Digging soon: flat shovel? How many tiers of shelves?

[sissy]

If not we fail .Hard to be tough and determined but we never give up .It is like real life but with water

 

[qclabrat]

digging ponds is not rocket science, just takes persistence and love
ironically that's what I went to school for, aerospace eng that is.... not pond digging
though I think I could be a better digger than engineer

 

[budgenator]

I dug this one by hand, but the new one was by excavator,

Shallow End

• budgenator
• Jul 19, 2016

 

[TallGrassBigSky]

I dug this one by hand,View attachment 99762 but the new one was by excavator,

Shallow End

• budgenator
• Jul 19, 2016

Wow! Big pond!

 

[TallGrassBigSky]

Thank you all for your help and advice.

 

[EricV]

As a second shovel, I highly recommend a trenching spade or shovel like this: https://www.lowes.com/pd/Kobalt-Lon...SD8p0uGnGelV7ItKMB6F9qkxwRsJrFH8BWhoC0p3w_wcB

Soooooo much easier to get into the ground than a spade and useful for lots of other things too where you want to dig small deep holes or trenches. I never use my regular spade, just this and the kind you already have

 

[qclabrat]

As a second shovel, I highly recommend a trenching spade or shovel like this: https://www.lowes.com/pd/Kobalt-Lon...SD8p0uGnGelV7ItKMB6F9qkxwRsJrFH8BWhoC0p3w_wcB

Soooooo much easier to get into the ground than a spade and useful for lots of other things too where you want to dig small deep holes or trenches. I never use my regular spade, just this and the kind you already have

those work great in soil, but in my clay and shale not so good, they bend the sharp point after 5 minutes of use

 

[EricV]

They work great (better I would say) in pure clay which is what I have, but I can see that with rocks mixed in, this could be an issue.

 

[budgenator]

those work great in soil, but in my clay and shale not so good, they bend the sharp point after 5 minutes of use

Mine is sized more like a military entrenching tool, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrenching_tool but with a non-folding D handle that comes up to mid-thigh, and a spade head. Very robust and handy for planting where a trowel is too small, but a full sized digging spade is overkill.