The ecological disaster in my backyard

Yesterday I discovered a collapsed part in my garden, and on probing it I discovered a hollowed area about a meter in length with about thirty to forty centimeters of soil above it (that was held in part by some tree roots).

Strange I thought, and shoveled some soil from an unused garden bed to fill in the area, figuring it was most likely a hole dug by a dog that was covered over by the previous tenant. Or maybe where a pipe that had been removed leaving the meter long void.
But then this morning I noticed a huge sunken hole where I had filled in. And took a look around thinking to find out what caused it. Maybe it was an animal digging it? But then noticed the grass near it had no soil under it too. I had a water problem. Water was washing away the soil in the corner of the garden, and trying to fill the corner of my backyard like the Colorado River finding a way to fill the Salton Sea (on a much much much smaller scale).

So I searched around for a sprinkler head or something near by what would be the cause. I found the plug first, then an o-ring. Both had been washed into the hole by the water. I then found the uncapped sprinkler, still surrounded by some dirt and grass, almost not connected to the wash out a short few centimeters away.

I put the o-ring and cap back into the sprinkler, but knew that it wouldn’t stop the flow of water because the sprinkler had no head. The sprinkler with plug in was just a jet nozzle to cause more soil to be washed out. So I ended up digging around the sprinkler (using my hose to flush out a lot of the loose soil actually) and using duct tape and some plastic I covered the end.
I had at first thought to just put a rock on top of the sprinkler, but then figured the water damage would just seep from there. So to finish of the disaster area, I put down some broken cement and rocks that litter another corner of my backyard to bulk up the soil in the area (that I don’t really like to mow anyway) and then put more soil down to replace the lost stuff and level it out a little.

It was lucky, because yesterday I was thinking about planting something there and making it a small vegetable plot (with carrots, corn or something equally as easy to grow there). If I had planted that yesterday I would be now without a garden, as the seeds would had been washed away!

But I figure I’ll have to wait another day or maybe two to make sure that the sprinkler is capped properly (the sprinkler turns on every second day at about 5 am I think). I remember having to cap the sprinklers hose in the front yard that actually was spewing water onto the footpath and stopping the sprinklers giving out much of a spray. That was a duct tape and then bury.

(Note: I would had drawn some pictures, but my Mac doesn’t have a drawing program on it.)