water-logged ground
Sez&Jon
Posts: 2
<p class="MsoNormal">Hi, we moved into our new house last summer which had a garden that just consisted of lawn and decking. We have since created borders around the perimeter and what we hope will become a veg patch in one corner. We have a thin layer of topsoil on top of clay. Having now had a bit of rain over the past few months, we seem to get run off coming through from structures in neighbouring gardens leaving one border and the veg patch standing in water after any considerable period of rain. We wonder whether we need to dig a soak away or whether in order to have a veg patch we may need to install raised beds to stop plants sitting in water. Any ideas/previous experience?
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Only watercress will grow in your veg. patch as it is, so make a start on encouraging your clay to absorb more moisture by adding grit and horse manure. Raised beds would be pricy and you would need to buy top soil to fill them. I am sure you will in time be able to grow flowers in your border and veg. Persevere - new gardens, loke Rome , are not built in a day.
Unfortunately this a problem faced by most. As happymarion said you won't be able to cure the problem in a day, and please don't resort to a soakaway too drastically. It may just need some tlc.
If you look for general lawn care articles these should help. By regularly coreing and piercing your lawn, followed by brushing in some sand or topsoil, you should gradually improve drainage. A secondary problem you may be facing is that; if others around you, like in my situation, have built up paving etc leaving their ground level slightly higher than yours then you will contually suffer from their inconsiderate run-off.
If you can then try and pick a sunnier coner away from any potential problem areas that should help, if you can't match the two up, you may need to consider raised beds expensive as they may be.
Although like everything else where there's a will there's a way, and things are only neccessarily as expensive as you make them.
Thanks for the suggestions. Will see what we can do!