MIRLITON.ORG

MIRLITON.ORG

Ye Olde College Inn Water Table Test

Water Table test on Ye Olde College Inn control bed (no artificial sub-surface drainage). To test drainage, I dug a small hole down to the base of the bed (where the wood meets the ground soil). I waited five minutes and then examined for water seepage which would most likely be coming from water retrained at the base of the bed in the gravel layer and top soil. As you can see here, water rapidly filled the hole. All the mirliton plants in this control bed have developed root fungus, most likely because of saturated soil and waterlogging of roots.
Water Table test on Ye Olde College Inn on bed with FASP pipe sub-surface drainage system (no gravel cover). I replicated the experiment in adjacent beds only about 2 feet from the control bed and constructed in the same manner with approximately the same soil mix, except this bed used a FASP pipe french drain pipe in the center of the bed. After five minutes, there was no visible excess water gathering in the test hole. The mirliton plants transplanted in this bed were diseased and died early on, so we can't compare growth, but we can conclude that the pipe did remove excess water from the bed.