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News from the Zoo
I don’t know how your yard is surviving in this series of storms, but mine is doing rather well, thank you. Because the soil in Solano County is primarily clay – good for making adobe bricks and growing plants when you finally get them established- we have a tendency toward lots of run-off water.
To get the clay soil to hold water and not flood, we need to water slowly and in several “bumps” of water. Too much at a time and the water sheets off the soil surface, but too many “bumps” or prolong watering and you end with mucky, sticky mud which takes forever ( and sometimes a day) to dry out. How to get the right combination of water/soil/ air spaces is the trick.
Some folks put in French drains which is way of saying: 1) dig trenches where the water collects on their property; 2) put a bed of coarse gravel, road bed gravel which is large (1-2” pieces is preferred) several inches thick in the trench; 3) lay perforated pipe ( has holes evenly spaced along all sides) covered in weed-block fabric or buy the already bagged pipe in the trench;4) cover pipe with more gravel within 3 inches of the trench top and cover with soil. Remember to install a grate at the end of the pipe, preferably downhill so that the pipe drains out and to the street. In my case, I attached all the down spouts from the house gutters to my French drain which allows the water that would be standing on stop of my back and side yards to drain to the front street gutter. However, a caution: do NOT use chemicals during the wet season as the drains allow these products to leach into the storm drains where they do not belong!
I refuse to let my back fence which is falling section by section (repair one section and the next takes a dive in the (wind) to disturb my serene and unflappable self -- Today is my 1st day of retirement. I shall enjoy immensely! Actually, my serene mood changes each time I pass my neighbor’s house. A “trained” man with a chainsaw cut the green ash tree in front of it back to stubbed limbs and then cut out the lawn with a Bob Cat tractor. Serenity to the eyes it is not, but I shall learn to close my eyes when passing by.
