Dealing with dirt

[Jack]

Hello, This may sound nuts, but I have a problem with excess dirt. . I am going to put soakaway drains in my yard to handle some poor drainage conditions. I have a generally flat yard. The lot is about 3/4 acres. It's a typical builders lot with about 4 inches of loam over sandy, clay, rocky hardpan soil. Basically, its crap. I am going to be digging out a couple of long trenches 2' wide x 2' deep, filling it with stone, etc . The problem...what do I do with all the lousy soil that gets dug out? Sounds like a crazy question, but I have no place to put it. I guess i need some ideas on what can be done. . Thank you for your time.

[JoeSpareBedroom]

Put it in a place where you'd like to have flower beds in the not-too-distant future. Add organic matter and make it into better soil.

[reversemidas]

Yes, flower bed, or put it in Craiglist as free crap dirt for folks to come pick it up themselves if they need this type of dirt to fill in low areas in their own property, etc.

[Kay Lancaster]

Have 'em bring you a couple trucks of compost at the same time you're hauling in fill rock for the drains. Decide where you'd like some raised beds, mix the compost with the builder's soil, and make some raised beds... they'll grow wonderful flowers and veggies for you with much less work than trying to grow on hardpan.

And mow with a mulching mower... those of us with clay need all the soil organic matter we can get to add!

Kay

[Starlord]

Spread it out and rake it into the rest of the soil or pick a spot and start building a flower bed with the extra.