Well, I have no excuses for what is actually an incomplete coverage of all that has been going on this past year, but I did take sporadic photos and will try and fill in the actual progressions of the various projects.
Greenhouse koi project begins with 75 2&1/2″ fish everything put together from odd buckets and cheap air and water pumps. The improvised biofilters performed quite well keeping the water pretty clean for the three or four months they were in this small pond Here are the new babies-butterfly koi moved to their outside summer accommodationsTo the right of the small preformed pond is a biofilter, the pond water spills into it, passes through sand and is pumped out to recirculate. It worked very well when it wasn’t leaking. The waterfall for the bigger liner pond. It’s a rough looking first try, but served well through the summer.Note the solar panels that power the waterfall, and the biofilter between the pond and the panels.The second biofilter is to the right of the panels at the top of the falls. The ornamentation of the area was an ongoing project through the summer. This is closer to the fall and work on a second pond is started.The plan is to have the two ponds connected in the same filtration system. The second pond is slightly higher than the first and the system will have better filters and be easier to maintain.These baby birds are being raised in a planter inside the greenhouse, some sort of wren I guess, and she came and went often enough to raise them to maturity even though the doors were often closed. Periodically she would show herself and sort of be asking to go out This winter wheat volunteered in the garden, I don’t quite know how it got there, but I discovered it by the smell of it when I was cutting the grass, so I stopped cutting it and let it grow as much as it wanted, will be interesting to see if it comes back next year, I never did manage to catch it at the right time to harvest any,This is the large “catfish pond last January. A drought of sorts started in late spring and the pond lost 80% of its water. Then an 18” rainfall in 3 hours filled it back to overflowing, but as the summer progressed, the pond emptied again.This is a recent picture, note the ramp on the left allowing access with the backhoe to enlarge the pond a little and get some more clay for the dam itself.Note the mound of clay in the upper left center of the picture. This builds up a partial low spot, and fills in that corner. It still needs some shaping and compaction but the weather has changed and we’re starting to get some rain. hopefully I’ll get a couple dry days when I can do a little more work with the backhoe.This shows the connection between the existing swale that stopped about at the truck and the pond that is directly behind the camera Too bad this wasn’t done before that monster rain 🙂Yes, The trellis needs a bit more work, but this year the grapevine automatically shaded the glass on the south side of the house. The only downside is failure to harvest in time will have swarms of bees etc. I ate as much as I could every day and finally gave a bunch away.
OK, I think that’s enough for one night. Obviously there was a lot more going on last year, and with a little perseverance maybe I can actually bring the year into better focus with some further posts.
