21 December 2008

Puddlesome

At some point this winter I want to get round to doing something about this soggy area between the shed and the greenhouse on the top plot. It is permanently waterlogged. It makes the left side of the greenhouse too wet and even when it's sunny and hot and you want to collect some water from the barrels at the back you'll find this patch still annoyingly puddlesome.

Truth is, I keep putting it off: partly because I want to do it when it has at least dried out enough to dig sensibly, and partly because I'm not really sure what the best thing to do is. Maybe just dig a soak-away trench? There isn't a natural slope away from this spot and the water butts being where they are probably don't help matters.

Sometimes, you just get those jobs that you'd rather would just go away and leave you alone, but every time you look, there they still are pestering you like an ill mannered Cornish pixie.

Anyone else got jobs like that? What are they?

3 comments:

Matron said...

I sympathize with your puddle problem. My path has been under water for weeks now. I fear that by just raising the level might just displace the problem rather than remove it. hmmmm

Anonymous said...

Sorry, my "try-to-solve-it" brain kicked in once I'd read your post so I will now offer some suggestions that are probably useless and that you've already thought of (not that I'm implying that any suggestion you've thought of is useless btw - you know what I mean)

First thought was do you have a hairline fracture in the bottom of the waterbutt thats sitting on the ground? The plastic perishes sometimes and that could cause seepage that's gathering in the lowest point between the foundations of the shed and the greenhouse.

If not (and probably not) then as a temporary solution have you tried cat litter? You couldn't leave it there permanently but if you shoved a couple of bags down and left it for a day or so it might absorb the liquid enough for you to shovel up the gunk and dig down to put in a liner and fill it with gravel or wood chippings (or use my mums solution to any structural repair in the garden and throw a railway sleeper down).

There are two jobs I can't bear to do both of them stupid and little and doing them would take less time than dreading doing them. The first is washing the kitchen floor. Ridiculous I know, but it's the one thing I can't bear doing. I'll hoover, wash, polish, scrub the whole of the rest of the house out with a good grace but there's something I just can't bear about getting out the mop and bucket. The other job is ironing, because when I was at uni that was how I made cash to live on. Ever since then the thought of standing with a pile of sheets and shirts and assorted crumpled pieces of cloth is something that fills me with dread and despair.

clodhopper said...

Matron: We have a sloping plot and all the water tends to pool in certain areas. I think we just have to live with it to a degree and we can, it's just this little area betwixt shed and greenhouse that REALLY bugs me.

Helena: No, the waterbutts are sound. I think a soakaway of some sort IS the answer....just not sure about the cat litter bit :-(

Funnily enough, I love ironing & mopping floors: I should've married you after all then :-)

best

clod