Mud from the bottom of the well

Every summer one of my wells dries up, the bottom gets all muddy and smells bad so I'm taking that mud and using it like a fertilizer diluted in water.

This well had a problem, after big rains the water entered it full of mud, I solved that problem but have no idea about the amount of mud inside it or if it's safe to take the mud out because it might compromise the well walls, it's one old well and no one remembers how it was built, any thoughts or concerns?

I don't have a helpful answer but am interested in the well. On our land there is an old housesite from the thirties. There is a rock lined hand dug well about two feet across and twenty feet deep and what we call a cistern that is about seven feet across and about sixteen feet deep. We syphoned all of the water out once and it was a beautiful cone shape rock lined to the bottom and also with a deep layer of mud.
I am amazed at the amount of work that went in to both. Do you know when yours was dug?

Judith Browning wrote:I don't have a helpful answer but am interested in the well. On our land there is an old housesite from the thirties. There is a rock lined hand dug well about two feet across and twenty feet deep and what we call a cistern that is about ten feet across and about sixteen feet deep. We syphoned all of the water out once and it was a beautiful cone shape rock lined to the bottom and also with a deep layer of mud.
I am amazed at the amount of work that went in to both. Do you know when yours was dug?

I have no idea about who done it or when although I'm very curious about what's on the bottom but not courageous enough to go down and clean all that stinky stuff, this well was on a property we bought, we have a better one near our house, at least double capacity and one old system like this one



It was donkey powered but now we use one electric pump, if rain doesn't come up soon we have two dry wells

Oooh, you have a nora - I was beginning to think I was the only one!

Our well is enormous and there is about 40 years of accumulated black gunk on the bottom, full of all the iron that's rusted off the buckets on the nora. The neighbours keep telling us that we should clean it out, but, like you, I've never figured out what to do with the gunk. Maybe the best is to pump it into a compost compound with a thick layer of sawdust at the bottom and add more sawdust layers as it fills up. I can't imagine there's anything in there that will actually be still bad once it's allowed to compost, though it might be a bit smelly for a while until the air can get to it.

Burra Maluca wrote:Oooh, you have a nora - I was beginning to think I was the only one!

Our well is enormous and there is about 40 years of accumulated black gunk on the bottom, full of all the iron that's rusted off the buckets on the nora. The neighbours keep telling us that we should clean it out, but, like you, I've never figured out what to do with the gunk. Maybe the best is to pump it into a compost compound with a thick layer of sawdust at the bottom and add more sawdust layers as it fills up. I can't imagine there's anything in there that will actually be still bad once it's allowed to compost, though it might be a bit smelly for a while until the air can get to it.

I just water plants and trees with it, pumping it out is impossible with regular water pumps, if it rains properly next months I'm going to fill my hugulkultur beds with it