Tag Archives: Pondlife

There’s no real reason

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Yesterday with no plan in our heads we tidied up what we call the “wild bit” at the bottom of the garden. We used to grow veg there but it doesn’t really get that much sun so a couple of years ago we sowed some “bee bombs” and what other wild seeds we could find and the area went a bit wild.

We were very influenced by this wonderful pond made by Bill Shimmers at the time of sowing the wild seeds (above) and added our own versions in a smaller and cheaper way utilising a slow cooker crock pot, a dutch pot that only had one handle and a tupperware box. An example of “down at heel” pond construction at its finest and nowhere as great as Bill’s. We are sure at the time Bill replied to our tweet at the time saying kindly that even the smallest addition of water in the garden will help the wildlife. What is great though yesterday we saw the odd frog in one, a drowned slug or two in the other and some very strange moving things that could have just been the “floaters” in our eyes playing up or the effects of dehydration. That was without our glasses on as well so there could well have been more stuff moving about.

As it was very cool down there for most of the day (compared to the 32 degrees C in the sun) we just started and kept on going, taking stuff away and adding the odd different plants and herbs we have about the garden already. We reckon it will be an ongoing project as we can see a couple of plants we want to take out but we don’t want it too sparse as the wildlife needs a hiding place. There was no plan, make it up on the spot gardening innit?

Enjoy the last couple of days of intense heat as we’re supposed to be going back to the early 20 degree C next week. Here’s to more wildlife in the garden.

Where am I? In the pond

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This morning we received our three logs of Barley Straw to sort out the murkiness of the pond. It’s an mad looking thing isn’t it? Very Patrick McGoohan! We won’t be worrying about any Rover type shenanigans as that netting we have to keep the Ladywell Heron out will stop it coming out of the water.

But we’re absolute beginners

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We took the plunge yesterday (rubbish pun intended) and made a start on clearing out the leaking pond and the mammoth task of putting in a new plastic liner.

After a couple of weeks of putting the job off after receiving some great advice from the staff at Shannon’s, we purchased the liner online (making sure we had a bit of excess around the pool in our calculations), got ourselves some trugs (Cheers Marc B!), some B&Q 99p buckets and chose yesterday as the day of reckoning.

In the morning a couple of pairs of long washing up gloves and another bucket was purchased from the local shop where we received some good luck from the shopkeeper when he learned what we were doing. On the way back from the said shop we found some carpet underlay in a skip which came in very handy too, especially on the very rough top of the old water tank which the water sits in. Once there would have been pond liner separating the rusty tank and the water but that’s not around today and that’s the problem. The water had a tinge of orange some days and was slowly losing water.

First thing was to take everything off the side, the broken slabs, plants, netting and what have you and it was time to drain out the pond by hand using buckets and the fish removed using an old kid’s fishing net from a seaside trip many many moons ago. The fish (and some newts) went in the buckets and trugs and any excess water and silt sludge went on the garden after being passed through an old cullender just in case there were any wildlife in the murky liquid. As we came to the end we were using jam jars to fill the bucket and a sophisticated dam system (a load of old housebricks) which worked. Talk about a sigh of relief and a big cheer when we got to the bottom!

After a break for lunch we laid the pond liner underlay over a thin layer of sand and over the carpet underlay that went around the top edge and some of the sides. The liner finally went on, placing it central to the pond leaving all of the excess which we’ll fiddle with today. The water was hose-piped in and we’ll have to wait at least 24 hours before the fish go back.

To be continued…

And to spur us on to the next part of the job this morning here’s a pond themed tune!

Best job done in a long while

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We’d been putting it off for a couple of days and it’s finally done, the bed by the pond is cleared of that purple horrible flowered thing that was taking over (though we left a bit behind the hebe). To say we’re chuffed is an understatement! It took us a good few hours and it was hard work but we were entertained with birdsong and the sound of a constantly croaking frog from the pond!

And here’s the latest instalment of Free Radio Skybird that’s to be broadcast on Easter Monday at 1100 UTC (12 Noon UK) on 6070 kHz via Channel 292. It’s features a host of great stuff including Justin Patrick Moore’s Radiophonic Laboratory at 24.08 and One Deck Pete’s “Tunes to cheer you up” at 36.55 with Funk Reverse with “In & Out” (DJ Moy’s dub version). Listen to the show here or tune in Monday with a shortwave radio or using an online SDR here.

https://soundcloud.com/djfrederick/free-radio-skybird-6070-khz-april-13-and-19

We’ve got that “side of the pond plants” blues

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Another row of spuds went in on Saturday in the bed we were going to “rest” for this year and beside the pond we started on a mammoth task.A few years ago a friend of ours passed on some plants. A root of Comfrey and a thug of a thing (we never did find the name of but we know the plant oh so well now!) that looks like a low-growing privet that has purple flowers and spreads like wildfire! It’s taken over the bottom corner of the garden now (pic below) and it’s our new “work in progress” during the lockdown.

We did a little bit of hand weeding on Saturday and above is the result. It’s hard work and you know it’ll keep coming back so we’ll have to be on our guard for the next few months but it’s a darn sight better. We will keep a little bit of it about though as we do need a bit of wildness by the pond for the frogs and wildlife to hide but not too much like it is now! #lockdowngardening #there’sneveranendtogardening

Ponds and pumps and the origin of dub

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It’s been a busy couple of weeks at Weeds HQ; the builders are in doing some work and a fair bit of clearing up has been done in the back during a couple of days dedicated to just gardening. Also after years deliberating, a solar powered pump is now in action in the pond, all for the bargain price of 40 odd quid and what a difference it makes! The new load of fish bought from the Lewisham pet shop now with a net over them (to stop that pesky heron here from murdering this current batch) are looking well happy and so are the frogs and newts too! The bottom of the pond can now be seen, which is a first!The builders had some stuff delivered on a nice mini-pallet (above) which has now been utilised for the mini herb garden just outside the back door. Apart from a couple of leaves being nibbled in the night everything is doing fine. The first chilli is now showing (below).The weekly comfrey liquid feed around the garden is turning up trumps what with the giant tomato (below) that is nearly ripened. The comfrey liquid might pong a bit but it don’t half work wonders.This week the following radio show has been on constant replay. It’s Jah Life‘s excellent Backawall University from July 7th and this episode contains something very special indeed. It features dub plates from King Tubby’s younger brother Stagga (aka “Young Tubbs”) made in Brooklyn, New York in 1970 before King Tubby began his dub experiments in Kingston. There’s some great dubs on here: Phyllis Dillon’s “One life to live” (with the vocal just about audible), The Sensations “Everyday is just a holiday”, The Jamaicans “Baba boom” (retitled “Boom Baba”) and more. More on Stagga Ruddock here. Big shout to Dubby Doo for alerting us to this show which is musical history!

Aqualung

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I don’t know much about garden ponds but we discovered we had one after I got rid of a lot of nettles and brambles around the bottom of the garden one afternoon after we moved in. A few weeks later I cleared out 12 years of rotting leaves and gunge out of it which went straight onto the flower beds.

After cleaning the pond out I stuck a tarpaulin over it to stop water getting in, and was going to fill it in with soil a few months later. In that time, water filled up (how did that happen?) and taking the tarp up one day saw it was home to thousands of tadpoles! I couldn’t fill it in after that, could I?

It’s taken a few years to get sorted and because it costs a few bob to get electricity down the garden, there’s no fountain or flowing water to keep it fresh so it’s dependent on the oxygenating plants in there and the odd regular clean-out by yours truly. I also usually put a net over it in the autumn to stop the leaves getting in and that’s about all for maintenance.

Pond before - murk

It was looking well ropey a few months ago (above) so I bought a couple of bokashi mud balls off ebay for a few quid (no, I didn’t know what they were either before getting them.)

them ballsThe pond is starting to look a bit better, you can even see the goldfish now (below) There’s also frogs, who love the slugs and snails in the garden (one of them is chilling out in the top RH corner of pic below), a couple of minnows and the odd newt. Not bad for something we didn’t even realise we had when we moved in. Expense is minimal, all plants were off ebay or from the garden centre/pet shop (and they multiply like billy-ho), the fish were cheap and the only cost now is the fish food which is a couple of quid a month. The only drawback is you have to watch out that you don’t get bitten by those pesky midges in the summer!

Pond after- kleer