Yes, the word "drain" and "tile" put together means black, corrugated, maybe perforated, underground drainage tubing.
You know! Because... it does! I mean when someone says: "tile" I immediately think of ribbed plastic tubing. Duhh.
And every project I dream up, has stages. (Like my kids lego builds.) There's pictures in my head of what goes next in the project. Anything that doesn't appear on time: stops all forward momentum.
First I bought pond liner. Then I needed enormous amounts of cinder blocks. Then sand. Then I partially assembled all that, to see if this was even going to work. Then I had storms blow through and blow trash out of my trees and fill the liner with water. So now I need to pull the pond liner out, clean it off and put it back in. Next, I waited endlessly for something that Home Depot said I can order but they magically can't ever get it to where I ordered it to. Then I did massive internet searches. Then called my mom to get her opinion on bulkhead fittings. Does it need an elbow, will it work, what the heck is a bulkhead fitting? You know, my typical. One step forward, stall out on forward progress, then take two steps back.
Yes. I'm still working on this project.
So originally I ordered 50 feet of drain tile to be delivered to my local Home Depot. Somehow: the order got lost in transit. So: I had to reorder. Suspiciously, that got lost too. So, I gave up on Home Depot and tried to find it somewhere else. (This was during the time I was digging the giant holes for the two new pawpaws.)
Lowe's had drain tile but only in ten foot lengths and for what I'm doing (making a wicking bed) that would have made for massive amounts of waste, since: I need 8 lengths at 40" and 8 lengths at 24".
How do I know I need that specific configuration? Well, I'll tell you: I asked my husband what he thought about what I'd need. He went out with a tape measurer... and later gave me an Excel spreadsheet with exact specifications. Not kidding. I could not be more different than my hubby. I can't even remember how to use Excel. I know I took a class in college...I am just going with the opposites attract theory.
Since I didn't build both beds the same size: I don't need the same lengths. I mean why make it simple and build them both the same dimension? That would be too easy. I'm too busy making extra work to bother with that!
It actually came down to: I'm too tired to keep throwing these cinder blocks around, so: the second bed is smaller. This is definitely an "on purpose" experiment that is totally dependant on size. Wink wink, nudge nudge.
I kept looking and found some drain tile at Tractor Supply. 100 feet for the same price I was going to pay for 50 feet at Home Depot? Score!
Any problems?
Yeah... Of course: It was an hour's drive away.
Lucky for me: my husband was up for driving over there and it fit inside my SUV. (I made sure I brought my husband, because I didn't know if we were going to have to tie it to the luggage rack on the top of the car. I was pretty sure I'd need help with that.)
Anyhoo, now I'm cutting lengths to fit in the bottom of the wicking beds that I'm building. I have to cover the ends with landscape fabric and hold that together with zip ties. I'll explain the whole project soon. Maybe I'll make a pamphlet: Lego style. With pictures of the pieces for directions. Sounds like something I'd do.
Anyway. Slowly creating forward progress!
Meet you out in the garden to fit drainage pipe (with a dumb name) in my experimental wicking beds!
Crazy Green Thumbs
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