One day a friend gave us a 50 gallon food safe barrel. And, like what often is the case I had an “ah ha moment”. And said to Ted “Let’s cut in down, and I’ll dig a hole and sink it into the ground and have a little pond”. And that is what happened.
Water Lettuce and little goldfish added to the charm of this little pond. My garden paths are lined with local pink limestone. The limestone edge hides the barrel.
The next year or so, after reading books on how to build a pond. I came up with this idea. I ordered the liner and a little pump online.
The water circulated from the lower pond up through the upper bog. The left side of the bog was filled with washed gravel. I washed it and ran it through a plastic colander, bucket by bucket. Then planted a ribbon grass in the water. This worked for a few years, but the gravel eventually got messy and I wanted a bigger pond. Water quickly evaporated from this pond. A fragrant Roman Chamomile volunteer can be seen in front. Last spring, we ordered a new, better liner and picked a spot where the pond is visible from our kitchen-dining room windows. The old pond spot became a raised bed created by the dirt taken from the new pond. I made sure to put the poorer dirt in the bottom of the bed and the richer dirt on top.
Ta-da! I think I like it!
As I sit at the dining room table, I can look out at this pond. In all seasons it is beautiful to watch. Life is drawn to water. I have 6 large colorful gold fish and lots of new little baby fishes. Did you know that fish do have personalities? By consistently talking to them and wiggling my finger in the water at feed time, the fish have learned to come to me, sometimes “kissing” my fingers. Children delight in getting “fishy kisses”. And, lately we have discovered that garden slugs are a delicacy that the fish will scramble for. Making a pond is not difficult. It is very hard labor, but if you can handle a shovel and a wheel barrow, you can make a pond. I did most of the digging of this pond. It is 6 feet by 11 feet and the depth goes from 33 inches, to 24″ to a 10″ deep planting shelf at one end. It is lined with fish safe EPDM rubber. The liner weighs about 90 pounds. It took both Ted and I to carry it over to the pond, to center it into the hole. On the outside we placed large local pink limestone slabs that overlap the pond edge by a few inches. I have several water lillies and water irises that nicely overwinter in the pond. Fish are dormant at 45 degrees. Since the top 9 inches or so of the pond freeze in the winter, we keep a simple aquarium aerator connected to it all winter. This keeps a little space open so air circulation continues. In the spring the fish and plants wake up and with a bit of cleanup and the insertion of a pump and attached filter it is ready to go!
