My Garden Pond.
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Mmathis
TurtleMommy
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Very nice! I really like how you did the bird bath! Have you had any bird visitors yet? I did something similar a couple years ago, but was disappointed that [as best I could tell...] the birds never used it.
I have seen quite a few. The only time I've seen them in it is really early in the morning. Mostly robins. One built a nest right above the pond at the gutter downspout.
Mmathis
TurtleMommy
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Cool!
I noticed that my skimmer was working to well. It was taking all of the koi food before they had a chance to eat it. Went to the store and bought a styrofoam disk and cut out a ring. Tied a piece of yarn to it and made a loop to hang on the frog. Now I can feed them in the ring wait a little while go back out and take out the ring. Works really well so far.
sissy
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I bought one of those wreath rings at the dollar store .It also makes a nice floating plant holder
Started using my pond to grow some tomato plants. Just trying a few things to find out what works best. Going to use what I learn for next year.
The first pic is a planter type basket with a styrofoam ring to float and panty hose hose to contain soil and anchored to a rock. The second is the same plant with my first tomato out of all plants. The third is my largest plant in a planter that is constantly supplied with fish water using an air lift design (using an air pump to "lift" water in tubing) and a bottom drain to return water to the pond. Below is the third type of system. The blue buckets that I used are from work. We get fresh mushrooms in them and they were being thrown in the trash. Now they are helping me grow plants.
First water is pumped into a tube that connects to a valve "t" the valve controls how much or little water goes to the top of the system, all other pressure and water go to a frog water spitter. I went with this so I could control the flow of water to prevent water going into the system faster than it could drain, and to reduce stress on the pump.
The water is pumped to a piece of garden hose that I attached by making a small hole with a drill bit and press fitted the tubing into the hose.
I used a hole saw to make a hole in the lids for the plant to grow through. And used a cut from the hole to the edge to keep the garden hose in place with gravity pulling on the tubing.
On the inside of each of the buckets is a piece of panty hose that I stretched over the rim of the bucket before placing the lid on, so the lid keeps it from coming off. The panty hose is filled almost to the top with organic potting soil. I had to keep adding soil as the panty hose expanded when I added soil. Be careful not to fill completely to the top, and not to completely fill the panty hose to the edges of the buckets. I did the first time and had to remove some later. Try to leave at least an inch or so from the top. The reason for this is after the water coming in saturates the soil, meaning that the soil can't hold any more water and can't filter the water out through the bottoms fast as it comes in, the excess water will pool slightly on top of the soil and run down the edges of the panty hose to the gravel and out the drain tube.
On the side of the buckets I used a drill bit slightly smaller in size as my tubing and made a hole just above the bottom to connect a drainage tube. After press fitting the tubing I put some clean rocks into the bottom to cover the tubing. (SIDENOTE: before using rocks rocks check for lime due to water PH. Ways to do this can be googled. Also the reason for the rocks in the buckets is for stability and prevent the panty hose from stopping up the drain tube. )
Next I placed the buckets on the edge of the front steps with each bucket draining out the tubing into the top of the bucket below.
At the bottom step I fed the drain tubes into a hose. (The hose came with the canister filter that we use for the pond. It is the discharge hose for when the filter is back washed. Will use a hose clamp to hold more securely if needed. Can still be used to backwash as needed.
The other end of the hose empties back into fish pond.
All buckets are tomato plants except the bottom right. Trying one cantaloupe plant as well. I didn't use any glue or anything like that in this setup. This system is using gravity not pressure. However if you try this and have any leaks should be easy to fix with some silicone or something as long as it is fish safe. Also the reason some of the plants are yellow are due to lacking certain nutrients in the water for the plants. As I said I am only doing a trail to see which option I might expand on next year. I think it was a lack of iron that turns them yellow. But the plants in the buckets were really yellow like the floating one until I put them in the organic soil. Then they perked up in a day or two. Before they were still in the dirt pod things from the jiffy greenhouse kit I bought from Walmart.
(SIDENOTE: I am using organic soil to prove a point to my mother. She thinks that using fish "waste" can't be good for a plant or for the taste of the vegetable that I am growing. Lol. So I went with organic to prove to her that only the fish "waste" is growing them. She is starting to realize that fish "waste" is no different than any other type of fertilizer.)
The first pic is a planter type basket with a styrofoam ring to float and panty hose hose to contain soil and anchored to a rock. The second is the same plant with my first tomato out of all plants. The third is my largest plant in a planter that is constantly supplied with fish water using an air lift design (using an air pump to "lift" water in tubing) and a bottom drain to return water to the pond. Below is the third type of system. The blue buckets that I used are from work. We get fresh mushrooms in them and they were being thrown in the trash. Now they are helping me grow plants.
First water is pumped into a tube that connects to a valve "t" the valve controls how much or little water goes to the top of the system, all other pressure and water go to a frog water spitter. I went with this so I could control the flow of water to prevent water going into the system faster than it could drain, and to reduce stress on the pump.
The water is pumped to a piece of garden hose that I attached by making a small hole with a drill bit and press fitted the tubing into the hose.
I used a hole saw to make a hole in the lids for the plant to grow through. And used a cut from the hole to the edge to keep the garden hose in place with gravity pulling on the tubing.
On the inside of each of the buckets is a piece of panty hose that I stretched over the rim of the bucket before placing the lid on, so the lid keeps it from coming off. The panty hose is filled almost to the top with organic potting soil. I had to keep adding soil as the panty hose expanded when I added soil. Be careful not to fill completely to the top, and not to completely fill the panty hose to the edges of the buckets. I did the first time and had to remove some later. Try to leave at least an inch or so from the top. The reason for this is after the water coming in saturates the soil, meaning that the soil can't hold any more water and can't filter the water out through the bottoms fast as it comes in, the excess water will pool slightly on top of the soil and run down the edges of the panty hose to the gravel and out the drain tube.
On the side of the buckets I used a drill bit slightly smaller in size as my tubing and made a hole just above the bottom to connect a drainage tube. After press fitting the tubing I put some clean rocks into the bottom to cover the tubing. (SIDENOTE: before using rocks rocks check for lime due to water PH. Ways to do this can be googled. Also the reason for the rocks in the buckets is for stability and prevent the panty hose from stopping up the drain tube. )
Next I placed the buckets on the edge of the front steps with each bucket draining out the tubing into the top of the bucket below.
At the bottom step I fed the drain tubes into a hose. (The hose came with the canister filter that we use for the pond. It is the discharge hose for when the filter is back washed. Will use a hose clamp to hold more securely if needed. Can still be used to backwash as needed.
The other end of the hose empties back into fish pond.
All buckets are tomato plants except the bottom right. Trying one cantaloupe plant as well. I didn't use any glue or anything like that in this setup. This system is using gravity not pressure. However if you try this and have any leaks should be easy to fix with some silicone or something as long as it is fish safe. Also the reason some of the plants are yellow are due to lacking certain nutrients in the water for the plants. As I said I am only doing a trail to see which option I might expand on next year. I think it was a lack of iron that turns them yellow. But the plants in the buckets were really yellow like the floating one until I put them in the organic soil. Then they perked up in a day or two. Before they were still in the dirt pod things from the jiffy greenhouse kit I bought from Walmart.
(SIDENOTE: I am using organic soil to prove a point to my mother. She thinks that using fish "waste" can't be good for a plant or for the taste of the vegetable that I am growing. Lol. So I went with organic to prove to her that only the fish "waste" is growing them. She is starting to realize that fish "waste" is no different than any other type of fertilizer.)
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