An Urban Legend in Gardening?!
Well, I’m filing this under my Real Estate category for lack of a better place to put it. If you live in or around Cincinnati, Ohio (or really a lot of places throughout the midwest… even California out west) you’re experiencing near drought conditions with far below average levels of rainfall.
With the lack of rain and hot summer weather, the ground has become hard as rock and there are the cracks and crevices forming in the ground. My neighbor filled me in on something that the person who owned my house before me did when the ground is this dry and we do not get rain.
The previous owner of my house would go out and water the ground right next to the house… say within a foot or two and enough to get soil nice and moist so it would sink in a couple of feet. A nice dose of water every few days or so, usually applied early in the morning or late at night so it would sink in and not evaporate away during the hazy sunny daytime hours. Doing this (the previous owner alleges) helped keep the soil from cracking and kept some moisture in the ground so the soil would stay packed together near the foundation of the house.
So why do this? Well, when you get a heavy down pour of rain, as is often the case with many summer storms, the ground doesn’t act as a funnel or drain sending all that rain down through the cracked soil and up against the foundation of your house. Essentially, by watering the ground on a somewhat regular basis, that steady amount of moisture has kept the soil packed together and without the large cracks near the foundation the water will take the path of least resistance away from the house (where the ground has more severe cracks and is still dry so it can absorb more).
Now, I don’t know if this is an urban legend or if there is some truth to it, but I live in a house that was built in 1943 and shows no signs of ever flooding (knock on wood). I can’t recommend doing this or swearing by it, but I see the logic in it and I throw this bit of information out there for others who might be interested in trying something like this with their gardening (perhaps you have some plants around your house that can use some extra watering) or I’m definitely interested in hearing from people that may know whether or not there is some truth to this and/or have tried it.
As always, I welcome your comments and feedback…