Hello.

I have a PERFECT spot for a garden at the top of my hill. It is very
flat and gets loads of sunlight. I can do things like set up a soaker
hose or drip system fairly easily. My problem is that there is only a
couple feet of soil over a bunch of fill that I know has to contain a
lot of rocks and such. My house is part of a development that was
built on an old farm sire about 25 years ago. There is a wicked hill
in my back yard that the builders must have amended by building up the
backyards in all the houses on the street by using fill. There is
still a nice bunch of springs that flow freely all year long but they
are dozens of feet underground now. There may be two feet of soil over
this fill if I am lucky.

I have tried several times to grow a garden but I can’t keep the soil
watered well enough for the plants to grow. The water just drains like
it is going through a sieve.

I have tried a raised garden several different times with no luck and
I have tried container gardening but plants just don’t grow for me in
a container (don’t ask me why). Plus I know I can get so much more if
I planted up there and it will be cheaper. I was kicking around at
trying to make some sort of huge raised bed that I would modify to be
self-watering but the work and expense doesn’t seem worth it.

Does anybody have any sort of solution? I was thinking goofy thoughts
like digging down a foot or so and installing a pond liner or
something like that to create a pool of sorts underneath a large area.
If I build a raised bed over this area, once the water reached the top
of the liner, it would start to pour off, so I won’t be drowning my
plants. This seems like the easiest thing to do although maybe not the
cheapest. I am looking for easy, especially in the long haul.

Do you think this would work? Any suggestions at all are welcome!

Thanks,
ray

wrote in message
...
Hello.

I have a PERFECT spot for a garden at the top of my hill. It is very
flat and gets loads of sunlight. I can do things like set up a soaker
hose or drip system fairly easily. My problem is that there is only a
couple feet of soil over a bunch of fill that I know has to contain a
lot of rocks and such. My house is part of a development that was
built on an old farm sire about 25 years ago. There is a wicked hill
in my back yard that the builders must have amended by building up the
backyards in all the houses on the street by using fill. There is
still a nice bunch of springs that flow freely all year long but they
are dozens of feet underground now. There may be two feet of soil over
this fill if I am lucky.

I have tried several times to grow a garden but I can’t keep the soil
watered well enough for the plants to grow. The water just drains like
it is going through a sieve.
=============================

I'm far from being well-versed about the various kinds of landscape fabric,
but last time I inquired about them at a local Agway store, I believe the
guy told me that some of these products allow less water to pass through
than others. If that's true, I wonder if you could use such a fabric
underneath two feet of soil to slow down, but not stop water flow
completely. Obviously, you'd have some backbreaking work ahead of you to
install it, though.

Pond liner doesn't seem like a good idea.

On Apr 21, 8:56*am, "JoeSpareBedroom"
wrote:

I'm far from being well-versed about the various kinds of landscape fabric,
but last time I inquired about them at a local Agway store, I believe the
guy told me that some of these products allow less water to pass through
than others. If that's true, I wonder if you could use such a fabric
underneath two feet of soil to slow down, but not stop water flow
completely. Obviously, you'd have some backbreaking work ahead of you to
install it, though.

Pond liner doesn't seem like a good idea.

===========

I was thinking about severly slowing down the flow and amending the
soil. In conjunction with raised beds, that should help. But I
thought if I would use raised beds (and by raised, I mean RAISED!
Like maybe 18-24 inches high) that a pond liner would work sort of
like a huge self-wtering container. Maybe I could prick some very
small holes in it to let it drain. I also thought if I dug down
enough and lipped the liner up the sides of the hle only so far, that
the excess water would drain out. I may be entirely wrong!

wrote in message
...
On Apr 21, 8:56 am, "JoeSpareBedroom"
wrote:

I'm far from being well-versed about the various kinds of landscape
fabric,
but last time I inquired about them at a local Agway store, I believe the
guy told me that some of these products allow less water to pass through
than others. If that's true, I wonder if you could use such a fabric
underneath two feet of soil to slow down, but not stop water flow
completely. Obviously, you'd have some backbreaking work ahead of you to
install it, though.

Pond liner doesn't seem like a good idea.

===========

I was thinking about severly slowing down the flow and amending the
soil. In conjunction with raised beds, that should help. But I
thought if I would use raised beds (and by raised, I mean RAISED!
Like maybe 18-24 inches high) that a pond liner would work sort of
like a huge self-wtering container. Maybe I could prick some very
small holes in it to let it drain. I also thought if I dug down
enough and lipped the liner up the sides of the hle only so far, that
the excess water would drain out. I may be entirely wrong!

================

Either way, it's an interesting experiment. I guess it depends on how much
muscle you want to put into it, maybe twice. You might want to check into
landscape fabric prices to see if my defective memory (above) might be
correct, and if it's cheaper than pond liner. Incidentally, pond liner is
really useful stuff to have around the house for other projects. Padding
removable roof racks so they don't scratch the car, making non-skid pads for
tackle boxes so they don't slide around a boat, etc....

wrote in message
...
Hello.

I have a PERFECT spot for a garden at the top of my hill. It is very
flat

===========================

Obviously it's not PERFECT at all, far from it, what you have is a pile of
trash/garbage.

Without a better description, hopefully a photograph of the area depicting
detail of the topography, all anyone can offer you is wild speculation.
From what you've said so far the best I can suggest is to bulldoze that hill
down to it's original base to get rid of all the buried debris.

=======================
and gets loads of sunlight. I can do things like set up a soaker
hose or drip system fairly easily. My problem is that there is only a
couple feet of soil over a bunch of fill that I know has to contain a
lot of rocks and such. My house is part of a development that was
built on an old farm sire about 25 years ago. There is a wicked hill
in my back yard that the builders must have amended by building up the
backyards in all the houses on the street by using fill. There is
still a nice bunch of springs that flow freely all year long but they
are dozens of feet underground now. There may be two feet of soil over
this fill if I am lucky.

I have tried several times to grow a garden but I can’t keep the soil
watered well enough for the plants to grow. The water just drains like
it is going through a sieve.

I have tried a raised garden several different times with no luck and
I have tried container gardening but plants just don’t grow for me in
a container (don’t ask me why). Plus I know I can get so much more if
I planted up there and it will be cheaper. I was kicking around at
trying to make some sort of huge raised bed that I would modify to be
self-watering but the work and expense doesn’t seem worth it.

Does anybody have any sort of solution? I was thinking goofy thoughts
like digging down a foot or so and installing a pond liner or
something like that to create a pool of sorts underneath a large area.
If I build a raised bed over this area, once the water reached the top
of the liner, it would start to pour off, so I won’t be drowning my
plants. This seems like the easiest thing to do although maybe not the
cheapest. I am looking for easy, especially in the long haul.

Do you think this would work? Any suggestions at all are welcome!

Thanks,
ray

Perhaps some useful info here.

http://tinyurl.com/dmefk9

Bill who thought of living mulch. Notice the mention of water
retention in link below.


http://www.vegetablegardener.com/ite...rganic-mulches
-in-the-garden

--
Garden in shade zone 5 S Jersey USA

Not all who wander are lost.
- J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973)

"Bill" wrote in message
...

Perhaps some useful info here.

http://tinyurl.com/dmefk9

Bill who thought of living mulch. Notice the mention of water
retention in link below.


http://www.vegetablegardener.com/ite...rganic-mulches
-in-the-garden

--
Garden in shade zone 5 S Jersey USA


I suppose he could add clay. :-)

On Apr 21, 10:27*am, "brooklyn1" wrote:
wrote in message

...
Hello.

I have a PERFECT spot for a garden at the top of my hill. It is very
flat

===========================

Obviously it's not PERFECT at all, far from it, what you have is a pile of
trash/garbage.

Without a better description, hopefully a photograph of the area depicting
detail of the topography, all anyone can offer you is wild speculation.
From what you've said so far the best I can suggest is to bulldoze that hill
down to it's original base to get rid of all the buried debris.

=======================

brooklyn,

It's not necessarily garbage but it is fill. I can't dig to the
bottom because, like I said, it is 25-30 feet from the original base
to the top of my hll now.

They made an area at the top of my hill that is almost perfectly flat
which is 70-feet long by 35- to 40-feet wide. Underneath some amount
of soil (I am thinking between 2 or 3 feet), there is fill: rock,
concrete blocks, all sorts of stuff I bet. The water just drizzles
right thru it like a sieve. It is especially bad during the hot, dry
season.

The sun shines on the area all day long.

That is the best I can describe it.

On Apr 21, 10:06*am, "JoeSpareBedroom"
wrote:
wrote in message

...
On Apr 21, 8:56 am, "JoeSpareBedroom"
wrote:



I'm far from being well-versed about the various kinds of landscape
fabric,
but last time I inquired about them at a local Agway store, I believe the
guy told me that some of these products allow less water to pass through
than others. If that's true, I wonder if you could use such a fabric
underneath two feet of soil to slow down, but not stop water flow
completely. Obviously, you'd have some backbreaking work ahead of you to
install it, though.

Pond liner doesn't seem like a good idea.

===========

I was thinking about severly slowing down the flow and amending the
soil. *In conjunction with raised beds, that should help. *But I
thought if I would use raised beds (and by raised, I mean RAISED!
Like maybe 18-24 inches high) that a pond liner would work sort of
like a huge self-wtering container. *Maybe I could prick some very
small holes in it to let it drain. *I also thought if I dug down
enough and lipped the liner up the sides of the hle only so far, that
the excess water would drain out. *I may be entirely wrong!

================

Either way, it's an interesting experiment. I guess it depends on how much
muscle you want to put into it, maybe twice. You might want to check into
landscape fabric prices to see if my defective memory (above) might be
correct, and if it's cheaper than pond liner. Incidentally, pond liner is
really useful stuff to have around the house for other projects. Padding
removable roof racks so they don't scratch the car, making non-skid pads for
tackle boxes so they don't slide around a boat, etc....

===============

I don't want to kill myself but I still want to give it a try. I'm
not "too old" to do all the digging........yet.

I was going to build some raised beds like this: www.gardenstogro.com.
They cost WAY too much but it needs to be cheaper to build myself.

I figure the amount of soil that is above the underground pond would
be sufficent to keep the roots from rotting in water.

wrote in message
...
On Apr 21, 10:06 am, "JoeSpareBedroom"
wrote:
wrote in message

...
On Apr 21, 8:56 am, "JoeSpareBedroom"
wrote:



I'm far from being well-versed about the various kinds of landscape
fabric,
but last time I inquired about them at a local Agway store, I believe
the
guy told me that some of these products allow less water to pass through
than others. If that's true, I wonder if you could use such a fabric
underneath two feet of soil to slow down, but not stop water flow
completely. Obviously, you'd have some backbreaking work ahead of you to
install it, though.

Pond liner doesn't seem like a good idea.

===========

I was thinking about severly slowing down the flow and amending the
soil. In conjunction with raised beds, that should help. But I
thought if I would use raised beds (and by raised, I mean RAISED!
Like maybe 18-24 inches high) that a pond liner would work sort of
like a huge self-wtering container. Maybe I could prick some very
small holes in it to let it drain. I also thought if I dug down
enough and lipped the liner up the sides of the hle only so far, that
the excess water would drain out. I may be entirely wrong!

================

Either way, it's an interesting experiment. I guess it depends on how much
muscle you want to put into it, maybe twice. You might want to check into
landscape fabric prices to see if my defective memory (above) might be
correct, and if it's cheaper than pond liner. Incidentally, pond liner is
really useful stuff to have around the house for other projects. Padding
removable roof racks so they don't scratch the car, making non-skid pads
for
tackle boxes so they don't slide around a boat, etc....

===============

I don't want to kill myself but I still want to give it a try. I'm
not "too old" to do all the digging........yet.

I was going to build some raised beds like this: www.gardenstogro.com.
They cost WAY too much but it needs to be cheaper to build myself.

I figure the amount of soil that is above the underground pond would
be sufficent to keep the roots from rotting in water.

==============

If I recall correctly, celery likes really wet soil. How much do you love
celery? :-)

How about growing your own rice?

wrote in message
...
On Apr 21, 10:27 am, "brooklyn1" wrote:
wrote in message

...
Hello.

I have a PERFECT spot for a garden at the top of my hill. It is very
flat

===========================

Obviously it's not PERFECT at all, far from it, what you have is a pile of
trash/garbage.

Without a better description, hopefully a photograph of the area depicting
detail of the topography, all anyone can offer you is wild speculation.
From what you've said so far the best I can suggest is to bulldoze that
hill
down to it's original base to get rid of all the buried debris.

=======================

brooklyn,

It's not necessarily garbage but it is fill. I can't dig to the
bottom because, like I said, it is 25-30 feet from the original base
to the top of my hll now.

They made an area at the top of my hill that is almost perfectly flat
which is 70-feet long by 35- to 40-feet wide. Underneath some amount
of soil (I am thinking between 2 or 3 feet), there is fill: rock,
concrete blocks, all sorts of stuff I bet. The water just drizzles
right thru it like a sieve. It is especially bad during the hot, dry
season.

The sun shines on the area all day long.

That is the best I can describe it.

=========

If it's demolished building material and whatevers you don't even know then
it's garbage.
Doesn't sound like you have much of a view out the back, eh? Short of
removal I think your best bet is to build a terraced garden arrangement on
its face using plants that can tolerate low water conditions, and perhaps
interspaced with some koi ponds and waterfalls, anything that adds some
aesthetic value. But it's really not a good spot for a vegetable garden
way up on top of a refuse heap (who wants to trot up and down a steep 30
foot high rise several times a day anyway and be carrying stuff too, just
plain sillyness). If anything you want to do crop farming on bottom land,
the lowest points on your property.

Hello.

I have a PERFECT spot for a garden at the top of my hill. It is very
flat and gets loads of sunlight. I can do things like set up a soaker
hose or drip system fairly easily. My problem is that there is only a
couple feet of soil over a bunch of fill that I know has to contain a
lot of rocks and such. My house is part of a development that was
built on an old farm sire about 25 years ago. There is a wicked hill
in my back yard that the builders must have amended by building up the
backyards in all the houses on the street by using fill. There is
still a nice bunch of springs that flow freely all year long but they
are dozens of feet underground now. There may be two feet of soil over
this fill if I am lucky.

I have tried several times to grow a garden but I can’t keep the soil
watered well enough for the plants to grow. The water just drains like
it is going through a sieve.

I have tried a raised garden several different times with no luck and
I have tried container gardening but plants just don’t grow for me in
a container (don’t ask me why). Plus I know I can get so much more if
I planted up there and it will be cheaper. I was kicking around at
trying to make some sort of huge raised bed that I would modify to be
self-watering but the work and expense doesn’t seem worth it.

Does anybody have any sort of solution? I was thinking goofy thoughts
like digging down a foot or so and installing a pond liner or
something like that to create a pool of sorts underneath a large area.
If I build a raised bed over this area, once the water reached the top
of the liner, it would start to pour off, so I won’t be drowning my
plants. This seems like the easiest thing to do although maybe not the
cheapest. I am looking for easy, especially in the long haul.

Do you think this would work? Any suggestions at all are welcome!

Thanks,
ray
Add organic material - compost, manure, peat, almost anything. Dig it
in, mulch.
--

09=ix

it might be destroyed is i dig?



~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://www.powertoolsmall.com/Catego...0Trimmers.html