Growing vegetables on a percolation area?

07-02-2012 06:41AM #1

Growing vegetables on a septic tank percolation area, is it advisable or could there be health issues.

I have a section of garden that is the percolation are of the Biocycle system, the ground is raised so never gets swampy and all the weeds grow like mad! So should be perfect for growing Veg.

Any opinions?

beer enigma · 07-02-2012 10:04AM

dolanbaker wrote: »

Growing vegetables on a septic tank percolation area, is it advisable or could there be health issues.

I have a section of garden that is the percolation are of the Biocycle system, the ground is raised so never gets swampy and all the weeds grow like mad! So should be perfect for growing Veg.

Any opinions?

My understanding was that there is no great issue to growing veg on a percolation area, PROVIDING, the septic tank is working ok. The pipes are normally about half a metre underground ? The danger I guess is that you only need to have an issue with the tank & the whole crop could be contaminated.

secman · 07-02-2012 05:41PM

I was about to post a similar question !
My plan was to place a series of raised beds, made from wooden frames, using old scaffold planks etc, along the top of the percolation area, as its impossible to grow anything there. This would avoid roots actually going too deep into percolation area.
Last year we bought loads of wild flower, meadow seeds, but barely a few plants took. In the summer time its get so dry and arid due to the very sandy mix and by its free draining nature .
Hence my idea of using raised beds, was wondering what to grow ? As we are in Dublin Mon to Fri, it would have to be something that "could look after itself midweek" !

All suggestions and advice would be most welcome.

Secman

km79 · 07-02-2012 05:46PM

Similar situation here. I'll be looking for low maintainance . When did you sow wildflower seeds and where did you get them ?

secman · 07-02-2012 05:58PM

Bought them any time I saw them in Garden centres, also bought quite a few boxes in either Lidle or Aldi, sowed them last spring, but I think we only fed the birds !
All we got was a sparse few plants

. It sounded great, and i had great visions of a lush meadow, full of wild flowers on the percolation area, even planned on mowing a random path through it !

Secman

robin3 · 25-02-2012 08:45PM

hi, i tried doing the wild flower meadow thing too, not successful. So I am now looking for more ideas for this area of my garden
anyone?

Growing vegetables on a percolation area?

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