Atavistic Activities II (you can look now)

Above is the pond, nearly finished; below a diagram. The puddling was done to stop water draining through the topsoil. Fortunately, the subsoil is boulder clay, so we had plenty of material on hand. What we did was, we put cricket ball sized bits of clay onto the sides, and them banged (puddled) the clay into the topsoil with length of heavy wood. It was very good exercise. Altogether, digging and puddling took two of us about eight hours, though that was spread over three days.

The right hand has a slope, so that the frogs, toads and newts we're hoping for will be able to climb out - as will any hedgehogs who tumble in. That sides slightly lower than the other, and we're hoping that water will drain away and we'll put a bog garden there. Water will feed in from the gutter of a shed away to the left - we'll put a culvert of some sort to channel it. We only need rain now.

I'll post on its progress. I'm hoping for our first dragonflies before the end of the summer. The water barrels around The Allotment will have micro-organisms in them, so each will contribute a bucketful of water to the pond to get it started.