Gardening and Horticulture - Backyard draining

I purchased an urban home with a closed in yard. Drainage is terrible due to slope of yard and the addition of concrete slab for parking area. I have a rectangle area of soil bordered by my fence and concrete slabs (parking and patio) - even though I have an extended gutter tubes beyond this area it still pools with water during heavy rains. I want to plant either a vegetable or flower garden in this area but am relunctant until I solve the pooling problem. I have heard about installing a draining tube(?) or barrel which would collect the run-off water and then allow it to seep into the ground. Question (finally) - can I buy these? are there on-line instructions somewhere for building one? Any help is appreciated.

kesswynn

The drain barrel in the ground is called a dry well. You can buy these at hardware stores and box stores.

Here is an article on the project.

http://www.rd.com/print_page.jhtml?articleId=9520000

Consider raising the bed for your garden using boards, bricks, or rocks for the sides to keep the plants from having wet feet.

Hope this helps.