How to build a permaculture pond without a liner.
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- Опубликовано: 19 июл 2020
- How to build a natural, clay lined pond for wildlife and permaculture.
In this video I build a large pond with a small digger. The pond is placed at the top of the croft, so we can siphon water to any of the swales or the vegetable garden, as needed.
It's a clay lined pond, so is a living part of the ecosystem that helps even out pulses in rainfall, storing water from major rain events and slowly releasing it to the landscape. It has a small island to increase 'edge', a key permaculture principle, and zones with different depths to allow diverse plantings of aquatic species that will keep the water healthy.
This pond was dug in three days with a small 2 ton digger, using 55 litres of diesel, coming in at a total cost under £300. You don't need deep pockets to install substantial earthworks, you need permaculture design.
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That little digger needs a raise!
Agreed. But what it really deserves is to come live on the croft full time. (I really want a digger)
@@CairnOfDunnCroftPermaculture hahaa dont we all?
Thank you. Also thank you for the narration in the title.
Your video was incredibly helpful. Thank you!
I'd love to see an update on this awesome new pond 😊
ruclips.net/video/SSZgaf-tuqg/видео.html There you go!
So much nicer then lined ponds! I think ponds with liners looks so trashy looking. Like literally trashy looking bc the black liner looks like a trash bag. I don’t like the look of them at all this is SO much prettier
I agree. I have a couple of very small lined ponds planned, but there will be no liner visible.
My excavator driver looked at me strangely when asked to put a few dead trees back in to my ponds. My answer to him the fish and water dragons had to have somewhere sit or hide. Also I found my pond take two 6" goes before over flowing, the first sinks in to the dam walls the second overflows.
Super helpful video, thanks!
Glad you found it useful!
Well done!
Thanks!
Fantastic !
Glad you enjoyed it!
Going to do this on a much smaller scale for a British native wildlife pond.
Very Informative.
Hi. Did you dig your pond? I'm in England and digging a pond , wondering how you got on?
Good job! Could you do a short video with some diagrams, drawing by explaining some of how you did it?
Nice work! ❤️ 😎
You have a fan in Kentucky USA.
I found your channel through edible acres.
Thanks! We've not done much video for a couple of weeks, I've been busy setting up the business side of things. By next week the video output should be back to normal, hopefully.
Looks good 😊😊😊
Thanks!
I like the pond but I think the island will erode over the years and make the pond more shallow, I work for a Pond management company and I’ve noticed ponds with islands get more algae & turbid water
Great tip 👍
The erosion of the edge will bring much more clay particles than that small island. Anyway most ponds naturally get more shallow over the years and eventually become a marshy area and then disappear if they aren't maintained. That's why a pond needs regular maintenance work (curing...) Depending of its location (at the bottom of a slop, does it get runoff water?...), design, soil characteristics...this maintenance job can be needed once per year or century! People need to be aware of that! Ponds need attention, maintenance...that can be somewhat time consuming and cost money.
In this particular case, the soil is heavy clay, so erosion won't be that much of an issue (clayish soil are more stable especially after being vegetated)
Yea as will the banks. I dug mine intentionally steep so this would occur natirally then I have a 5 year dredge plan to use the pond accumulated soil's. We are also in the process of building the wetland, filter bed with a wind driven pond pump to be made.
@@SynKronos can you explain/point me in a good direction to learn more?
@@MrThatguy333 one place that mentions the key resource. But then my pond is over 100ft long and still in progress :/ very busy
Great youtube channel. I can see you having 1 million subs in 3 years
Thanks!
3 years ? Wtf
nope
The pond looks great! Looking forward to seeing it in a year or so. What sort of fish would you put in?
Some drab looking goldfish probably, to give them half a chance against the heron!
@@CairnOfDunnCroftPermaculture I thought you might have put in some trout or similar. :)
@@dorcassinclair in a huge pond we would, but trout do best in flowing water. We'll introduce small ones like stickleback too, but in the smaller ponds they're just there for nutrient cycling really. I want a big pond eventually, but it'll take at least 10 days to build. That'll be big enough to grow fish for the table, because it'll have wind powered pumps to produce flow through constructed wetland filters.
Cairn Of Dunn Croft Permaculture can you put a few fish in a pond that is only filtered with plants and has no pump?
It would be really nice to include some shots of you using the digger. I'm sure it would be helpful for those of us without much/any experience using one that wish to replicate this. Perhaps next time/project?
I was having to balance the cost of the digger per day with filming between rain showers, ideally I would have. I have at least one more large pond planned, so hopefully the weather will be more co-operative next time.
Thank you for sharing. It gives us lots of idea. Could you advice, we want to dig a pond next to our big trees. We wonder how far should we keep distance from the trees? Any disadvantage for doing that? could you give us some tips?
There are a lot of variables with ponds near trees. I'd keep the pond beyond the canopy of the tree at the very least. Sometimes tree roots can cause leaks to ponds, so it pays to be overly cautious if anything.
Hi , can you tell me do you intend to let frogs toads & newts stay in your pound should they move in one day l think that would be great .
So is the pond finished? Did you put plants and fish in it yet?
do you follow specific batter slopes? whatever dam/pond books I read, they recommend 1:2 outside batter slope and 1:3 inner batter slope, regardless of the pond size. It looks like the batter slopes of your pond are significantly higher. Are the slopes of your pond stable in time (like 20 years)? I am going to build a couple of small dams/ponds and I want to figure out the appropriate batter slopes.
Beneath the topsoil on the back of the berm, the clay core is 7 feet wide. In my context, I'm confident it'll hold.
@@CairnOfDunnCroftPermaculture makes sense, the core trench is as strong as for a large dam, shall be very stable for such a small dam. For my curiosity, what batter slope do you have for the inner sides, approximately? is it 1:1 over the entire pond?
@@mariusdrulea9049 I'd say that's about right.
Nice work, but I think planting a few trees would be nice also.
We've planted over 8000 trees.
@@CairnOfDunnCroftPermaculture If you haven't already, do an update video on it. I'd love to see it.
Have you considered planting some marginal plants to reduce erosion?
It was seeded with quick growing plants, and there were a lot of marginal plants put along the edges at the same time.
Didn’t hear you mention it so I’ll ask: did you need to get planning permission to dig the pond? In unclear to me if it’s necessary or not in the U.K. I’ve read that if it’s for “agricultural purposes” you don’t need planning permission. Does drought-proofing the landscape and providing small quantities of fish count as “agricultural purposes”?
On such a small scale I'm certainly classing it as agricultural purposes. It's also exempt if it's classed as agricultural engineering works, and I'd consider it to qualify there too. Things might be a little different outside Scotland, but here the Scottish government even gives grants for swales and retention ponds.
Hi , I am yash I want to built farm pound karle soil
If I understand correctly, this is an enclosed pond where the water is not being cycled around. Would it be possible to put fish in there without things such as filters and water pumps?
Yes that's right. No liner, no filtration. It's a natural ecosystem. I wouldn't put a lot of fish in there, or it wouldn't be a balanced ecosystem.
@@CairnOfDunnCroftPermaculture Thank you for your response! Do you reckon it'd be possible to make a larger one like this without any liner or mechanical filtration system for the purpose of raising more fish?
@@Shlomayo so long as the plants and fish are in balance, it should work.
I plan on a much bigger pond for aquaculture, with a wind driven pump to cycle the water through a wetland filter. Still unlined, just running passively on wind power. It's still low input, and completely off grid, but should allow me to stock far more fish.
@@CairnOfDunnCroftPermaculture Thank you! I'm looking forward to watching videos about that future project of yours.
Your work is impressive and inspirational!
@@Shlomayo thanks for your kind comments.
suw if u want a lake in ur yard u dig a hol put clay in it and fill water?
To create a clay lined pond, yes. The clay needs to be compacted though. A pond like this will always leak a little though, it seeps water into the ground.
It depends on the water table I think. If the water table is too low...I don't think rain or any water will stay...the hole will just get dried up unless you line it with plastic
Clay lined ponds work even in very dry climates, such as the Tamera project in Portugal. If you have clay, you don't need plastic liners. If you want to learn more about this style of water retention pond, I recommend the books of Sepp Holzer.
I wish it was legal where I live to have a pond without a liner, but sadly it's not.
Put some ducks in it, they will eventually get it sealed
Ducks are excellent for sealing ponds, but this is a compacted clay berm so is already pretty well sealed. Ducks also erode the edges of ponds however, which is something I want to avoid here.
@@CairnOfDunnCroftPermaculture Benoite clay helps to seal leaks.
@@terryquarton2523 Yep! I'm trying to avoid using it though.
okay great you do intend to let frogs toads & newts move-in , was still watching video, then towards the end you said you do. :-)
Yes we have loads! All the ponds have frogspawn every spring.
Its so much better if u make tge video a bit shorter
When you look at a thumbnail, it shows the video length in the corner. It makes it easy to find videos of the kind of length you're looking for.
@@CairnOfDunnCroftPermaculture Length of video is perfect for the content, and the content is really informative. The spliced in commentry is really helpful too. Thank you for the work you put in to sharing your work.
@@guymiklos9245 thank you very much for your kind comments!
Or "How to make a small pond that leaks into a large pond that leaks"?????
All my ponds are clay lined. They slowly seep water to the ground, by design. They take water from major rain events and slowly release it to the ground, evening out pulses in rainfall. This is what natural bodies of water do.
@@CairnOfDunnCroftPermaculture I'd really like to understand this. But I don't see what you accomplished. Your issue was that the small pond was losing water into the soil, yes? And it's still doing that, right? Building up walls isn't going to have any effect on what the bottom of the pond is doing. I couldn't figure out what you thought you were fixing.
@@lesliekendall2206 It would empty within a day as it used to be, because there was a constructed drain running away from it, taking the water away from the croft. Very little of it was seeping into the ground. The compacted clay berm I built sealed off that drain, so water doesn't pour out that way any more. Now it's released slowly and evenly into the landscape, and I have a bigger pond for biodiversity.
@@CairnOfDunnCroftPermaculture I hand dug a 2.3mW x 5mL x .5mD pond a few years ago and the soil is clay. So much so that I had to use a concrete trowel to scrape the sides vertical. Also had to soak the area with a hose and let it soak over night to be able to dig. But I know mine would be out of water within 2-3 days. But I live in a semi-arid (NW US) climate. I wonder if yours holds better because of the already saturated soil. (?)
@@lesliekendall2206 hi Leslie my dam here in Australia the water leaches in to the surrounding ground. And this stables the water level for half the year as it evaporates off and water slowly comes out of the ground. I hope I explained it right.
Use a liner
A lined pond wouldn't seep to the landscape, and that's one of the primary purposes of the pond. It takes large rain events and slowly releases the water to the landscape, evening out pulses in rainfall.