Wells and gardens - how close?

Hi, folks! New to the board. I'm finally getting to move out of the city [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img] , and our new place is small by country standards - only an acre. (Hey, ya gotta start somewhere!)

We want to have a vegetable garden, and the best (sunniest) place is where our well is located. My question is, how close to the actual well can we have our garden?

We will have an organic garden - no fertilizers other than clean compost. I'll have to clean out a few small trees, and prep the ground, but I don't see a problem there. My only concern is with water contamination.

Watcha tink? Any ideas? Information? Links? Opinions?

Thanks!

Welcome to the forum

What type of well is it?
Water from a dug well?
Sand point well ?
Deep well
without casing?
with casing - how deep is the casing?

A garden around my well wouldn't contaminate it.
It's 80' of casing and the well is 320' deep.

Oh, so you want actual information? [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img]


I don't know what I've got. Yet. We haven't taken possesion yet, and the well/septic inspection has not been done. Though I'm not sure that will help - I've been told all they do is check the flow, water qualtiy, and walk the leach field to see if black water is coming up! [img]/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif[/img]

It appears to be a casing type well - I have a pipe coming out of the ground of approximately 6" diameter, and a 1" or so PVC pipe coming out of that and going underground.

One of the pressure tanks has a well company's name & number on it, so I'm going to call them and see if they can tell me what is what.

"One of the tanks"? Yeah, there are two in the basement. One seems to feed from the well I just mentioned, and the other seems to feed from the vicinity of a cistern on the other side of the house. (Looks like it was once set up to collect rainwater - don't know if that was the only water source for it.) The cistern fed pressure tank has a dual-cylinder filter/treatment apparatus of some sort. The other well has no filtering visible. Both TEE into the same main line feeding the house, and I don't see any obvious check valves.

But then, I've not had a chance to spend more than a few minutes looking it over, so I could easily have missed those.

Anyway, seems a weird setup to me, but then, what do I know? I'm new to this! [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

You did not fill out your profile so I can not tell where you live. If you live in Florida and your well is 50 ft deep it might matter, if you live here in Az and its 600 ft it surley does not matter. Asuming it is 100ft or better deep it should not matter unless you dump horendous amounts of fertilizer or pestisides on it. As to the two two pressure tanks I suspect it is set something like this. The well pumps into the two tanks and there is a backflow preventer between the well and the tanks. The cistern pump also pumps into the same two tanks and there is a backflow preventer between the cistern pump and the tanks. The pump may act as the backflo preventer depending on the pump.The cistern pump is turned off as long as the well functions. The cistern would only be used in emergency situations and then not for drinking. Although those of us from Texas drank out of cisterns for half our lives and never died.

Uhh, kinda what everyone else said... PLUS You need to be aware of the source of our compost before you decide how benign it is to have it leaching into the grund anywhere near an uncased or shallow well.

Not to spoil your enthusiasm but a prudent buyer would pay to have a fairly extensive test performed on your water quality. Flow rate is important but all the "so so" water in the world is still only so so. Simpler tests should be performed every year or two as things can change and not always for the better. Reverse osmosis is a reasonable solution for drinking and cooking if the water is fairly good but not to your liking.

Some areas have significant disolved radon in their well water. This gets released in your shower and is NOT a good thing.

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
As to the two two pressure tanks I suspect it is set something like this. The well pumps into the two tanks and there is a backflow preventer between the well and the tanks. The cistern pump also pumps into the same two tanks and there is a backflow preventer between the cistern pump and the tanks. The pump may act as the backflo preventer depending on the pump.The cistern pump is turned off as long as the well functions.

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Hmmm, hadn't thought of that. As I said, I haven't had time to examine it in detail, but it appears that the 'cistern' setup (assuming that's what it is) is quite a bit older than the well setup. The apparent age of both sets of equipment is quite different. And, it does appear that the only connection between both systems is the TEE feeding the main line. It looks as though the newer setup were spliced in at that point.

Once I get into the house I'll diagram the whole thing and figure it out, if I can't get the info from the well company before that.



[/ QUOTE ] The cistern would only be used in emergency situations and then not for drinking. Although those of us from Texas drank out of cisterns for half our lives and never died.

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Yeah, funny how most people used to survive all kinds of horrible things. Drinking from cisterns, playing in the street, riding in the back of a pickup, and a whole list of things that our modern safety experts have banned.

For our good, of course!
[img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]

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You need to be aware of the source of our compost before you decide how benign it is to have it leaching into the grund anywhere near an uncased or shallow well.

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Good point, Pat, but not a problem - I will be using ONLY home-grown compost, so I'll always know what's in it. It will be vegetable kitchen waste and yard clippings only, and I won't be using anything on the yard that I wouldn't want in my water.

If decaying wood and leaves are a problem for my water, I'm already in deep doo-doo! [img]/forums/images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
a prudent buyer would pay to have a fairly extensive test performed on your water quality.

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Plannin' on it! This house is a fixer-upper, bought 'as is' (Only way we can afford a house around here!) so I'm not at all assuming that everything is hunky-dory. However, the water can't be TOO bad because the county has blessed it. I do intend to get a thorough analysis done, though. Same on the septic.

Once I know what's in the water I'll make some decisions on what kind of treatment it needs, and I'm expecting I may need to do major re-work of the sytem.

For the short term, I plan on an undersink UV or ozone plus filter setup for drinking water, including a feed to the icemaker/water dispenser on the refrigerator.

I'm aware of the radon issue - it's prevalent here in Virginia, so I'll be sure to test for it and treat as needed.

New information - it's a deep well, in the neighborhood of 300 - 400 feet.

I don't think I'll have a problem with the garden! Any thoughts?