FREE hand dug pond! (3 month review)

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!

[mendynoma]

Beautiful update . We made a similar pond and covered the steep sides with old wool or cotton rugs . It has been between two and three .years and the moss is starting to colonize where the exposed rug stays more damp. Thank you for sharing your lifestyle on this platform💚 !

[HoboGardenerBen]

I'm generally trying to minimize my use of plastic, but holding water is super valuable. Mini ponds give another level to the ecosystem of the garden. Love it :)

[PhoenixArk]

I have seen people use a floating willow tree island to soak up excess nutrients in small ponds, such as in a crate with staves for stability. I love the buoyant jug idea.

[normalivengood]

Looks great! You can tell the chickens love it. Thanks so much for sharing. Would love to try this myself. Will let you know if I'm successful. :) All the best to you and the family.

[Earthdwellershomestead]

This is great man! We’re hoping to get a few more water features around our property. Thanks for sharing

[brianratchford]

I’ve been wanting to make a water feature with the water from my rain gutters for years. But I am concerned with mosquitoes. And stagnant water. What I have found to be a greats pond liner is old billboard signs. You can get them for free at advertising companies. They heavily reinforced with threads and are UV resistant. And they are huge. Up to Something like 40 x 80 ft. And the backside is usually black or white. They have so many uses besides pond liners. Be warned they are heavy. Wish you the best.

[DrinknStitch]

I can see the hens love it & I like to see how you recycle things. Happy to see that you didn't lose that button.

[andrewsackville-west]

Thanks for the follow up on this. Looking forward to the one year review 😉. I think tiny "landscape ponds" are my best solution, due to our water laws and terrain. But I really struggle with the plastic. I know you have a measured, well thought out, approach to it. It's just a tough one for me to contemplate. But! I have lots of clay, so maybe I can get away w without it 🤞🏻

[drekfletch]

You could try water intensive crops. Floating lettuce in the ponds. Potatoes could be put in the soil, since they'll already be getting slowly covered.

[RandyLayheyBro]

Thank you for sharing. I really like your ideas.

You could weave a bunch of sticks or just pile them on top of the exposed plastic to cover it.

[HoboGardenerBen]

Another commenter said they use floating willow to eat up the excess nutrients. The duckweed is already doing some of that, but I love wicking floating gardens so maybe you can try growing something that way in this pond. Maybe some nice strawberries. Could upcycle some trash like plastic bottles, go with the existing theme of this thing, man-made but harmonious.

[julie-annepineau]

Great to hear it is holding water. I have some poly I am hoping to use for a similar project if it ever stops raining here. Will make sure of gentle slopes and stepped sides as it will be a very open area.

[thewildcroft]

Are you still growing duckweed? Would love an update video on that sometime if possible?

[thehillsidegardener]

I wish I could do this without the use of plastic liner, I would do it in a heartbeat, but I really want something sustainable and my soil just doesn't retain water like that. I know bringing in clay is one option, and building up organic material may also help plug it over time, but none of these are simple or quick solutions. For creating a little feature for chickens, this is great, though.

[MichaelWaddingtonDO]

Love the idea and design. While I also like the idea of re-using greenhouse plastic- I have health concerns about introducing BPA and PFOA to the food supply via eggs and chicken meat. It may be worth the additional expense and effort to swap it for a clay or cement liner, or easier and cheap but less ideal would be a “food safe” plastic liner like plastic #2 or #4, which also come in rigid plastic. The HDPE liners is what we ended up doing for our mini ponds, which work fairly well. If I did it again I’d probably do clay or cement.

[samanthabowman]

Thanks for the inspiration! Anyone tried out heavy compaction followed by manure-grass, clay and sodium bentonite layers? I'm wondering if we can get a good seal naturally on a small hand made pond like this?

[Gabi-ltmx]

Watched 1 minute, start again, watched 1 minute, start again, watched 1 minute, start 😂

[adamtash]

the moss loks great....why not do that all the way around???

[fredrickjoseph]

You may put some fish 🐟 and introduce water loving plants on the edges

[adamtash]

shame you have to use plastic. is there a natural alternative to plastic pond liners?