That's a brilliant technique, Larry. I've seen it used by experts!

Larry, What is rain? (grin) Your garden always looks so nice and neat and tidy and I am glad your efforts to fix the drainage issue is paying off.

If you get tired of all that rain, you can send some to me. We have had a whopping 0.03" this week. Meanwhile, my family and friends in Fort Worth had back-to-back heavy rainfall days with flooding this week. It is very unfortunate that some buildings flooded two days in a row from separate rainstorms, but I heard that some of the lakes really benefitted. They said Lake Granbury rose 5' this week, which is incredible. Maybe that will make it possible for some of the boat launch ramps to be used again.

Rain is sadly lacking here this summer, but then on the other hand, when it isn't raining, I don't have to worry about my heavy clay soil draining too slowly.

Dawn

Larry, your gardens and grounds are just beautiful. You are definitely a good steward of your land. Keep posting the beautiful pictures. I'll look at them to see what things around here might look like when I finish getting all the weeds down. Won't complain about the weeds though, cause if the weeds are growing so is the grass. We have received nearly an inch of rain over Sun. thru Tue. night. Suppose to get up to 100F on Monday. Yuck!

Dawn, I sorry you all are not getting more rain. Keeping fingers crossed and doing rain dance for you.

Mary

Larry! Your garden looks amazing!! What kind of turf do you have? Bermuda? If so, how do you keep it from invading your garden bed? I would think that it would be nearly impossible to control simply through weeding !

Doc mikeymike, I just have junk grass. This used to be c cow pasture and nothing was done to it except mowing. I do have Bermuda but it gives me less trouble than Clover and crabgrass.

I have a system I use that most people would not want to fool with, but I think it helps me very much. Because I live in a low area and have very heavy slow draining soil, I use what I call a Borderless raised bed. The bed is not raised much but it drains much like a raised bed.

I make my weed and water protection system by digging a molt around my garden and filling it with organic matter. If the Bermuda grass tries to cross the molt (ditch filled with OG) it can be sprayed or pulled very easily.

This picture will show where my granddaughter planted a sweet potato bed this week. You can see at the left side where I had onions and garlic, that I really let the weeds and grass get away from me. They did not cross my molt, they came up from a neglected, unmulched garden.

Here is a picture of where I am harvesting my decayed organic matter to use on the garden.

Here is a picture of where I was adding on to the south garden. I just throw the soil I dig out of the ditch to the top of the planting area and then amend it. The overflow from this area runs down past other beds, finally ending at the area of the beds shown in the second picture of the first post.

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Thanks for the explanation, Larry, and for the extra pictures! Let me ask you this: where do you get your organic matter from? Or, specifically, where does it comes from until you get compost?

Larry, I did some trench composting like that in my brother's garden. He had rocky soil and after we removed all the rocks, which took months and months of digging and hauling them away, the soil grade was low. I dug trenches, filled them with organic matter and then built raised beds on top of all that. So, we never actually harvested the compost from the trenches, but I am sure the plant roots from the raised beds on top of the trenches did grow down into it.

Looking at photos of your garden and all your projects never is boring, by the way. I always enjoy it.

Mary, We'll get rain again some day. Keep on dancing that rain dance! It just aggravates me to constantly watch rain move our way from the DFW metroplex or from Montague or Cooke County, and when it approaches the Red River, it evaporates into thin air. I don't know why I watch the radar. I know the rain isn't going to reach us, because 95% of the time it doesn't.

When Fort Worth flooded two days in a row I was practically jealous of their floodwaters, though I certainly hate that so many homes and vehicles were damaged. A friend and I were trying to figure out the last time we had enough rain here in our neighborhood to cause flooding and we decided it was April 29, 2009, when over a foot of rain fell in one day. That must be why we haven't had many big rainfall events since then---we got all our rain in one day.

Dawn

Docmikeymike. The oak shavings I use come a small saw mill about 8 miles south of me. The shredded leaves I get from my uncle about 5 miles from me. The grass comes from my lawn. If I buy bagged composted manure it comes from Ace hardware, the bulk comes Mulch and More, in Ft. Smith (which comes from Miami OK). I also use compost from the Ft. Smith land fill. My first choice Is the shavings, shredded leaves, and the grass from my lawn because I KNOW nothing is in them.. As far as compost, I compost very little, other than what is in the ditches around my garden.

Docmikeymike. I need to correct one thing. I have thought all this time I was using Oak shavings, I am not, I am using pine shavings. I cant get to the spot where the oak shavings are (need 4 wheel drive). I went to get a load a while ago and they were working on the saw. I found out that I had been getting shaving from the wrong pile for three years. You can see that the pine has not damaged my garden a lot yet. I think I will even go back for another load this afternoon.

Fascinating! I'm hoping to do something similar but with level-bottom swales to retain water instead of drain off. I'm not looking forward to it but know it will be worth it in the long run.

Bon