Wet stuff falling from the sky! But where's it all going?

[@Superxtremedits]

Slow and sink. Fantastic.

[@OublietteTight]

How to keep more water? Trap it at the top of your lawn beside the driveways in a leach pit? It will be a catch pit for uphill run-off to protect against erosion. The one my dad installed was 6 feet deep and several feet wide. Once he broke thru and removed all the dirt and clay he refilled it with silver dollar sized rocks, nothing too small, right to the top. The pit took yearly flood waters away from our basement windows and sent it downhill, gradually thru the landscape. Our big oak walnut tree was very happy after that was installed.

[@thehillsidegardener3961]

I am definitely thinking about doing something like that, thanks for the suggestion. I guess it's a toss-up as to whether I want to sort of just soak it into the soil or actually try to collect it somehow for later use. The latter would involve digging tanks and things, so not sure about that...

[@phillhart2990]

We have a hilly garden too. And recently we leveled our lawn & replanted it all. Now it's interesting to see all the water running off the upper parts of the garden. It's soaking the grass too much, to the extent that a lot of the new grass died. I'm now having to put drains in strategic locations to catch & control the run off. I live in a wet area, so we don't have to worry so much about "keeping" the water, But I do see a lot of opportunities for you (with the right setup) to be storing a huge amount of water. It can be expensive & time consuming but my gut tells me that what you really want is to be able to store all this water and then gradually release it over a time period of your choosing - rather than channeling and "soaking" the entire area all at once. I'm sure you will put your mind to it and come up with something. I've seen friends who have linked 200L water containers together in a chain, so that when one fills up, it just starts filling up the next and so on. The other option is to go with a really big container and also hook it up to your storm-water from the roof. Lots of options but there are lots of vids on youtube to give you inspiration - and you don't have to do all of it at once.... break the project down into smaller segments... but try to plan out the long term approach first so that it doesn't "meander" - otherwise you'll find yourself doing things twice & having to re-do stuff. All the best. PS - love the garden mate!!

[@thehillsidegardener3961]

@@phillhart2990 Thanks, yes, I think there's definitely a place for both - keeping the water in the soil is definitely a major permaculture strategy, but yes, also keeping it in storage of some kind. I'm definitely going to look into some sort of storage in the top part of the garden. And then kind of work my way down. It's just got to be more like a pond or similar - a "natural" feature rather than some ugly plastic tank, if I can avoid that. And yes, it's funny how some of us have the opposite problem, too much water isn't something we experience very often!

[@WebMaster-vh7ek]

I think what you need is a pond on the upper level. All your main collection points seem to be up there; roof, driveway, summer house, lawn. Then in summer you could gravity feed down to trees, bushes and garden plants. Could be dug in or with a fishpond liner. Cover to keep out leaves and cutdown on evaporation. Or not, either way

[@OublietteTight]

Is all the orange because of clay? He might not need a plastic solution?

[@thehillsidegardener3961]

@@WebMaster-vh7ek Thanks for the suggestion, I would LOVE to have a pond but yeah, unfortunately what we have is not true clay and is rather permeable (though it's not sand either). So I would have to use plastic unfortunately, which I'm not a fan of as I guess I want something more sustainable and "natural". I am hoping to dig a well soon and maybe we find real clay further down which I could use as liner. But I am totally down with the idea of creating water-holding features at multiple points down the hill. You're right, the main collection surfaces are up top.

[@stephenfriday1352]

1000L ibc tank.for water collection

[@thehillsidegardener3961]

That's definitely on the cards, just a case of sourcing one, as delivery is a bit awkward and expensive. And they look a bit ugly, I have to think about how to hide it! 1000 litres isn't much tbh, that's gone in a week or two if you're doing even a small amount of watering, but it would still come in handy for sure.

[@Superxtremedits]

Plant the rain.