Kitchen garden relocation

[Camouflaged]

Since we built the new house on the hill of our existing property, we are forced to relocate our established kitchen garden. Starting over is not going to be easy. My established kitchen garden has been a 25 year project with bringing in truck loads of mushroom compost to build up the sandy soil we have here and adding years of homemade compost. Oh well. It had to be done.

Where the established garden was, is now beefed up field lines for the new 1,500 gal septic system we just had installed for the new house. It's a monster for a single family of 2 dwelling and will last us the rest of our lives.

I'm not even sure where I want to build my relocated kitchen garden yet. I still have my 2 larger gardens that will sustain us but I need to adjust my planting routine to accommodate for daily harvest instead of long term growing.

We also had to relocate some of our fruit trees that were in the kitchen garden. The backhoe did a great job in not disturbing the tap roots. I was concerned about that with those established fruit trees. I was worried I might lose them but they are doing fine.

This has really been a challenge, especially right in the middle of us finding out I had cancer and going through surgery but once you get started on a project this big, you can't stop until you get to that stopping point.

That aside, and as far as the new house goes, all we are waiting on now is the electric co. coming out next week to hook us up and some new furniture being delivered the first part of Feb., and of course the clean-up.

I'll be SOOOO glad when all this is complete and we can settle in to the new house! I'm tired!

[Winni]

Congratulations Cammie, you deserve it.

[flock6]

What was your reasoning to install a 1500 gallon tank?

[Winni]

I have a 1250 tank on a 2 bedroom house, but I had a 3 bedroom field installed. Fields are the top reason for failure - just wanted that extra edge. Not pumping is another reason for failure, but that is neglect, not design.

[flock6]

We have systems well over 20 yrs old that have never been pumped. Grease and toilet paper are a system's worst enemies. A septic system relies on bacteria breaking down waste and only clean water going into the field. I suggest adding some yeast right now just flush it down the toilet. With such a large tank it could not work properly. A good working system will not need pumped, that means there's enough bacteria to break down all the waste. Best of luck.

[bambam]

We have systems well over 20 yrs old that have never been pumped. Grease and toilet paper are a system's worst enemies. A septic system relies on bacteria breaking down waste and only clean water going into the field. I suggest adding some yeast right now just flush it down the toilet. With such a large tank it could not work properly. A good working system will not need pumped, that means there's enough bacteria to break down all the waste. Best of luck.

My tank is 26 years old and never been pumped. I used Rid X for years, then yeast , now I use Green Gobbler. only been using it about a year , hope it's as good as advertised.

[driftz240]

I pump every 3 years and ridex the sh1t out of it. Like a box every 2 months

[91CavGT]

My old cabin had a very old septic tank on it from the old house on the property. Probably somewhere around 20-30 years old. To our knowledge, it had never been pumped. The system was dormant for about 10 years before my family bought the property and we built my cabin. A couple of years ago my family and I decided to sell the property, but as part of the sale the septic tank had to be pumped. We did use Ridix religiously. The septic guy said it was in great shape for its age and really didn’t need to be pumped. Grease never got dumped down the sink though, it always got dumped in the burn pile.

[Camouflaged]

Because it's a 3 stage system. Each stage is 500 gal. First stage holds solid waste. Second stage traps any semi-solids that might get past the first stage. The third stage is gray water that has to be pumped uphill into the field lines. Our system is gravity fed but still needs the small self generated pump that kicks on maybe once or twice a month to periodically move the gray water out, up and away. It's a huge concrete system but needed for our terrain.
We use buttermilk and yeast in our old septic tank that comes from the old house. We've never flushed TP into it. We have an infrared incinerator that sits next to the toilet. When the ash bin gets full, it gets dumped. No fuss, no muss and no smell. It's a single faze 250gal gravity fed system. It gets pumped out about every ten years. The new system for the new house is recommended to be cleaned out every 25 years and has a free life time maintainable and repair. $8,000.00 is what it cost us for the system, labor, installation, upkeep and repair.

What was your reasoning to install a 1500 gallon tank?

[91CavGT]

Most counties in Texas require that kind of system now for new builds.