[Thamesmeadhammer]

Hello All,

As some of you may be aware my plot along with a few others suffers from very poor drainage. I have to wait till about Mid March before anything can be done and even then the weather would have to turn for the better.

Just a quick general question. Apart from not being able to do much while the soil is covered in water or soaking wet, what damage can this poor drainage cause ? I know all the hard work of adding nurents have been washed away but will anything else come along to cause problems at a later date ?

Thanks

TMH

[arugula]

Surely, at best, your soil structure will be damaged if the flooding (as it sounds) is sustained.

[savbo]

must play havoc with the soil ecology, how are you for earthworms the rest of the year?

[RobertB]

A lot depends on how much waterlogging you get. If you dig down, is the soil grey? That's what's known as a gley, which is the typical soil of waterlogged ground. Do you find a lot of sedges growing around the place? If so you've got serious waterlogging. On the other hand, you might be like me. I get a lot of creeping buttercup, a characteristic weed of dame rather than waterlogged ground, can't grow asparagus, and in a very wet season, I find some bulbs suffering. My crown imperials, which are very hard to get to grow, were miserable last year, I can't grow lilies in the open ground, and the Dracunculus have almost disappeared.

Either way, the solution has to be raised beds.

[Goosegirl]

I agree re- the soil structure. I garden on heavy silt, previously farmland, and am on the flat so I made raised beds with added grit and compost over the last few years. It might be the best option unless you can make a "soak-away" by digging a channel from your land and and away somewhere, then filling it with stone chippings (is it 1/4 quarry down - lads - help me here) then covering it over as that would be the easiest route for the water to take and drain away. Where it would drain to depends on your site. At least you can compose and monitor the soil as you like it in the raised beds, providing you dig as far down as feasible to loosen the soil beneath and add grit and copmpost - aka - double digging.

[andtiggertoo]

This is just a suggestion and i don't know how helpful, but maybe someone knowledgeable on here might be able to suggest some perennials or shrubs that naturally remove water from the soil. What produce do we all grow that constantly needs watering.

An unusual problem most of us are busy harnessing all the rain in water butts !

[nobby90]

Like Goosegirl said you only really have 2 option Raised Beds or Land Drains.  If your really lucky there could be a 3rd.  There could we be an impervious layer of silt and if you dig through this you might find dranage.

Dont forget that Land Drains can be used to stop water reaching your plot.  ie placed along the bottom of a slop from hight ground.

[Thamesmeadhammer]

Here are some pictures taken this morning !

Any ideas ? Maybe start the first paddy field in Thamesmead !

Going to be at least middle of april before anything can be grown !

[pairofacres]

Ouch. Hope my soon to be plot doesn't do that 

Have you managed to establish whether it's the local water table rising, or whether it's just the soil retaining the water? I'm guessing it's probably just run off being forced in your direction from the neighbouring industrial estate?

[Thamesmeadhammer]

Ouch. Hope my soon to be plot doesn't do that 

Have you managed to establish whether it's the local water table rising, or whether it's just the soil retaining the water? I'm guessing it's probably just run off being forced in your direction from the neighbouring industrial estate?

The area where I live and where the plot is, used to be marshland and was reclaimed in the early 1800's. I would say that it is below the water table. The Thames is about 3-4 miles away.
The whole area is at the base / dip of a hill to the South and a railway track to the North. My plot is at the lowest point of the allotment site. A lot of plots haven't been worked for years and when I first started the ground was compacted.
I've added earth, compost and sand over the last year but looks like I'll have to raise the whole area by about 12-18 inches.
Still at least it's sunny................

[dexyblue]

I was told my plot is prone to flooding but OMG nothing like this, could you not put drainage pipes in to drain it away.
Good luck

[pairofacres]

Attempts at drainage are probably going to prove futile if the surrounding water table is high. There's simply nowhere for the water to go 

May be worth having a scavenge around any local industrial units for scrap pallets. Raised beds are probably the way to go, but using decent timber is probably a waste of time given it's likely to be immersed in heavy wet spells. Scrap pallets are a handy source of cheap timber you can just replace when it rots. If it was me, I'd also start producing compost on an industrial scale to get as much material to raise the ground as possible. If you can scavenge cardboard at the same time as pallets, that may help you produce more compost than you could otherwise and if they're anything like my workplace, a lot of companies will be happy to give you huge quantities 

[peterjf]

at least youll know if you have any frogs ,

its been a bad winter , we not been on our plot since Christmas , pacing up n down the hallway at home , sick of going around wilkos etc

[Babstreefern]

Really bad.  I thought our's was bad with our meger flooding - luckily it seems to stop about a foot from the surface of the ground.  One good note, you can always grow water lillies or water cress or even rice.  There is no way in hell that a few drain pipes will get rid of that, unless the pipes can be laid straight to the river.  I now know never ever will I complain about my bit of water.

[Snoop]

My vegetable patch is at the foot of a valley. When it rains - and it can really rain here, 10 gallons per square yard in an hour is not unknown - the land floods. The solution the smallholders that used to own this place arrived at was to essentially turn the area where I have put my vegetable plot into one huge raised bed, not so much by raising the land in the middle but by digging out a wide channel all around the edges. I presume they also piled the excavated soil into the middle as well. Might this work for you? You would lose a lot of land to the channels, but at least your central area might remain safe from excessive flooding. If my experience is anything to go by, though, you might need waders to get at your lettuces sitting high, dry and pretty in the middle!