Mi pawnd rebild tew

[Shdwdrgn]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinca_minor

Yep, that's the one. Vines out and has a nice deep deep green color to it all year. It should make a great contrast against the golden moneywort that I have planted everywhere.

 

[j.w]

Yep I have had some w/ pretty little blue flowers. They look good draping down over stuff also maybe even over the rocks of a pond.

 

[addy1]

We have a ton of the "wild" strawberries, they have little red berries, I have read you can eat them. Has anybody ever tried them? The vines grow anywhere I don't yank them out produce flowers and berries all summer.

 

[sissy]

I can tell you my father had 2 acres of strawberries and if you use that gunk on the bottom of your barrels to feed your strawberries you will get a bumper crop .My father used to use water from our pond mix it with compost and we had the biggest sweetest strawberries around .We sold our strawberries at our house to customers that came from all over just to get them and never were we without customers calling to find out if they were ready and coming to buy them and all the other veggies my father grew .We had over five acres and my father mother and I tended to all them ourselves ,hard work but worth it .I grew up there and loved it .

 

[Shdwdrgn]

I remember wild strawberries growing in the ditches back in Iowa when I was a kid. I have them growing within the bricks under my tree, and they are a lot more prolific than regular strawberries Yes addy, you most certainly can eat them! They are small, but they have a very good flavor to them.

For some reason I never thought of using the pond water on any of my veggies or berries. I guess I'll have to keep a bucket handy, but its going to be awhile before there is any significant amount of waste built up in my filters.

 

[sissy]

my father always pumped the stuff from our pond into big tanks and the put big mesh bags of cow manure chicken manure and compost in big bags with and aerator going for 24 hours and then would pump spray it all over our gardens .He was an organic farmer back when that was not big .He started back in 1965 when we bought the farm .Before that believe it or not I grew up in a huge mansion over in New Market NJ .6500 sq. ft. and then my parents went hippie I think .Sold the big huge house and went to farming .Friends of there's thought they lost there marbles .I on the other hand loved it .The only thing I missed about the big house was the fairy tale turrets, 3 of them a child's fantasy world .lol I went from goldielocks (pun intended ) to goldies in the pond a lot of goldies in the pond

 

[j.w]

Yep you sure can eat those wild strawberries. They grow wild over here on ocean beaches too. Weird to think they can survive in sand but they do. The house where we live now, the property used to be a strawberry field called Best's Strawberries and we have sandy soil so they must like the sand. I don't have any strawberries growing here right now but been thinking about it as they are sooooooooooooo delicious when home grown

 

[addy1]

Well I will try them this year, they are everywhere.

 

[Shdwdrgn]

I picked up some pea-gravel from my sister's house last night. Scooped it a bit at a time onto a screen and hosed it down, but it still brought a lot of dirt into my pond. This morning I added the scrubbie pads to the bottom of both filters (forgot about them when I got the big pond up and running last week), so that should help clear things up in a day or two. In the meantime, I will probably add a little more gravel to get the depth I wanted for the plants to grow in, and my pond plants are due to arrive tomorrow. Can't wait to get them in the water and watch things grow this summer, plus I'm hoping the hyacinths will help break down the dirt floating on the surface of the water.

 

[sissy]

no matter how much try to clean them or any rock you still get dirt in a couple of hours filters will take care of it

 

[Shdwdrgn]

Well the filters must have caught up today... I no longer have muddy foam on the surface, and the water finally looks clear again. Must be time to throw in some more gravel!!!

I'm kinda stuck right now. On each of my barrels, I have two holes for threaded 3" pipe fittings as the outlet spouts. I cannot seem to get these to stop leaking, and I think it's mostly because of the curve of the barrel. Currently I sanded a concave surface into the outer fitting so it sits flush to the barrel, then I screw the inner fitting into place. I made gaskets out of extra liner material, and put one inside and one outside the barrel, but it still leaks. All I can think of is I need to make a piece to go on the inside of the barrel that fits to the inner curve, but has a flat side so the fittings are all laid flat against their respective surfaces.

This picture shows the threaded couplings I am using. The threaded piece goes through the barrel from the inside, and the other piece has the concave surface to match the curve of the barrel. If I can't figure out something to seal these up using the rubber gaskets, I may have to simply silicon one part in place in the barrel.

 

[fishin4cars]

Had the same issue, I used a hair dryer and heated it I had to tighten and loosen the bulk heads a few times to get it to where I wanted it, then just cooled it with water and it hardened. Still haven't done a leak test and my plastic is thinner than yours but it should work the same.

 

[addy1]

Fantastic shdwdrgn, post a clear water picture!

I saw a post somewhere, where they used the gray electric pvc connections, stated they had flatter edges making the seal better. Used them when going through barrel walls.

 

[vertigo72]

is it the bulkhead thats leaking? I used bulkheads that are rounded, specially for barrels. Here is a picture:

One part of the flange, the one with the pipe, has a curve that follows the barrel's curve. No problems making those watertight. No need to heat or flatten either.

here is a better one>

 

[Shdwdrgn]

vertigo - yeah it would have been nice if I'd been able to find something like that being sold locally, but nothing ever turned up. Guess that's a bit of a specialty item? The concept is the same as what I'm trying to make, however. If I'd realized I was going to have this much trouble with it, I would have cut my exit holes an inch lower in the barrel so I wasn't dealing with the compound curve of the lip.

Not a lot of work being done on the pond this week. We've had rain since Tuesday evening, so I got out some grass seed in a couple areas where I've leveled out the yard. With all the extra water, I've been able to see how high the water can go, and where my overflow points are at. It's looking pretty good, and I'm actually surprised at how high up the water was able to go. We *might* get a break in the rain tomorrow, but I'm hoping to get at least 3 dry days here soon so I can finish the rock work around the edge and get the rest of my plants back in the ground.