  Who says shower tiles need a decent job done on the grout?  Why doesn’t the guttering flow towards the downpipes?  … I’m getting sidetracked…

So instead I decided on some surface drainage with builders plastic lining the side of the house.  I was able to get some shallow drains so the slope could be steep enough without having the ground level go above the under house vents.  Sadly I did not think to take photos as I was going, so I only have the finished product!

Drain looking up

Flowing into the drain

Drain looking down

The bed in place

When we bought this place it had this spiky leaved tree outside one of the bedroom windows.  It was quite pretty in Autumn when the leaves went red, but when it flowered in Spring it had fluorescent yellow (I kid you not) wattle type flowers which made us sneeze and attracted bees and wasps.  Plus when any leaves died and fell off and dried out, the spikes became even spikier, and were very unpleasant to step on.  The final straw was when the roots sprouted loads of suckers as it became more and more water stressed (we live in a very dry area- at least usually, this year has been very wet).  So we decided it had to go.

My mum and I pulled it out in September and I have gradually been working on the new space, shovelling out the gravel, digging out what I can of the roots (which are the same fluorescent yellow colour – weird), weeding out the grass etc.  In this process I’ve discovered the drainage at the back next to the house is very dodgy indeed, namely the drainage pipe sloped up to reach the drain!  This at least explains why we occasionally have problems in the house on that side.  So I’m also reading up on how to fix the drainage and this is all becoming a very long process.

The eventual aim is to put in better drainage next to the house (I’m currently thinking a French drain if I can manage it because I should be able to reuse the gravel and pipes I have dug out) plus a raised bed a bit further out to grow veges in.

This is what the place has looked like more or less for the past few weeks.

Needless to say the toddler is loving me working out there – she can get into all kinds of mischief, digging mud pits, moving gravel from the pile to other places in the garden, climbing in and out of the raised bed frame…

The soil in the area is surprisingly good – not too clayey and very wormy.  The toddler loves worm hunting and then saying “bye bye” to the worms as they burrow back under ground.

It’s a pity in a way I haven’t been able to get the bed in sooner since we’ve had such decent rain this year – we’re missing out on prime growing weather.  But fixing the drainage will be worth it, hopefully and we’ll get veges 0ut of it eventually.