Hand Dug Pond - Big Rain Coming, Making Adjustments

We're looking at upwards to 3 inches of rain over the next 2-3 days, which for our north facing slope is a significant amount. I'm adjusting the depth, the layers and levels of a hand dug pond in anticipation of this rain, and hoping to get it dialed in to a point where I won't be digging any more of it out as time goes on... We'll see!

Edible Acres is a full service permaculture nursery located in the Finger Lakes area of NY state. We grow all layers of perennial food forest systems and provide super hardy, edible, useful, medicinal, easy to propagate, perennial plants for sale locally or for shipping around the country…
Happy growing!

[jameswoll]

A great little moment with that vole at 4:47! So much life. Obviously a very thoughtful steward. I was just talking about your ponds earlier.

[Ultrazaubererger]

Did anyone see the Mouse at 3:40 ?




Bottom left Corner

[terry]

My husband worked in the oil fields and they used bentonite to seal reserve pits 40 years ago. Later he helped ranchers seal their ponds . It worked great.

[mrselfsufficient]

Cool! Can't wait for next week's video!

[Kowzorz]

My parents gave me some water lotus seeds. The rest of theirs never sprouted but the two they gave me did. They're sitting in my kid pool pond in some cups with a number of leaves and the water bugs love them. I can't wait to see their flowers!

[StillSwirling]

Excited to see how this works! We're supposed to get some more rain tonight which I am so thankful for. We've had a pretty severe drought the last two summers. I'll have to pay more attention to where the water goes when it rains and maybe make some trenches between rows next year. Our garden is on a bit of a slope so it would be wise to take advantage of that ☺ Thanks again!

[j.m.]

At 2:46 "Do you folks have experience with it? Great video!

[gardenerofthegalaxy]

Yeah, we are supposed to get 5 inches in all of Ohio tomorrow. Which sucks for my community garden crew. We just got the woodchips at our new community garden site flattened down. The site is right next to our river. 5 inches could carry all of our fresh chips away before the fungal mats and roots hold it in place.

[saintisidorehomestead]

Exciting to see how an imminent rain event turns into an opportunity for a project like this. Would you mind sharing some of the sources on bentonite for sealing the pond? I'm curious about it. Take care.

[michaelcarey]

Have you done a video on your outdoor kitchen? I'd love to check it out. Also, any thoughts on overwintering duckweed?

[kenalebla]

So you're going to wait for the pond to fill, dump, and pray? If you haven't done it yet, add soda ash at about 2-5% (that's sodium carbonate, not sodium bicarbonate). Ideally, I think you'd maybe add this over time and agitate the soil with a rake. This depends on your current liner as if it's pretty solid, you don't want to undo; but you need to get that clay and soda ash mixed with the silt. The soda ash acts to further disperse the particles, sort of acting as a middle particle between the two resulting in increased permeability. The soda ash won't significantly increase soil pH (at 2-5%) or otherwise negatively impact soil chemistry.
I think this could work pretty well, but it seems best practices would be to wait until it's dry and go for a well-mixed, compact liner. That being said, maybe you're going for something a little less involved, or less-altered, or naturally formed. If you don't get the results and there's no one else out there, I'd be happy to offer some other suggestions that might be more optimal. I'll say upfront my pond liner experience involves a couple of scholarly articles, but I spent some time as a coatings chemist, so I'm pretty good at making dirt do things and it's really all chemistry and physics.

[keghnfeem]

Do you use kefir to treat you chickens for the diarrhea caused by bad gut microbes?

[Christodophilus]

You've done well to break up the paths of water, so they eventually collide together, in the same pond. It should work as a silt drop-off point, and to slow the flow. If the rain comes at a consistent pace, your new water courses should work as expected. If it comes in a deluge however, I suspect that pathway is too narrow. The water will either back up and blow out to create a new path, before it reaches the pond, and/or pour into the pond and scour the sides. It's one of those things you just never know, until the storm comes and you can observe the effects of the "rate" of fall. All that compost, will soak up a lot of rain though.

[denislosieroutdoors]

I've had luck using cardboard for sealing ponds, it's basically a carbon and mostly free.
Denis