Flooded ground

This topic contains 5 replies, has 3 voices, and was last updated by  dragonette 11 years, 3 months ago.

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  • #21512

    dragonette
    Member

    Hello

    My allotment has been under water for a few weeks now. Does anyone know how long it takes for the ground to recover? It is a clay soil and I did add a lot of compost last year. The ground was very fertile last year then with lots of worms in the soil.
    I imagine mulching with more compost will help (when the water goes away!).

    My 3 compost heaps are half-submerged at the moment which won’t help.

    Many thanks

    Ness

    #23675

    ashleigh
    Participant

    oh no, how frustrating. i’m sure more mulching with compost will help the drainage in general. it might be worth planning over time to raise the level of the allotment with high raised beds etc to flood-proof your site as who knows whether this is how our climate will be from now on!

    until i got access to this land my garden consisted of one raised bed in which the surface of the soil was 2 feet above a permanently swampy lawn – and the plants were happy in both drought and flood.

    #23676

    dragonette
    Member

    Hi Ashleigh

    I have built 4 very big raised beds but the scale of the problem this year is beyond belief. The drainage system (pump) doesn’t seem to have done anything. The culvert might be blocked. Hopefully this won’t happen again. The question is, how long before the soil can be used again once it has drained? Is the damage easily reversible?

    Many thanks

    Ness

    #23674

    charles
    Moderator

     Hi Ness, this is not good and yet the rice paddy system works so the soil maybe can endure it, though I would worry about a lot of soil organisms being asphyxiated. Is there someone you can approach to ask for help, who is responsible for the site?

    #23673

    dragonette
    Member

    Hello Charles

    The flood at the allotment site has been going on for weeks. The community council is ‘discussing possible actions’. Their track record is not filling me with much hope. What am wondering now is if it would be better to wait to be moved to a plot higher up on the site or hope mine will recover quickly. It is under 2 to 3 inches of water at the moment. It might stay like that for the rest of winter.

    many thanks for your message.

    Ness

    #23672

    charles
    Moderator

     I am really not sure, but do think that with the weather settling down, comparatively speaking, in January (i.e. damp but not massively wet) the water should receed and you can see if your plants are alright. If other allotmenteers are in the same boat (sorry) the council may be persuaded to dig a ditch or something suitable.

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