April and May were very productive in
our main garden.First I dug the water channels around the field so the
water that used to flood the garden now drain in to the stream near by,
unfortunately, one third of the field is still unusable so after a long
talk I decided to dig a pond and turn the water retaining ability into
something productive ,growing eatable water plants,creating micro
biotope and home for small fish ,frogs ,crayfish and other amphibians
and critters, also use it as the tank for plant irrigation ,I'm almost
done with the general shape of the pond,but I would probably need help
from my friend that have small shovel car to compact the walls and get
some depth in the mid section,I hope that I don't need to use plastic
liners except maybe in the deepest part due to more porous rockier
bed,but it seems that there is better solution get some clay from our
other rice pad and pack it on the top of the bottom.To prevent the pond
to become stagnant I'm going to use existing old water irrigation
pipe,currently closed and buried, but I managed to found where it is and
probably going to excavate it soon,pipe is connected to the small
spring from which all neighboring rice fields getting their water,good
thing it's for free and constant all year long, in between pipe and pond
I plan to put scavenged bath tub that will act as accumulating tank for
watering if needed,It's higher than the pond itself so I was hoping to
create small water fall if possible for some aeration, this will create
small flow thru the pond thus eliminating need for the circulation
pump,also there is constant breeze across the field that would help
moving the water,on the other end I'll put adjustable drain pipe (Monk)
that connects to the water channel and into the stream.
problematic soggy part of the field
with fresh water channels
(note that I had to fill back the right
channel to increase strength of the wall of the pond )
front channel
whole pond to be and raised beds from field above
(sorry for the angle)
from the back
(intake side)
front side
(drain side)
