Viewing post #531828 by fiwit

Frillylily said:Hmm, had not thought of that of course. I do not use a lot of cleaners and such, I am allergic to fragrances so I go easy on all that stuff. I guess I could start using only natural products to fix that problem if I needed to. I could call the county to see what they thought of putting raise beds over the area, but as far as locating the lines it would be pretty difficult without a lot of extensive digging. I assume they are are 18-24 inches deep for the frost line. The tank is rather old, but the inspector when we bought the house last spring, said it was good, we had some repairs made to it, and ok since then. Well the Elm rooted in it and caused it to back up a few times, we dug up the line from the tank to the house and discovered the roots and cleaned it up and cut that tree which was only 10 ft from the tank and was enormous.
fiwit, yes I agree about the worms. There aren't many here in the yard, I think it is packed too hard. I could hook hoses together to reach the other half of the property, but it slopes down hill from that point and would not be seen from the house. I also think it would get critters too much in the garden since it is farther from the house. What is the best way to locate the leach lines?
I plan on filling the beds with compost and topdressing with buffalo and camel manure. Can I use that? Just asking because one of the neighbors raises them and I have that available to me. I also thought about foregoing the edging around the perimeter and simply layering some fresh soil over the ground, sort of berm style. That would be great because I wouldn't have to buy any edging that way. But just wasn't sure it if would harm my leach field. I guess I could till some of the area that doesn't have the roots as thick, if the lines are 18 inches deep, tilling over the top 6 inches or so will not harm anything?

about.com says to plant trees at least 100ft away from the septic field. The big thing is to not direct rainwater into the septic field, and to plant stuff with shallow roots. Trust me, you do NOT want a saturated septic field. and everything I'm seeing online says do NOT plant veggies, for the very reasons NJBob mentioned.

I'm thinking raised beds on legs might be a brilliant idea.