I am glad to hear everyone down south has come through unscathed. Last year was a real trauma for many.
It looks like we may be moving in the years to come when Damien retires. Further North if you can believe that. We both come from Fairbanks, land of -50 and ice fog. A pond would be pretty much out of the question. But summers are hotter and my MIL's house sits on a fair piece of ground with full sun so gardening would be great. Well, except being a zone 3 many things I grow here would not grow there. Peonies would be okay I believe but not sure about lilies. Anyway. I continue to shovel snow off the beds where I can. I checked my list of growth times and the snow has been here longer as I have not seen hide nor hair of plants that were greening up this time last year. Guess I need to shovel faster.
Ponds 2013 - What's up?
It's kind of nuts but the pond, while full of algae, including the stringy stuff has all but crystal clear water. Maybe I will just pump out a little better than half and then give the rocks a good power wash and scrub all else. Need to get some Algaway and more PL to balance new pond water and get the biowell churning. I really need to get the pump going so I can add the cold weather bacteria up to the biowell but need the cleaning first. Will be standing in snow to do it but still needs to be done. With the hours D is working it looks like I will be doing it by myself. I can get the pump going to drain the pond, and guess I can drag the pressure washer out there. I have used that before. The difficulty, only just a pain really, is hauling all that equipment over the snow trail. Tough to walk on or IN it without balancing stuff. Ought to give the neighbors a good laugh.
Mary - didn't Chocolatemoose have lilies? I think she grew them in pots inside and then put them outside in the summer. Not sure what part of Alaska she was in - do you remember?
You might not be able to have the pond, but perhaps a small container garden with a waterlily? When will Damien be looking at retiring?
Yes, Chocolatemoose has lilies. They would probably grow right up next to the house on a south side. She lived in North Pole (no lie) about 8 miles or so southeast of Fairbanks. And they are even colder than Fairbanks. And yes, Damien and I could now build on our own a little pond with a nice little trickle down path as the property slopes down nicely to the river. We will have to make sure that it is moose proofed and my gardens would have to be beaver proofed. And now my MIL says she has seen a wolf around there. I'm not sure I buy that. Eielson AFB (12 miles further down the road) is scheduled to close down. That only leaves Ft. Wainwright (army post) to support Fairbanks, plus tourists. It's dead now, can't imagine what it will be like then. Good thing we have a condo here in Anchorage to escape to for shopping and night life. Yeah, like D and I are big partiers. NOT!
Mary,
Can't even imagine living in that climate. My husb. would go beserk. He is a hothouse flower and below 70 here is too low for him.
Can't feature having a pond there. Just seems unreal but guess its all in what you are used to. When I was young in Connecticut never paid any attention to the cold and snow but I sure would now after being here 45 years. Snow is pretty coming down if it just wouldnt stay on the ground. On rare occasions it has snowed here and everybody runs for their cameras except me. I remember it well.
My best friend went to Alaska one year and she said it was jut beautiful. She was there during the summer and wore a lightweight jacket all the time. She was born and raised in Fl.
OK all getting time to hit the sack. Hope your all having a good weekend. Bonnie
We are and wish the same for you, Carolyn, MM, et.al. :)
Mary - I thought Chocolatemoose was at the North Pole, but wasn't postive.
I also did not know they were closing down the AFB. Ft Drum isn't that far from us ( 3 1/2 hours) and they keep expanding. My inlaws are hoping they can sell their house with the expansion of Ft Drum.
Bonnie - I am with your hubby - anything below 68 degrees and I am cold. My mother always told me when my children were small to take one more layer of clothing off of them when I was dressing them than what I was wearing, because I have always been cold. Funny thing.
The fish were quite active yesterday. I wish the weather would warm up so I can sit out there. It seems this spring has been so slow and cold. I did notice that all of a sudden my bog plants are coming though.
DH and I still need to deal with the waterlilies. He has a new idea on how to handle them. I will let you know how that goes. I still think it would just be easier to lower the level of the pond, get in and fertilize them myself. He is afraid that I would not be able to get out. Apparently those that have been in the pond have had difficulties in getting out..... we will see...
Mary....if you don't have anything living in your pond, as of now, you can use potassium permaganate in your pond to kill all algaes. It literally cleans everything out of your pond (so if you have water plantings it will also kill those, so lift them out if they're in pots) It will kill all bacterias, funguses, diseases, algaes, etc. If you run your filter afterward, it will clear out your pond and leave you with sparkling clear water several days later, all the way to the bottom. But then, you'll have to restart your bio-filter before you can add fish again.
You know, that is a great idea. I reduced my pots in the pond for storage to 2, then I pull them up and replant then separately. Dusty at TWL is sending my order May 7th. Will still be a little early for ambient temp and water temp but I can hold them another two weeks. Since I am leaving June 2 I need everything in the ground or pond by the 30th or so. I won't be back til June 11. I will see where I can get the PP locally now and if not I will order it.
So should I start up the biowell so it pumps the stuff through the entire system, including the other UV filter ? Should I turn off the UV. Guess that wouldn't matter as this is a chemical not a living thing. So pump it through for a day or so? Then vacuum which pulls water from the pond. Opps. What about where that water goes. If it goes into the ground or into a storm drain what will it do to the bugs in the treatment plants where the water ends up? Then replace water pumped out and restart the whole thing. What about any of the PP left in the pond? Unless I have to pump out the entire pond which of course wouldn't get it all out. It would be in the rocks and the little gravel that is left. Oh, and do you have a ratio of PP to water that is needed?
Whew....lol...let me try to answer most of your questions....
If you have an ebay account, you can get PP....some pool supply companies carry it....oddly our grocery stores carry it in their pool section....
Although it is a chemical, it isn't like chlorine, it oxidizes things to an extreme. Turn everything off in your pond, since it currently has no inhabitants. Remonve plants you don't want killed. Put the PP in, it will turn the water purple/pink....you have enough in there (and I'll try to look up the dosage per gallon) when it stays that color for 6-8 hours.... Do not touch it or breathe it in, being a powder.
The color of the water will start to fade to brownish the next day. That's everything dying...disease, aglae, everything! You will need to start filtering your water just to remove some of the dead junk. PP will help decay the leaves and things that fell to the bottom. It's always better to scoop out everything you can before your start a PP treatment. Any organic matter will slow down the process, and if you have tons of organic matter, you may have to do a 2nd treatment.
Make sure you turn off your UV filter!
Your water will begin to get crystal clear, clean your filter often, and let it process through over and over.....
Now you have a sterile pond, no algae, no disease, perfectly clear water.....but remember, it is now DEAD water.....so before adding fish again, you MUST re-establish your bio-filter or biology of some sort. There are several products you can order, to kick start the biology of your pond. It's the whole story of nitrites/ nitrates, healthy bacterias, and no ammonia, etc....
This all seems very intense, but it's really very easy to do...
:)
http://www.pondpetsusa.com/medications/potassium_permanganate.html
Read this one, it's easy to understand.... Note, this is for a pond with fish, so you don't have to be as cautious in a pond with no fish where you're trying to kill everything and start anew....
1 teaspoon per 1,000 gallons, so purchase a SMALL amount! It's very cheap, and unless your pond is huge, your treatment will probably be under $10.
:)
Oh, and about the storm drain....you don't have to drain your pond.....because it's an oxidizer, when it's gone it's gone, it does not remain in the water....it just sort of evaporates away. In fact, if you ever need to stop it on a dime, you pour a bottle of peroxide in the water, and it shuts down the entire PP process.
I have been lurking and learning a lot. Thanks everyone.
Carolyn, I am 70 years old. If I got in my KOI pond, I would not be able to get out.
Keep up the information flowing. Sharon
Thank you for all the information. I will follow it to the letter. I was relieved to know that it ceases its process on its own. I will let you know how it goes.
I am "only" 66 but in the same boat.
Sharon - I am 55 and I have have problems keeping up with my inlaws in their early 80's. ^_^
Well good and God bless them. I can walk 20 miles. I just have a problem getting up on something or out of something. Really frustrating but I go with what I have. I just have a hard plastic step stool I use in the garden. And a nice wood one I use in the house.
Same with me. I can walk forever at quite a good clip. But the up and down business is a challenge. And I can shovel snow til the cows come home, and indeed, am doing so. I have one garden bed almost uncovered completely and just dug through the snowbank to the front of the other. It is getting warm here so what I pull from the snowbank and toss onto the drive (from whence it came all winter) it melts pretty fast.
I also use a cross country ski pole to maintain my balance in some of my beds. The majority of my front landscape is raised bed. These beds are made from very large, 1/2 small car size. boulders. Majority of boulder is underground. So when I get in, sometimes I cannot get out. Before I got smart and got my pole, one afternoon I looked around to make sure no one was close by and actually rolled out of the bed because I knew if I tried to walk out, I would fall. Now, I do not get myself in those kind of situations. I get a little smarter every year.
You girls are making me so thankful. I'll be 76 in Dec. and have learned to love power naps in the afternoon but some days I work from dawn to dusk outside. As we age balance seems to become an issue. I have fallen a few times but just roll over and get up. I need to stop leaving the garden hoses in walking paths. Duh
I'm working at geting my pool cleaned up so I can do a few laps in there every day. It feels good after sweating from garden work. It has been near 90 here already so we may be in for a very hot summer which isn't unusual. I just hope we get some rains. Our lake levels are very low and that isn't good. Merry Mary isn't far from me and you have heard her say they couldn't get their boat out of their lake. Our canal is still 3 ft. low and that provides my irrigation system so I would really like to get more rain. Watering by hose and from our well is not good plus it takes me almost 4 hrs.
Hearing Oberon talking about shoveling snow sounds weird now but I can remember doing it many years ago.
Hope everyone is experiencing some spring weather up north.
Bonnie
Ah, but I go out every day and skim algae from my pond. It is all clear of snow for about 6' one direction up a little hill and about 6" on the east side. Sun melts the other side off more quickly. All deicers are out, falls are almost clear. This weekend D promised to take Sunday off and help me clean the pond dump in the PP, fire up the big pumps (won't turn on the UV's.) Until then I continue to shovel snow from the beds out front. Weird for sure.
Mary - when does it usually warm up enough that you don't have to shovel anymore?
Well, when my gardens are clear of snow, those that need shoveling out front I stop. There can still be a foot of snow on the lawn. On April 25th last year the backyard was clear of snow, things were growing. Only a few clumps of snow in the shade. Right now I have about 10-12" of snow over the backyard except for the little hills by the pond, one of which owes judicious careful shoveling from me to being almost snow free. The slush that fell today has dissolved into a rain that, oh, it is stopped now. I should go try to shovel some more on the kidney. I will post some pics.
Well, here tis 'hot' off the camera. the first two are of the bed along the sidewalk, the next three are of the area in front of the kidney shaped bed under the snow. You can just see that I have dug back to the brick outline in the front of the bed.
Oh piffle. I wonder why the order gets shuffled. 1) is sidelong toward the kidney bed along the driveway 2) is shot from front door to bed along sidewalk 3) is another side shot of the kidney bed 4) is sidewalk bed from the other end, and 4) is where you can see the brick front of the kidney along the driveway
and less you feel too sorry for me, here is a little bed (only 2x3) snugged up against the house in the front. I have to pitch snow ON it to keep the plants protected as the snow doesn't pile up there. And there are my dowdeswell delphiniums coming up.
Ugh! Mary, you have so much more snow than I thought. You are such a snow bunny - I am not.
I hope your delphs do well. I have tried them several times. We get such hard driving winds here, they just get so beaten to death. When I move down south, I will try them again. I will have them growing in front of my camelias ^_^.
Bonnie and I will be sitting at her picnic table (or mine), waving at your plane as you jet back and forth to Hawaii to see your son and back. You will have to detour to see us!
That will be quite a detour from Alaska to Florida to Hawaii. lol. I LOVE camelias. They smell so heavenly and look so heavenly. I carried them at my first wedding. Still have a boutinnere (sp) somewhere. A little dessicated after 46 years. The PP went into the pond this morning after I pulled my lily pots out. OH, as I was pulling up the second pot up floated yet another dead gold fish. So I guess there is nothing left for the PP to kill in the way of fish.
Oh, Mary. Poor thing. I wonder what killed them all. I am sorry.
If I had to guess I would say lack of oxygen. As they get bigger, those are the ones who die and they were all getting fairly large, at least in my pond. I will buy more this summer as soon as I can and this fall put the aerator back in the pond, but just to circulate around, not hoses stuck in their caves. I guess I am rather persistent. I just can't believe it can't be done. I must go visit my friend across town and see how his pond is doing. he had some fairly good size koi two years ago. I am potting up a shipment of dahlias I just received today and have the lily tubers in a tub in the garage. They are sending green shoots, tiny but green. Also potting up seed potatoes. When they sprout I will move them to the big tubs for the summer. I was using a 10-10-10 on the dahlias but I think I should change to something like 5-10-10 now that they are really growing. About four more weeks before they can go outside. At that it will be a little early.
Wow! Sounds like you're really clipping along!
Well, when the pond is only one half of the garden (in effort, not size) it gives a bit of relief from the failed efforts to focus on the other stuff that seems to respond more consistently. Although vegie gardening is somewhat new for me. I tried before but just fed worms and slugs Now I have raised beds which will solve that problem (I hope) and with tops will provide more warmth. Always up for a puzzling challenge.
How we moved to Ponds 2013 II
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1309195/