My New Pond Project

Ten-plus years ago, when I decided to turn the water feature in the back yard into a vegetable bed, I should have gotten rid of the thousands of pebbles all over the rim.  I took out a lot from the bottom, along with most of the large rocks, before adding dirt, but never dealt with the ones above the original water line.  Over the years, rain, wind, and gravity have brought a lot of them onto the soil, to the point that I can't use the Pond for root crops like carrots.

I finally got tired of it, and now I'm trying to clean it up.  It's a lot of pebbles.  I started by scooping the upper ones into one of the wire baskets I bought at Dollar Tree and moving them into the front yard's planter, which has gradually lost most of its weed-suppression pebbles over the years.  The baskets were originally for protecting seedlings from caterpillar-laying butterflies and moths.  You invert them over the plant until it's healthy enough to fight off predators on its own.  I was realistic that I would not be able to get every single pebble, and called it at about 90%, or all that could be removed with a utility brush.  Everything looks much tidier, and it only took about an hour.

Step two, which is going to take much longer, is to sift the dirt in the Pond through the basket and hopefully catch all the rocks and most of the weeds.  I'm working around any remaining winter plants, which are currently celery, two green onions, and lacinato kale.  Round One of the cleanout produced about 2 gallons of pebbles and showed me that I'm not watering the Pond enough.  It is also much shallower than I thought, maybe 8 inches at the deepest.  I'm working on it once a week, before a deep watering.

Once the sifting project is done, or at least reduces the pebbles to a livable amount, the soil will be aerated and ready for conditioning for this summer's crops.  I'm getting to this very late, so I'm going to have to buy starts.  I'm not even sure what I want to grow yet.  That's going to have to wait about a week after I buy more soil, so it can settle into its new surroundings.  I'm also working on clearing the overgrowth around the rim, so seeds stop falling into the vegetable bed.

I'm trying to remember that gardening is an active hobby, not a passive one.  You don't plant seeds or starts and come back in a few months to a garden.  Half an hour of attention every few days is generally enough to grow food or landscaping, and it's good exercise.  You get sun and fresh air, and it's good for your emotional health.  That's at least as much a benefit as any produce you can grow.