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The Big Dig – Building Our Backyard Pond
"I dig deep thoughts and appropriately sized holes", my current Instagram tagline, makes me giggle. I didn't anticipate digging such an insanely big hole this spring, but I'd been worrying about how large the koi were growing and pointing out spots in the yard to Joe where a pond would fit.
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Upgrade Your Pond with a Bog Filter System
As we prepare for a third summer managing our 300 gallon stock tank garden pond, we have a new upgrade to share. During the last two summers, we conducted pond water changes by taking buckets of water out of the pond and pouring them out on the garden beds. This was a fairly labor-intensive process, which I didn’t mind, but I knew there was probably a smarter solution to make use of the fish waste and keep the pond water…
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DIY Backyard Fish Pond Update – Bring on the Frogs!
We’ve had our 300 gallon fish pond for a full year now. It is now teeming with plants and critters, so much that I’ve had to prune back plants and shuffle fish. Our goldfish spawned at the beginning of summer, but unfortunately none of those fry grew into adult fish. I suspect the mosquito fish, goldfish and tadpoles made dinner of them. I brought in a large batch of tiny fry thinking they were goldfish, only to discover they were…
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DIY Backyard Fish Pond
For years we tossed around the idea of a fish pond in the back yard but shrugged it off figuring it was outside the scope of our abilities and finances. We also couldn’t agree on a location. However, when the birdbath quit holding water, I really missed having a water feature in the veggie garden off the deck. I figured that out of any spot in the yard, that little bed could handle a permanent feature. There was a nice…
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An Evolving Rock Garden
We have a little tradition in our family of bringing home rocks from camping trips or special times in the mountains. We don’t always remember to do it, but the times we have it usually involves picking one out and seeing if Joe is able to lift it and get it into the car. We also regularly dig up rocks in the yard. Nearly every time we have planted a tree, we’ve unearthed rocks of varying sizes. This has resulted…
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DIY Plastic Bin Worm Farm
Today’s project is making a worm bin or worm farm from the old city recycling bin. First I want to point out how lucky we are that our city collects recycling at the curb and provides bins. Raleigh upgraded to larger recycling carts a few years ago, and we hung on to the smaller bin. I’ve use it around the garden to toss in weeds, and the drain holes ensure that it doesn’t get stinky after a rainfall. This morning…
