At Home In The Woods

[Obed]

Looking great! I don't think you'll notice the Y pipes after a while. If you wait to seed, you may find areas that start to grow moss. I know a lot of guys battle it in their lawns, but it can be a good alternative in some locations. You can feed it with powdered milk.

Hobie,
I haven't seen any moss around here. Also, we won't put down the topsoil until just before we plant so it'll be hard for anything to grow.
Obed

 

[CurlyDave]

Rick,
My wife mentioned letting the woods take some of it back. We'll have to see how it all goes. Wildflowers could be pretty there at the edge of the woods if they can get enough sunlight.

Obed

You could speed that up quite a bit by planting desirable trees around the edge of the area.

Personally, I don't count fruit trees as desirable. We once lived in a house with 8 or 9 fruit trees, plums to persimmons. They all came ripe within a month every year and mature trees can produce incredible amounts of fruit. Probably 50-100 lbs of fruit per tree.

Giving it away was a full-time job. If we let it fall, it was the biggest mess ever seen. DW had an American Eskimo dog, which loved the ripe apricots. She started out being able to jump high enough to reach the low ones on the tree, but by the end of the second season, she was as big & heavy as a medicine ball. Couldn't even get into the floor of the back seat of the car, much less jump up on the seat.

 

[mikefromnh]

Hobie,
I haven't seen any moss around here. Also, we won't put down the topsoil until just before we plant so it'll be hard for anything to grow.
Obed

I'd consider growing a green manure or cover crop now to avoid run-off. Rye or buckwheat maybe. Areas where you don't want to have to mow you might try growing clover -doesn't get very tall so you barely every have to mow.

 

[Obed]

The grading contractor keeps covering up the roots of our trees with dirt. I have told him over and over not to do so and it still keeps happening. I'm about at my wits end. Last night I spent the entire evening removing dirt from the roots of the grandest tree in our front yard. There was almost a foot of dirt covering the roots. All the dirt in the shown in the last picture was covering the roots of our large chestnut oak tree.

After moving the dirt, I put a stake with a flag in front of the tree to show the contractor where dirt cannot be added. You can just barely see the stake in the last picture. I would think that telling him "Do not cover the roots of any trees with dirt" would be explanation enough but apparrently that is not the case.

 

[Obed]

Garden Water Line Question
Hey guys. I have asked the grading contractor to give me an estimate for running a water line from the house to the garden area. I told him I wanted two 1" PVC lines buried 2' deep. The second line running to the garden is a spare in case the first line breaks. I'm guessing we are talking around 200' of trench. I would like to run the water line to the garden before we put down topsoil and seed our yard.

Question #1: While the trench is open, can you think of anything else I should put in the trench?

In addition, I would like to be able to shut off the garden water line close to the house. The picture above shows where the water line that runs from the well meets the house. The second pipe is a spare. There is a T-connection with a 2 foot long pipe capped off. The capped off pipe was put there in preparation for running a water line to the garden area. These pipes have long been covered up about 2 feet below ground.

Question #2: I would like to put a valve in the waterline below ground to prevent freezing. Do you have any idea how to do this? Obviously I need to access the valve in order to operate it.

Thanks in advance,
Obed

 

[Dishpointer]

Why not just run some PEX straight from the house and put a 2' burry yard hydrant at the garden. Pex will not crack even when frozen and the yard hydrant will not freeze since the water drains out the bottom when shut off. You could always put a shut off valve in the house.

 

[Tororider]

While the trench is open: Speaker wire? Who knows you may want to listen to music while gardening and the trench is open. But seriously, do you want an outlet out there to run electrical tools for gardening, etc? Just a thought, and smart to do it while it is open the first time.

 

[dstig1]

Orange snow fence may be your best option to keep them away from trees, but by the time you get it in they will probably be done.

You can always add an electrical conduit or 2 in the trench so you can pull wires later on (LV or power or both but you don't want to run both in the same tube).

There are faucets that have an extension to shut off below the frost line, but I think those all include a hose bib (outlet), and are not a simple line shut off. If you wanted to get crazy you could use a shut off like they do at the street for city water. I think your best bet is to put it inside the basement.

 

[dcyrilc]

Orange snow fence may be your best option to keep them away from trees, but by the time you get it in they will probably be done.

You can always add an electrical conduit or 2 in the trench so you can pull wires later on (LV or power or both but you don't want to run both in the same tube).

There are faucets that have an extension to shut off below the frost line, but I think those all include a hose bib (outlet), and are not a simple line shut off. If you wanted to get crazy you could use a shut off like they do at the street for city water. I think your best bet is to put it inside the basement.

I know I'm crazy, but the fact that I have curb valves and water valve boxes on all my water lines must prove it.:laughing: It does make it easy when you need or want to work on a line though. Remove the lid from the box, drop the valve handle over the valve, give a quarter turn on the handle, and replace the lid. Done.

 

[dcyrilc]

Garden Water Line Question
Hey guys. I have asked the grading contractor to give me an estimate for running a water line from the house to the garden area. I told him I wanted two 1" PVC lines buried 2' deep. The second line running to the garden is a spare in case the first line breaks. I'm guessing we are talking around 200' of trench. I would like to run the water line to the garden before we put down topsoil and seed our yard.

Question #1: While the trench is open, can you think of anything else I should put in the trench?

Thanks in advance,
Obed

I would recommend running automatic sprinkler cable out to the garden area. It's inexpensive and if you ever want to automate the watering this will make it much easier.

 

[ruralruss]

Garden Water Line Question
Hey guys. I have asked the grading contractor to give me an estimate for running a water line from the house to the garden area. I told him I wanted two 1" PVC lines buried 2' deep. The second line running to the garden is a spare in case the first line breaks. I'm guessing we are talking around 200' of trench. I would like to run the water line to the garden before we put down topsoil and seed our yard.

Question #1: While the trench is open, can you think of anything else I should put in the trench?

In addition, I would like to be able to shut off the garden water line close to the house. The picture above shows where the water line that runs from the well meets the house. The second pipe is a spare. There is a T-connection with a 2 foot long pipe capped off. The capped off pipe was put there in preparation for running a water line to the garden area. These pipes have long been covered up about 2 feet below ground.

Question #2: I would like to put a valve in the waterline below ground to prevent freezing. Do you have any idea how to do this? Obviously I need to access the valve in order to operate it.

Thanks in advance,
Obed

Definitely run electric to it. You can get a big jump start on the garden if you build a small greenhouse. You will want a fan in it. Also you might need to run a small heater if you get some real cold temps. You will need something more than the standard house wire because of the distance and it needs to be rated for in ground. We ran a 50 amp service to our garden area. We ran 220 to it in a small breaker box. It was a BIG wire! It has turned out very helpful.

 

[dstig1]

I know I'm crazy, but the fact that I have curb valves and water valve boxes on all my water lines must prove it.:laughing: It does make it easy when you need or want to work on a line though. Remove the lid from the box, drop the valve handle over the valve, give a quarter turn on the handle, and replace the lid. Done.

Hey, if the straightjacket fits...

 

[dcyrilc]

Hey, if the straightjacket fits...

It does.:laughing:

 

[LoveTheSmellofDiesel]

Back on your root covering situation, not a new idea, but hold back a payment or two for the amount it would cost for the seat time to uncover your roots. My guess that the deafness / listening issue would get rectified real quick. That was the only way I could get some of our contractor's attention. Then I would decide if I wanted to cut another check to make up the difference I left off the first time. Did this twice and every time there was a questionable item I got asked before hey followed their own ideas first... :thumbsup:

Beautiful job you have done all around!

 

[eepete]

I'd put a 1" conduit in the trench. If you can't be right, and can't predict the future, you can at least be flexible.

If the garden area is near the driveway or if you think that some year you'd like to put in a security camera, put in a 2nd 1" conduit for low voltage stuff.

Should be less than $50 to put two 1" conduits in. Conduit pricing has really jumped in the last 4 years, it's almost doubled. For the 200' run, while the 3/4" is tempting cost wise the 1" will be a much easier pull. But if it's a nice straight run you could save a few bucks and use 3/4 for the low voltage stuff. I'd stick with 1" for AC in case the "ruralruss" approach unfolds.

Be sure to glue the caps on to keep dirt out- dirt makes the pull much harder.

Pete

 

[Obed]

Electric and low voltage sound like great ideas. I asked the grading contractor to give me an estimate for running two 1" PVC water lines, a 1" conduit for potential low voltage, and an underground rated power cable. I just need to decide whether to put a 10/2 (120V) or 10/3 (240V) cable. A 10 AWG cable should give me about 15 Amps for a 220 foot cable based on the online cable size calculators. I need to check out how much 220 ft of wire will cost. I imagine we may need an electric fence around the garden to keep the deer out.

Thanks for the input,
Obed

 

[Obed]

Yesterday we rented a tree chipper for $500 for a 24 hour rental. This machine can chip logs up to 12" in diameter. I was amazed at how well the chipper worked. Using his highlift, the grading subcontractor fed the chipper 30 ft logs. The trees were all cut up before hand and ready for feeding into chipper. It only took about 5 hours to chip up all our trees and logs that were 12" or less in diameter. I would guess that about 35 trees got chipped up.

Renting a chipper was my wife's idea. We had originally planned to burn the trees. However, somehow my wife got the idea that we could chip up the trees and use them for mulch, gardening, and landscaping. We avoided having to build a large fire and risk setting our woods on fire.

One of the contractors who gave us a bid for the grading work was timid about burning the trees because of our woods and recommened hauling off the trees in dumpsters. I told that contractor that we weren't in the middle of a subdivision and didn't give the dumpster idea much thought. We also didn't hire that guy.

Now we have a very large pile of chips. We'll need to turn/stir up the chips periodically and try to keep the pile from developing a heat and catching on fire.

We still have a very large stack of logs that I will eventually cut up for firewood.

 

[eepete]

Just for grins, you might want to compare the price of a direct burry #10 cable with conduit and runs of #10 THHN cable. I've hi-potted the conduit, and it's good to at least 7500 volts (all I can test up to). The direct bury cable is a 600V rated wire (like the THHN cable) in a jacket which I suspect is not as thick as the conduit wall and so it would have a lower breakdown voltage.

So with the conduit you might have less problems if there was a lightning strike on a tree or ground somewhere near that 200 foot run. You also get the win that you can fix things or pull in another cable if need be.

So compare the prices and think about the trade offs between the two approaches to getting power to the garden. Overall, I think you're on the right track here with what you're putting in the trench.

When we did our house, I had 3 areas around the house that were at 100, 160, and 200' away where I ran a 3/4" black PE water line, conduit for a light on a pole, conduit for an outlet (15 amp, ran #12), and low voltage conduit. The idea was that whatever came down the road, I could connect it to the house. The main water line to the road also had power, lighting for the driveway, low voltage conduit, and the phone line in conduit. The water line was at 18" and everything else was at 3 to 5 feet deep. So my biases are clear, but a trench with just a water line is a missed opportunity for some neat project down the road.

Pete

 

[CurlyDave]

Obed:

How many irrigation zones do you intend to have in your garden?

The last time I looked at this, which was 20 years ago, the cost of the wire was so much higher than the cost of pipe that I saved money by putting my timer at the house and running individual pipes to each sprinkler zone.

 

[weldingisfun]

Obed, have you ever thought of selling your chips for mulch?
We chip the branches from our cedars then advertise on Craigslist and sell the mulch for $8.50 a yard. Give it a try. Offset some of the chipper rental cost.