Last weekend the Bog Squad visited Black Moss on the edge of Armadale, West Lothian where we indulged in a spot of ditch damming. Our previous ditch damming exploits at places such as Langlands, Kingshill and Blairbeich have all used plastic piling as our damming material. However this time the material of choice was the peat itself!
There is small network of old drainage ditches on the edge of Black Moss and whilst they have naturally filled in with peaty material over the years they are still conducting water away from the moss. Our task for the day was to remove a section of the 'unconsolidated' peaty material from the ditch and refill the resulting gap with well humified 'consolidated' peat which when compressed acts a natural barrier to water flow.
To find the 'consolidated' peat that was required to build our dam we had to 'borrow' it from a nearby pit that we had dug and then refill that pit with the peaty material excavated from the ditch. Once we'd built the dam up to just above the level of the ditch we topped it off with the original turf to protect the bare peat from erosion.
Many thanks to those who came along and gave their hard efforts. Hopefully our dams will be a big success. Next up for the Bog Squad is a return to Langlands Moss on Sunday 30th August.