This week we started on the next landscaping project: turning the unused space on the sunny side of the house into a big flower bed with a path. Last October I had put down newspaper and mulch to keep the weeds down and give us a head start. Which worked great over the winter, but I guess the newspaper wasn't thick enough because the weeds started poking through in the past month.
So, the big task is preparing the soil. We couldn't use the tiller because all the utility meters are against that wall, and I didn't want to risk hitting an underground line. I started on this actually a few weeks ago, dug out the area where the path is going to be, but I found that our cheap shovel wasn't up to the task of digging this very hard soil. I wasted some time trying to find a good, forged shovel at a local store & then finally ordered one from Smith & Hawkins. While I was at it, I also ordered a pair of cute striped galoshes (on sale!) to match the gardening clogs my folks gave me. They'll be great when I need to keep my feet dry but don't want to wear my heavy Dr. Martens.
The shovel finally arrived last weekend while we were busy working on that bed down by the road. And so this week I got back to work on digging. The soil is so bad, horrible hard rocky clay, that the plan is not even trying to amend the soil. Instead we're digging up and carting away the clay, and replacing it with good soil.
I've only got time to work for an hour or two each afternoon, and it's slow going, even with the good shovel. Especially since we hit a major obstacle on Wednesday: concrete. Big slabs of concrete, four inches thick, a few inches under the surface of the soil. Ugh! We've found two so far, there may be more. We're pretty sure the original septic tank (no longer in use) is under this concrete. At least, we know the house had a septic system before it was converted to city sewer when we moved in. And we can't think of any other explanation for huge slabs of concrete in the ground just outside the bathroom window.
One slab is uneven and seems to have a big empty space underneath it. Which reminded me that there was an area right around there that was slowly sinking, the whole time we've lived here. We used to throw loose dirt and rocks onto the space to try and fill it in. Of course now we have to dig out those same rocks. A corner of the uneven slab had broken off & was hanging by the rebar. Georg cut the rebar with the bolt cutters (I guess they're good for more than just corsetry) and then we shoveled as much dirt down into the hole as we could. I don't think that's going to stop the sinking though. I can't really think what to do, besides pay someone to remove the septic system. Which is an expense I really do not need right now. Why can't I ever find something nice, like a beautiful brick border, while digging in my yard?
So in the short term, I guess we're just going to build this bed up, adding a few inches of soil over the concrete, and plant annuals with shallow roots in that place. Then in the fall when things are better under control we can look into having the septic tank removed. In the meantime we went ahead and planted a row of mini dahlias in the small area we got dug out this week, along the edge of the bed. They're really cute but you'll have to take my word for it because I haven't had a chance to take a photo and it's too dark & rainy now.
5 Comments
Annuals sounds like a good solution to the problem for now. Another alternative is scavenged groundcover, if you have any elsewhere in your yard. We have (as you'll see! yay!) a huge retainging wall that will need replacing one of these years--at first I only put annuals in the bed beneath it, but as it continued not to fall apart, and I had daylilies taking over elsewhere, I put more and more of them in the bed too. And sweet woodruff that was taking over elsewhere, too.
i have an old oil tank buried somewhere in my front yard that should be dug up at some point. i'm scared.
i believe my old oil tank is under the front left bed of shrubs, as you stand facing my house. in addition to the shrubs, there are lilies and a gigantic, climbing rose all planted there, which seem to be quite happy, so i see no need to dig it up.
i did see on "generation renovation" a woman who dug out her tank herself because she couldn't stand the idea of it being there in the ground. i think she just came home from work every day and dug until she got it free, and then they hired a crane or something to lift it out.
I don't object to having an unused septic tank underground & I definitely wouldn't be considering digging it up, if not for the slabs of concrete a couple of inches under the soil surface. Georg pointed out tonight that we could probably break up & remove the concrete ourselves. The big question is what's under the concrete.
In any case, there are much more pressing ways to spend our home improvement money so the septic tank is going to stay in place at least for now.
We are buying a house and it loks like the owners had built an addition over the septic tank. To me that sound like potential trouble if we ever have problems with the septic system. What do you think. I suspect the owners may have had problems (or know this is a problem) because in the PS they failed to specify the location of the septic system! What do you thin?