Allotment Heaven: Making a pond

And here’s the result so far of my clay lined wildlife pond (click to enlarge). Had a brainwave… why incur the cost of lining when our allotment site has so much clay around? So lots of digging clay from the middle and using it to line the sides, which I made fairly shallow so the grandchildren won’t fall in.

I’d been worrying about all the water I’d need to haul back and forth from the nearest water tank. Silly me! The pond was full of water before I knew it and I could only dig it to the depth of my wellies. Apparently this is the best time of year to dig a pond for that reason… so it fills naturally with rain water.

Need to get a bit more depth. The middle should be one metre deep so it’s unlikely the pond will freeze over in winter and therefore frogs can to overwinter.

I’m going to keep a photo record of the pond’s development to track how plants and creepy crawlies make it their home. I’ve read a recommendation to let the pond develop naturally rather than adding plants or wildlife. I agree with the latter, but I’m not sure I can be patient enough for the former to develop.

It’s been getting a bit wet at pitch and putt. Normally David turns up in his trainers and goes home with wet feet, so I bought him an early Christmas present of a pair of wellies… they’ll also help when he’s taking Jazz out for a walk. Well, after his first round last week in the new foot attire we’re back on to ‘You’re never going to beat me… in these wellies’. On a grey, wet and windy day he had an unbelievable 18 hole round of 63, comfortably beating my summer record of 65. In the process he also equalled my 9 hole record of 30. I’ll have to puncture a hole in his wellies when he’s not looking to get things back to normal!

Son John also beat me the last time we played following an unbelievable shot on the 9th. He’d gone ahead by several strokes early on with me clawing back to being only one shot down as we teed up on the 9th. This being the longest hole, he brought all the weight training into play and pitched off with all his might. The ball flew way over the green and was saved from going some distance into the members’ putting green by hitting the back fence, then bouncing back on to the 9th green to rest a mere few feet away from the hole.

Sick? I was so upset I pitched my shot into the row of conifers to the left and spent what seemed a lifetime hacking my way towards the green. John added insult to injury by dropping his putt for a two. Suddenly finding myself seven shots down and emotionally fragile, I never recovered.

You may remember from a fairly short post a couple of weeks ago that I was in the middle of compiling our allotment association’s autumn newsletter. You can now read that issue by clicking the link under the ‘Welcome’ section on the right.

Lots of photos and video below… bit of a catch up.

Here’s the two great fossil diggers on a visit to the allotment. And yes, they did find fossils… they always do.