Pond wall deconstruction & reconstruction

Yes, I know, it's been a while! I thought I would be able to post something each week, but I'm lucky to do so each month (or every six months?)!

Here is an update and a photo of my pond wall reconstruction project, which I have been working on and off for several months. For pictures of how it looked last summer, check out this post. (I was going to post some photos during deconstruction, but didn't get a chance to take the photos; so last weekend my wife finally took a few of the almost finished project).


A lot of hard work as the wall, which I thought was just made with individual stones, was actually a poured cement wall with stone facing. I've found I could only work on it for a few hours as my arm got tired from heaving the sledgehammer.

In order to nibble away at the rock/cement, I used a chisel and sledgehammer. Wish I either had used a larger sledgehammer or a pick. Renting a jackhammer was also an option, but sometimes I prefer doing things without heavy machinery that makes lots of noise pollution. However I did do finally an all day blitz and was able to knock the last section of wall down. Was I glad! Now we are left with a pile of cement rubble, which we hope we can smash small and use for paths (talk about recycling!).

We also moved the filter further back to give us more of a run in our watercourse to the waterfall and to hide it better. We used some of the busted up concrete to build up the contours so we have enough of a slope (I hope!) for the water to run down.

Still to do:

• drain the pond and clean it well
• fasten rocks at pond edge so that they don't move
• buy a new pump and install it
  
• add a few more rocks underneath the large rocks at the edge of the waterfall to hide the liner
• set the water plant pots in place (currently in greenhouse) and fill the pond
• seal the flat rocks in the watercourse, so water goes over top of them not underneath
• seal the rocks on both sides of the watercourse
  
• test pump and waterfall and ensure there are no leaks
  
• make a sturdy net to guard against raccoons (it's me against them and I plan to win!)
  
• get new fish once pond has stabilized and we're sure net will do the trick
  
• reconfigure planting around pond, including planting bamboo to hide the filter - although in the photo above I noticed it is not that visible, but I still want to have some bamboo
• eventually build a low level wood deck to replace the paver patio
  

So lots of works still to do. But very satisfying!

Blog Action Day - more hand power, less gas power

Today is Blog Action Day, a day where many blogs are focusing on the environment and how we can make a difference in reducing the negative environmental impact we are having on our planet.

As a gardening/landscaping blog, I firmly believe we all can start caring more about our environment in our own gardens. And one of the most important changes I think we should make is our reliance on gas power equipment to maintain our yards. This is a bit of a pet peeve of mine but I'm hoping what I say here encourages some people to reconsider how they maintain their yards.

Gas-powered lawn mowers, grass trimmers, chainsaws, hedge trimmers and leaf blowers all contribute to bad air quality and noise pollution and I believe their use at least by private homeowners should be minimized if not banned outright. (I even believe that most landscaping companies could reduce their reliance on gas-powered equipment and still be able to provide quick, efficient service to their clients)

There are alternatives (I've used all of these and have no need for gas-powered equipment on my 600 sq ft property):

• lawn mowers: I use a hand powered reel mower - if you don't wait until you have knee-high grass and don't have an estate size lawn (and if you do you may want to consider reducing it's size) there is no extra work (occasionally you might have to go over a more difficult section of lawn twice to get all the stray blades); on my small lawn, a gas-powered lawn mower would actually take longer, as I would have to fill it up with gas, wait for it to warm up once started, cut the lawn and then wait for it to cool down before putting it away. My hand mower I take out, cut the lawn and put away again. Easy!
• grass trimmers: I use a pair of hand powered shears- keep them sharp and clean and oiled and they work just as well as their powered counterpart; in fact they are safer for your trees, as you won't damage the bark when trimming around them. Yes, you will have to get down on your knees (or buy a long-handled version if doing so is problematic), but they are a lot quieter and safer to use. There are also ways to landscape around lawns that will eliminate or at least reduce greatly the need for trimming.
• chainsaws: I use muscle power (hand saw and axe) - however if you have a huge tree to cut down, cutting it down by hand is a back-breaking job. But keep in mind that our ancestors did so using hand power. Perhaps not having the power tools to make cutting down a tree very easy may make some homeowners think twice about cutting it down in the first place?
• hedge trimmers: I use hand-powered shears or if doing a large hedge an electric-powered one - electric ones are the next best bet to gas hedge trimmers and they are not as noisy and polluting as the gas version, plus weigh a lot less, important if you are having to stand on a ladder to trim the top. If you have really thick branches to cut, you'll have to get out the hand saw or axe then.
• leaf blowers: I use a broom and rake and dustpan - sounds too simple, doesn't it. Why are we so attached to the gas powered leaf blower? They may make the job go quicker, but you are creating air pollution, noise pollution and it can be quite dangerous as the wind velocity coming out of these is very high. Instead grab your hand tools and sweep up the leaves, grass clippings or other debris. Nothing like smelling the fresh fall air and hearing the birds chirp in the trees rather than breathing in gas fumes and dust and not hearing anything but noise.

If you really have a yard that requires so much maintenance and you don't have the time to maintain it, I would suggest reconsidering either reducing the amount of maintenance required (for example, reducing the size of lawn) or moving to a property that is more manageable. If hand-powered is going to be too much of a liability, how about at least using electric power? Most of the gas-powered tools also come in cheaper electric versions (some even are now rechargeable, so you don't need to drag an extension cord all over your yard).

Is time really an issue? Consider all the maintenance that your gas-powered equipment needs (unless you have unlimited funds to buy new every few years). You have to go and buy gas, oil and maintenance parts; you have to fill it up with gas (and if a two-stroke engine, mix oil into the gas), change the oil on four strokes, change the spark plug, clean and replace the air filter and deal with sometimes balky engines that won't start, especially if you forgot to drain the gas tank during the winter months. Hand tools just require an occasional cleaning, lubricating and sharpening, not much else. And they are cheaper to purchase and operate.

Please help our environment: think green when purchasing maintenance equipment for your garden and enjoy the tranquility of less noise and smell while doing yard maintenance!

Garden update

Just a brief post to let you know what is happening in the veggie garden right now (sorry, no pictures - maybe I'll add them to this post on the weekend):

- tomato plants are big and quite full of tomatoes, but still green; we hope they ripen before it gets cold
- zucchini plants are giving us a few zucchinis; not many, but just enough
- our round squash plant (we're not sure if it is pumpkin or round zucchini or what) is producing round green balls again and they are growing like crazy each day (this is a volunteer, a bird-deposited plant)
- cucumber plants are slowing down finally after we were picking a few big ones every couple of days for the past month
- lettuce finally gave up; but I just planted a flat in the greenhouse, so we have some in winter, I hope (it's an experment)
- speaking of the greenhouse, I had moved our nasubi (Japanese eggplant) into pots in good compost and put them into the greenhouse, as they were looking quite sad outside in the garden especially during our cooler nights lately; now they are green and happy and we have some blossoms on them that hopefully will mature into small nasu, perfect for a stirfry :)
- our sweet pepper plant's remaining peppers have turned bright red
- yellow beans are done too, but freezer is full of bags of beans
- green onions I plants a month or so ago are small but growing (I think)
- winter veggies (kale, broccoli) are growing and happy, except being eaten a bit by some bugs
- we have leeks sprouting up (after I thought I had killed them) and getting big
- herbs are doing well, especially our basil; just have to use more herbs in cooking and teas
- fruit: peaches are picked and jam made and some frozen, apples picked and applesauce made, grapes are ripening for making jam soon, some pears picked and in the basement ripening, others still on the tree, figs are almost finished (the baby figs on there won't ripen before winter), raspberries are now producing on the new canes (we just planted them this spring)

That's about it, although I've probably forgotten a few things. It's great having your own fruit and vegetables, especially since you know that nothing bad has been sprayed on them. :)

Next year I'm planning to have even more!

Flowers in the Garden

I took these photos a few weeks or so ago and just now finding time to post them.

These are tiger lilies that have just such an amazing scent; too bad I can't share that with you, but at least you can see how beautiful they looked.

Here are our sweet peas that started off in the spring very slowly, then started to grow like mad and here is the final result. Again the scent of them when you pass by them is amazing.

Here is a baby blue hydrangea that is on three bushes underneath our grape vines. We have more buds and hope the bushes will be filled with these large blooms later this month. I'll be sure to share a photo when that happens.

More hydrangeas in our front yard, next to our small pond.

Agapanthus beside our small pond. Again a beautiful shade of blue.

There are more flowers in the garden, but these are the highlights for now.

Koi are gone!

Unfortunately I have bad news: all of our koi are gone. We had a visit last week from what we believe were raccoons. They somehow got under the net, made a mess of the pond and ate all of the fish!

We'll have to get a stronger net and secure it better before we get more fish. I might combine that with our plan to lower the pond walls.

Oh well, at least we have some photos of the fish as a memory and hopefully the raccoons at least enjoyed their meal.

We also hope that there might be some eggs in the pond that hatch into baby koi; we'll see.

Garden - Back Pond

[This post is the first of a series that will showcase most parts of our garden.]

We have two ponds, one in front and one in back. The one in our backyard is the larger of the two. It also is the home to our koi.

Some overall photos of the pond and the surrounding plants.

As I mentioned there are a few koi in this pond. Two (the pink one and black one) are left over from the original koi that we became owners of after purchasing our house two summers ago. We lost a lot of the koi we had that winter (either via a predator or theft) and only found the two swimming around the following spring. It was devastating, as we had a few large koi that were probably worth a bit of money (hence the idea that they may have been stolen).

The two orange koi (with white markings) we just purchased yesterday and they seem to have acclimatized themselves to their new home and their pondmates well. :) Hard to make good photos with my camera - will try to make better ones and post those.

We should really name them, perhaps with Japanese names. My wife will have to help out with that. :)

The pond is setup with a pump inside the pond that pushes the water through a hose to a gravel filter (under the black cover) where the water percolates up through the gravel and out a pipe into the short streambed and then over the flat stone back into the pond as you can see in this photo. You can also see the rolled up net that we use to cover the pond against predators.

We had some problems in the spring with water quality - it was quite cloudy and one could hardly see the bottom (it is a deep pond, over 4 feet in the deepest section). We bought a water test kit (strips that you dip in the water and then check what colour the pads change to) and after a few tests, discovered that the ph level was too low. To fix that I added some baking soda (about a cup over the course of two days) to add some alkalinity and it did wonders to raise the ph level and clear the pond! It's important though not to add too much at once.

I also bought a few more water plants - this one is a Pontederia cordata (pickerelweed).

That's it for now on our pond. We plan to lower the stone wall around the pond to make it more natural-looking and make an easier-to-take-off net cover. In the the future we also plan to build a cedar deck that will replace the paved patio that is currently in front of the pond. We should then have a pond area that looks more Japanese-style than European. Just more money and time required. :)

Organic Islands Festival

Yesterday my wife and I went to the Organic Islands Festival. It was extremely interesting and we spent several hours there, looking at all the exhibits, trying free samples of organic food, getting free samples to take home and buying a few products.

Well worth going to! I will definitely go next year again.

I hope to soon post an update on our garden with photos.