Property won't dry!

I am extremely happy with the amount of water I have here in NC. My property happens to have two ponds, one large, and one smaller, usually a breeding ground for frogs, lovely rainfall, and three springs, that I know of, one of which was broadened into a third pond. All of this is great, except, we have therapy horses on our property. 22 of them. Their paddocks take up the majority of our land. Mud is so bad for their feet. With thrush and cracking and a whole host of things that go wrong with excess amounts of mud, we're having a problem.

Our property never dries out! It is wet all the time. There is constant mud, pretty much everywhere, except for maybe two months out of the year. It's on our pathways, in our paddocks, in our barns, everywhere. Does anyone have tips for drying it out in a helpful way? Maybe some trees nontoxic to horses/cows/goats, but that need a lot of water and will soak it up? Or, maybe contact information for someone in NC who will cap a spring? Or possibly a way to redirect the water and use it for growing foods? Any advice would be helpful!

You could search on this site for threads regarding chinampas. These are essentially raised veggie growing beds that are surrounded by wet or damp areas. They have to be raised enough that the plant roots can deal with, or avoid, the moisture below. The area around a chinampa can be trenched out and those materials added to the bed.

Weeping willows and cottonwood trees come to mind as great at slurping up water. Both of these will sucker out and spread, and in the case of willows especially, they might invade joins in water and sewage pipes.

All willows are heavy drinkers, and could be planted in clusters or bands to enhance your landscape.

Michaela Stone : An embarrassment of riches ! My 1st question is what do you have for heavy duty Post hole diggers /excavation equipment !

Your story is classic for parts of N.C.; I am sure that just under your top soil you have a near impervious layer of Clay, The more Water soaks

into the clay, the more the pore spaces are filled, and the more water the clay takes up, The more it swells = Water impervious layer !


So - you need to find out if this clay layer is several meters deep, requiring extensive ditching and terraforming with fair to poor results, or if

Your clay layer may be a thin layer inches to feet deep and laying overtop of a porous layer of Gravel or Sand !

If you do have this lucky feature you can proceed with post hole diggers to create free drainage where none existed before ! I would strongly

Recommend marking all excavations / post holes at each location and on a corresponding map and proceeding Carefully and slowly !


As a minimum you will know more about YOUR sub-soil, this should pay you for your work ! It is possible with creative Ditching / Terraforming

You may be able to improve drainage and block or shift springs to Alternate locations more favorable to your needs !

I hope this is timely and helpful, for the good of the Craft ! Big AL

I agree with Al, there might be something you can do to help fix the mud issue and put the moisture to better use. I would go find the Farm Services office for your county. FSA is a wing of off the USDA. They will have a map of soil types that should cover your area that was done sometime after WWII. The maps of my county was done in 1972 and are surprisingly accurate and useful. The soil type information will have some guide lines on how to work with it.

I had some areas on my property that seemed to stay wet way to long. The fix was sub soiling - problem solved. I suspect that you can find a similar solution to your problem.