Tag: earth works

The Unintentional Pond

unintentional pond

This was not supposed to happen. This was supposed to be another Krater. This is awful!

We were supposed to have 8 Kraters. We only have 6. This unintentional pond is the reason why. It was dug just like the rest of the Kraters. The front loader scooped out about 2′ of soil. Then it began raining. It rained, and rained, and rained. The Kraters all had water in them but this one, this was something else. We found things digging that we hadn’t expected. We knew our soil was clay. What we didn’t know is that sand and rock was not that far under the clay. It’s about 2-3′ under, in some places. Not 30′ away from this “pond” is a Krater with a rock bottom.

This Krater has black clay. Lots and lots of it. This black clay has proven to be amazing at holding water. So here we sat, with a 2′ deep pond we didn’t want to have. There was much debate about what to do with it. I bounced from keeping to annihilating this thing. I want ponds. Lots of them. What I don’t want is a pond in this location and I want a 2′ deep pond even less. What on earth would I do with a shallow pond?

So while I was out on the excavator I began scooping the clay from this pond. My hope was that I would breach the clay lining and the pond would drain. It turns out I did remove the lining in some spots. It’s hard to tell what you are doing when you are digging in muddy water. However, the pond has been draining, slowly, very slowly. This brings me relief as so far Son has lost a shoe and a dump truck in it.

We stopped digging Kraters because of the rain and because the last Krater is set to be next to this one. I don’t know what we’ll find. Will it be black clay? Will it be rock? I don’t know and I’m not sure I really want to find out.

I’m struggling with what to do with this giant hole after the water drains from this “pond”. I hesitate to plant into it because of how well it holds water. I just can’t leave it though. We think we’ll harvest all the black clay we can for the pond we DO want. After that it’s anyone’s guess. I suppose it’ll sit around for awhile until we finally get annoyed enough to do something. Part of me thinks we should fill it in. The other part thinks we should just plant water loving species in it. Aspen, cottonwood, willow. That seems like the lazier option so it’s probably what will end up happening.

Unintentional pond sunset

It gave us some very peaceful and pretty sunsets though.

Resting after a swim

Son will really miss it!

Experimentation on the farm

We are always experimenting to see what works best for our area. Last year it was swales and berms, which have been fairly successful. This year it will be different earth works and a deeper look into our personal food systems. Below is a list of our current experiments:

  • Corn- The best way to grow it. Sunken hugel bed and corn planted in the bottom of crater gardens for wind protection. Which will do best? I suspect the wind protection will be a big boon to growing corn here, though the soil at the bottom of the craters is quite hard, so may not allow the corn to grow sufficient roots. We shall see.
  • Potatoes- I bought 4 different varieties of potatoes and I am going to plant them in 3 different ways to see what does the best. Some will be planted in our raised bed, some in the berms and some in a tire tower.
  • Bio char is going to be added to a wide variety of plantings to see if it helps.
  • We are going to be testing the viability of Sainfoin as a dry land forage/hay.
  • I am going to be setting up the silvapasture but have not decided what the best planting method will be yet. Do I plant in holes for water and wind protection, but risking animal legs, or do I do swales? I don’t know. See what we come up with and how it goes.
  • Ginseng experimentation. Can it grow here? What is the proper soil/sun conditions in our area. We will be spreading 250 ginseng seeds through various rows of trees in our tree line and seeing what does best.
  • Best earth work for our environment. Now, I enjoy our swales and berms and still believe in them. However, the bush experiment from last year has me thinking basins and mini craters are going to be the absolute best way to grow things here. This years earth works will be building basins and mini craters and testing them against last years systems.

It is an exciting time for us here on the farm. Establishment has been stressful, expensive and exciting. I can’t wait to see how our plants succeed here.