endymion wrote:
I put this on gardening but thought people here might know more.

I have a septic tank in the back garden ( its a large back garden. Its
currently covered with grass but the stretch where the tank is is long
and flatish ( slight slope to the right) and did have apple trees on it
once nut those died several years ago. I was wondering if it was OK to
dig up this section of land and put a garden in ? Would I be likely to
disturb anything important ( like drains) by digging round and down from
the septic tank for a garden bed about 100 ft long and 20 feet wide?

Well my tank had a pipe from the outflow down about 18 "..


A lot depends on the tank design. Some will hope to treat the sewage and
allow run off to go into a ditch. Thats frowned on these days as what
comes out of a normal (non aerated) tank is far from pong free or
bacteria free. Other designs used to be laid with I believe a
herringbone pattern of pipes to diffuse the mucky outflow into the soil.
These SHOULD be pretty deep.

All I can say is that the best thing I did was rip up the outflow pipe
and fill in my septic tank. And replace with a Biodisc. Less space, less
pong, and they let me dump the pong free outflow into a ditch.

Only problem is how fast the grass grows wher I filled it in. Loads of
nutrients!

As long as you are not using a digger to go deep, a garden should be
fine to dig however. Its unlikely you will smash any pipes with a spade.