Ideas for preventing ditch collapse/erosion?

I have a .25 acre garden set up on a patch of land that is 3-4' of heavy clay soil with a basalt bedrock layer below that. Where I live we receive heavy snows that leads to boggy conditions with standing water. This patch of land will grow and produce but I've noticed that only pears, apples, gooseberries and currants can tolerate the boggy conditions. Any prunus I've planted has died and I suspect its due to root rot.

I'm inclined to start digging ditches around all my trees and garden beds 12" deep, 12" wide to start encouraging the flow of water and draining the swamp so to speak. My big question: What natural, non-plastic substances and techniques could I use to maintain the stability of these ditches and prevent erosion? I've looked into rock flumes and rock weirs and wonder if these will encourage the flow and drainage of water or stop it up? I would use the natural basalt rock I have on my property but I have this prevalent fear that the soil will erode and basically fill in the gaps of the rocks? Is this unfounded? Does anybody have any other ideas, inspiration or images I could see to base a design off of? Thank you for your insight wise heads!

We live in an old glacial lake bed with a high water table, heavy clay, and very flat contours, so moving water is a top concern.   The local gravel roads are built up rather high, but eventually the sides running down into the ditch are covered with grasses and the usual weeds that fill in.  All of this is mowed routinely by the county.  I would do the same on our property except for the fact that we have free-roaming pigs (property is fenced) and any "ditch project" quickly becomes someone's favorite wallow.   So no point in us seeding the sidewalls of a drainage ditch only to see it torn asunder with the first grass sprouts.  But *if* this is not your impediment, then I would say you could dig drainage trenches and just seed the heck out of the side-walls to get some erosion control going by virtue of a grass mat to reduce erosion.  Good luck!

Rocking the sides will work too. The rock will fill in with mud but it will hold way better than just clay. Sloping your ditch sides as mellow as you can will help. Shoot, I would do both seeding and rock.

I appreciate the insight. When you mean rocking the sides, do you have any specific images or diagrams of what you had in mind? Most basalt here is spherical in shape so any flat pieces I would have to shape by hand but am willing to do in order to make this work.

Dan Fish wrote:Rocking the sides will work too. The rock will fill in with mud but it will hold way better than just clay. Sloping your ditch sides as mellow as you can will help. Shoot, I would do both seeding and rock.

Hmmm yeah that round rock won't work as well as easier stacking rock. I would think it's better than nothing though, for sure, I mean this isn't a stream bed, just an almost flat drainage ditch, right? If you use the round rock just start with the biggest on the bottom and stack it up the sides as best you can. If you can, "cap" it with big heavy rocks too. This sort of holds the rock in place. I think shaping the rock would work great and look awesome but that sounds like a lot of work.

Here is a picture of what I was originally thinking:

Hope that pic works. I have no idea how people get pictures in their posts here... I am dumb

I see wood being used to prevent ditches from collapsing.

One of the nearest towns to me has irrigation ditches that were built in the 1700s.

I have no idea what the walls were made of unless it was the same large limestone rocks as the mission that those Spaniards' built.

Do you have bricks available?  I have read that sunken garden beds are made with bricks.

Dan Fish wrote:Hmmm yeah that round rock won't work as well as easier stacking rock. I would think it's better than nothing though, for sure, I mean this isn't a stream bed, just an almost flat drainage ditch, right? If you use the round rock just start with the biggest on the bottom and stack it up the sides as best you can. If you can, "cap" it with big heavy rocks too. This sort of holds the rock in place. I think shaping the rock would work great and look awesome but that sounds like a lot of work.

Here is a picture of what I was originally thinking:

Thank you for the image. My ditches are much smaller but it provides food for thought as far as how to maintain structure. I am essentially digging a long series of 12"x12" ditches in a garden whose only foot traffic would be little girls picking greens, a mob of buff ducks and me and my wife. On the one hand, I can set a goal for myself of harvesting a multitude of smaller basalt rocks to fill these ditches or bite the bullet and buy drainage rock or something along those lines. Pine wood reinforcement along the sides sounds appealing and more efficient but the concern is that as they rot they fill the ditches with more debris and defeat their purpose.

I would build gently raised beds. By that I mean digging lower areas, and tossing the dirt into mounds on which the trees can grow.

Soil constantly fills in low lying areas where water doesn't carry the sediment away, so routine maintenance would include removing soil from the low lying areas, and depositing it onto the mounts.

I envision something like this...

Hi Bernie,

If you do buy your rock don't get drain rock. It is round rock for maximum airspace. So it won't stack well or hold much back, comparatively. What you want is something like:

4" rock.  It's jagged and will interlock well., Really it's for road surfacing but I would think it would work good for a 12" deep ditch. There are many grades from "minus" (Basically what falls through a 4" sieve at the gravel plant, so lots of smaller pieces) to "washed" (only rocks about 4 inches).

Rip-Rap. This is larger angular rock that is great for holding up a slope. It's pretty big though.

So if it was me I would probably go in between the two. Go to your local gravel yard and they ought to have buckets of samples out front and then you can decide what will work for you. Or a landscape yard will have some of the same stuff and maybe more aesthetically pleasing too.

Rock is cheap but the delivery is a killer.


HOWEVER, I have my trees that are in heavy, undraining clay in a system very much like Jo-Lo up there. It works well.

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:I would build gently raised beds. By that I mean digging lower areas, and tossing the dirt into mounds on which the trees can grow.

Soil constantly fills in low lying areas where water doesn't carry the sediment away, so routine maintenance would include removing soil from the low lying areas, and depositing it onto the mounts.

I envision something like this...

Mr. Lofthouse I'm grateful for your response and this is similar to what I have going. I do want to go the extra step to ensure my trees are not just surviving but thriving in their environment. They are all heavily mulched with cardboard and pine needles atop a hugelkultur mound. Now, my ground is about 4' of clay/rock soil atop a bedrock of basalt so that is a my issue. I will drain the swamp so to speak one way or another on this one!

Dan Fish wrote:Hi Bernie,

If you do buy your rock don't get drain rock. It is round rock for maximum airspace. So it won't stack well or hold much back, comparatively. What you want is something like:

4" rock.  It's jagged and will interlock well., Really it's for road surfacing but I would think it would work good for a 12" deep ditch. There are many grades from "minus" (Basically what falls through a 4" sieve at the gravel plant, so lots of smaller pieces) to "washed" (only rocks about 4 inches).

Rip-Rap. This is larger angular rock that is great for holding up a slope. It's pretty big though.

So if it was me I would probably go in between the two. Go to your local gravel yard and they ought to have buckets of samples out front and then you can decide what will work for you. Or a landscape yard will have some of the same stuff and maybe more aesthetically pleasing too.

Rock is cheap but the delivery is a killer.


HOWEVER, I have my trees that are in heavy, undraining clay in a system very much like Jo-Lo up there. It works well.

Understood, I've got a similar situation but nonetheless it just breaks my heart to see the snow melt in April and have a swamp in my orchard/garden with 1"-6" of standing water. I do believe digging a system of ditches is my best bet to ensure my trees are not rotting their roots.  You see, I've lost countless prunus trees in this garden because I firmly believe they cannot tolerate the standing water like malus and pyrus can.