Introduction.

Since I made my first post last night I figure its time to introduce myself on here. I have been reading the forum for about a year now. My name is Jason, and live in Hibbing, MN which is zone 3. I bought an old farm house a few years ago with a clay bottom pond. I had no yard at that time and spent the first summer making a lawn around my house and not paying much attention to the pond. I went overboard with the lawn and now mow about 7 acres. The first year I moved here I threw a couple goldfish in the pond for mosquito control. I thought they died because I never saw them again until the pond almost dried up. We had a real dry summer that year. I found out my have dozen goldfish bred like rabbits and I had hundreds of them. I still take the 6 original fish in each winter and some babies over winter in the pond with no deicer. I am slowly working on making it a bit more attractive. I have been bring in tons of rock, literally, all collected by hand and cut back some of the cattails. With the clay its hard to keep the water clear, especially with two dogs that swim in it many times a day. I got electricity hooked up down their a few days ago so now I can starting playing with the idea of a water fall or stream into the pond. I am open to suggestions and ideas. I tried water lilies, but my dogs retrieve them out of the pond so that didn't work, However this year I tried water hyacinth and its growing like crazy and they have left it alone of the most part. The fish love it. This pond is actually quite deep about 6 feet in the spring after all the rains and then it comes down to about 4 feet at its deepest spot. Its is approximately 30 feet in diameter at its fullest.

The pump isn't staying where it is. I just threw it in for the heck of it.

This summer I made a garden in the corner where my fence meets around my orchard. It has a small shallow pond that the birds love. All different types of birds bath in it daily. I left one end 1-2 inches deep and the other end is about 2 feet deep for a water lily. I also transplanted a few tadpoles from my other pond that are loving it in this pond and growing twice as fast as their siblings in the other pond. Recently I added a small school of white cloud mountain fish and they are chasing down all the mosquito larvae that had hatched in their and are loving it as well.




This message was edited Jun 23, 2009 1:23 AM

small pond

Welcome to the neighborhood Jason. Water gardening is certainly a challenge up here on the "frozen tundra". You look as if you are well on your way to meeting the challenges. Keep us posted on how you manage to overcome the difficulties. Everything looks great so far!!

Jason, the settings look fantastic on your pond-very natural. Why do you want a waterfall-more circulation for the pond and the fish or more for the enjoyment of the sound of moving water? You seem to be doing very well in the garden and with the pond.

Jason, yours is apparently a "natural" pond, which is the look that many of us creating ponds (where none existed before) are striving for. It is a beautiful setting. Let us know what it is you want it to be like, and no doubt you will get many ideas from this group. At any rate, it looks quite beautiful and peaceful there!

Brenda

Jason, what a lucky guy to have so much property! Having a natural pond is great!
Keep posting pics, we love to see what others are doing!

So what happened to Jason?

If I had 7 acres to mow, I wouldn't have much computer time either! :D

LOL...I am done mowing now.

I have good ole dial up internet and I wasn't able to connect to the internet. My phone line got messed up during a thunderstorm.

Mothermole, I want to add moving water for the sound and additional oxygen for the fish. I want it to look like part of the landscape so a waterfall is probably not going to work. I am thinking maybe something as simple as a pipe drove into the ground with the water coming out of it to give the impression that the pond is being fed by a natural spring or artesian well since it is located at the bottom of a hill. I think I am shooting for the look of a farm pond.

Love the turtle!!!

The turtle was given to me last year by someone who found it on the side of the road as a hatchling and kept it in their fish tank. It had no land for it to come out on, was fed a bad diet and kept with out the right lighting so it has some shell deformities. I put it in my pond last spring and it had tripled in size by fall. I caught it and it hibernated in my basement through the winter. I put it back in the pond early May and hadn't seen it since, then all of a sudden it reappeared yesterday.

I would LOVE to have your pond it is what I am trying to make mine look like. A waterfall in a flat plane area would be hard to look natural. Consider a long winding stream bed with a water fall at the beginning maybe. Heck I don't know.

Snapple: You had a great website for information on maintaining large natural and man made ponds/lakes. They had a lot of great products for someone like Jason. I don't remember the name of it.