Article by my dear friend Sandra:
The hole in the garden
Shortly after moving into our small, old house, we found a concrete lid in the garden under a lot of moss, soil, and pine needles.
But what is this concrete lid doing in the middle of the garden and what on earth is this lid covering??
After we had lifted the really heavy lid, we looked into a large, deep, black hole; water was reflecting at the bottom, so it didn't lead to China after all....
Then we discovered a pipe on the side and the theory was quickly born that rainwater from the roof is drained here, a soakaway.
The recycling well
So why not use the water? I want the "Nature in the Garden" plaque and that would be one criterion fulfilled for it.
Unfortunately, the water disappeared again within a short time after it rained, hmm. So we placed an old barrel (it didn't have to be pretty) under the pipe. Thus, there were about 150 liters of rainwater in the barrel down in the hole... yesss... and now??
My dad really has a lot of stuff and actually also an old green hand pump and a few pipes. Ok, ok, our new, old well isn't exactly a beauty:
As I said, my dad has a lot of stuff, and since he was a mason, he also has a soft spot for bricks, especially old bricks.
One could build something on the concrete ring, but then the pump would of course be much too low, possibly still high enough to fill a bird bath, but certainly not watering cans.
The company that manufactures the old pumps still exists, by the way, which was quickly found out thanks to Dr. Google, so we soon obtained the "extension" as well.
So we did some masonry... "embedded" the beautiful, old bricks so they wouldn't weather so quickly, it would be a shame. We had old plant troughs on the terrace that we dismantled; we used the boards and screwed together a cover for the new well ring. We cut the lawn around the bricks, lined it with weed fleece, and filled it with gravel we found in the garage; after all, you still have to be able to mow the lawn.
And here is the result:
.....and when it rains, it actually pumps water too....
Read also: Recycling ideas in the garden
Photos by my dear friend Sandra
