Algae can multiply quickly in ponds with an overabundance of nitrogen and phosphorus, particularly when the water is warm, and the weather is calm. This proliferation causes blooms of free-floating algae that turn the water noticeably green.

You are right about the plants not killing off the present algae. Shade plants and plants that utilize the nutrients before they develop and become food for the algae are the key to controlling the nutrients.

A UV light does not "solve" the present situation; it just kills algae, but the source of nutrients that lead to free-floating algae remain, mainly hydrogen and prosperous continue to proliferate. A UV light will work if it is killing more algae than the pond is producing. It is the same with adding beneficial bacteria that helps consume the nutrients before they become available for algae. Both can only accomplish so much if the sun, temperature, and nutrients continue to proliferate, so one or more methods need to be employed.

Nutrient starving is accomplished by reducing the sun load (especially as the water warms) with plants or some sort of natural shade (like trees) or artificial shade (like a sun sail). Shading a large area of a pond by adding plants like lilies since they have such a big spread are a good start. Lilies also help to absorb the nutrients, but not as well as some other plants. Adding plants that utilize nutrients before they become available to the free-floating algae also help to reduce the algae load, such as floating plants like frogbit, hornwort, hyacinth, and water lettuce; bog plants like water iris and Pickerelweed; and submerged plants like fanwort or anacharis, just to name a few.

A main reason for adding plants like lilies (besides their beauty) is to create a minimum of 60% shade over the pond so the sun stops "encouraging" the free-floating algae to form and begins to deprive the present algae of light and keep the water cooler; nothing like too much sun and its warmth to help the algae grow. Next, is to add other plants that use the nutrients earlier in their development before they become available to the single-cell free-floating algae. Lilies do that but not as well as some other plants. Plants like Frogbit, hornwort, hyacinths, water lettuce, and some others are excellent at using up nutrients before they become available for free-floating alga. These two actions will reduce the free-floating, single-cell algae from forming in the first place. Now, if one has string algae and/or blanket algae, this will not work. They have to be physically removed.

Like uv's, beneficial bacteria, and plants, barley straw does not kill existing algae, but inhibits the new growth of algae. The exact mechanism is poorly understood, but it seems that barley straw, when exposed to sunlight and in the presence of oxygen, produces a chemical that inhibits algae growth. Remove the barley, and the algae begins to proliferate again. I'm very familiar with barley straw; I just choose not to use it because it only temporarily alleviates the algae while it floats around the pond. It is not a long-term solution.

I have an acquaintance who has a pond and he uses no mechanical filtration, no UV, and no chemicals. He does all filtration with plants. His pond looks like the water was just poured into it, crystal clear right to the bottom. He does have algae that grows to about 1/4 inch on the stones, but that algae is normal, expected and beneficial for fish as they nibble on it. This is what I hope to accomplish at some point. It took him several years to accomplish this.

So many people kill off their fish, and plants, in aquariums in particular, but ponds as well, because they want nothing but crystal-clear water and clean surfaces without any natural growth at all. This expectation is crazy, because a healthy water environment entails some algae and growth to sustain life in the closed water container.

Eventually, I would like to ditch the pump, filter, and UV light, and use only plants to filter my pond, but that takes several years of living with green water. It's inescapable. The plants I have now are a help, but I need a lot more, or I need an artificial "umbrella" to shade the pond (uh-uh).

If you are interested in natural ponds, I own a book by one of the leading builders and innovators when it comes to natural ponds. Building Natural Ponds: Create a Clean, Algae-free Pond without Pumps, Filters, or Chemicals by Robert Pavlis. He also has a YouTube channel with 17 of his videos dealing with this subject. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...



This is the first one he built on his property (still there today).

https://youtu.be/0W8BapMq5hQ?l...
(This video was an inspiration for us and the starting point for us to build one.)


Good article:
Do You Need Pond Pumps and Pond Filters to Control Algae?
https://www.gardenmyths.com/po...

My next door neighbor wants to build a natural swimming pool. Now, those are cool!
https://www.youtube.com/result...

When I dug my pond, I planned for a different design with a large bog area and more plant shelves that would have gone a long way to filter the water. But, because of some limitations with digging, mainly rudimentary digging tools. We could not get a backhoe or other large shovel into the food forest, so we used shovels, picks, and an electric jack hammer. Removing the soil 1 bucket at a time into a wheelbarrow, and then relocating the clay and rocks, and two old men preforming the digging, the original design was scrapped midway in the process. If I had known it was going to be that hard to create the FF pond, I don't think I would have started the project. However, like most of my projects, I do them as "experiments".

Jim, that post is so informative! I'll be watching the inspiration video after I do a few chores this morning and ready for another break.

I've probably mentioned it before, but Mike and his friends put in a pond in the summer of 2001. It is about an acre, maybe a little more, and is fed by a natural stream that runs through the low lying area of the property. We had an engineer from the county give an assessment and basic guidelines, and one of the friends knew the mechanics about building a pond, but I have to say that with little to no knowledge ourselves, we really lucked out with the way it turned out.

The ecosystem evolved on its own - making a believer of me with the concept "you build it, they will come". We initially stocked it with fish from a hatchery, but just that once. There is a healthy fish population that has maintained a life cycle over 20 years now - bass, crappy, bluegill, catfish, as well as a few ornamental koi that someone brought from their small backyard pond. Those koi are huge now. Bull frogs, tree frogs, bats, numerous birds - ospreys, king fishers, blue herons, mallards, canadian geese, and the occasional bald eagle sightings. Little to no algae - I think because of the steep slopes of the sides and the depth of the water, along with the fish that feed on the little that is there. Seems like everything is in balance with no help on our part. How that happened leaves me pretty awe struck.

Terri. Let me know what you think of the natural pond video if you were able to get to it.

Lucky you with a pond! And a large one at that.

I wanted a big pond. Don't know if you ever heard me tell the story. We even cut down and cleared about an acre+ of trees to open up the view to a deep natural depression between two slopes with a natural spring that would have made a great pond with an earthen damn to one side. Maybe 1/3 of an acre pond - maybe a touch bigger it would have been.

Long story short; we got such a hassle form the local and state gov'ts with rules, regulations, studies, and about 2 inches of paperwork that we decided to abandon the plan. (Endangered species study, historic buildings study - make sure we weren't flooding any, 100-year rain event runoff study, etc., drawings, inspections, approvals, permits, and more.) It was horrible. Half the large field is now the FF, and the back half has grown back in so much, you can no longer see the depression unless you walk all the way back there.

My brother on the other hand bought a piece of property just outside on Binghamton, NY a number of years back. It already had a large pond. He built one twice the size, and a few years ago, he built a third. All three are connected by spillways and he stocked them with bass, catfish and bluegills way back when. He has some large fish in there now.

My grandparents had two good fishing ponds on their farm when I was a kid. That is what first got me hooked on ponds and farms. I've been in love ever since. I would love to have purchased my grandparents place in Culpeper, VA before it got split up with their original homestead on one lot, two houses on lots that my uncle and one cousin raised families, front pond (as we used to call it) filled in to sell off a front strip of roadside property for small 1 story business and stores, and a big road going down the middle of the farm with a huge rehab taking up chunk of the old farm. Heartbreaking. There is a rock in the front yard of the main farmhouse where my father carved his initials almost 100 years ago.

These are my siblings at the farm in 1954. I wasn't born yet. The two on the left, the oldest of the kids, are still live.


My two brothers standing in front of the farmhouse after a fishing venture to the front or back pond, not sure which one. The one on the right with the fish is the Binghamton pond builder.


You are so correct. Large ponds develop their own ecosystems over the first few years and continue to develop and change. I saw that with my brother's ponds, too. I think it's easier to let a large pond develop its own ecosystem, than trying to create one in a small pond. Yours sounds wonderful! Sometimes I miss the pond I never had; maybe that's why I built three, even if they are much smaller.

Jim, I remember the fiasco with the county regulations you had. That is such a shame. At the time, our county was more than helpful with ours, but I seriously doubt it would be that way now. I'm glad though that you turned the area into the FF that is such an inspiration to a lot of us.

You have wonderful memories of the family farm in Culpeper, and those are great photos. Don't you just hate when things change so drastically, and not for the better

I don't mean to hijack the thread, but I thought you might want to see photos of the pond we built, so I will indulge here

During construction - gives a perspective on scale
photo taken from the dam end

photo taken from the creek end


Creek that feeds it

photo from the far side - full view of outdoor kitchen and docks, our house is up the hill hidden by the trees

in the fall


Wildlife - you build it, they will come



We host a lot of family gatherings in the summer with Mike's siblings, their children (nieces and nephews), and their children (great nieces and nephews)

Oh wow! That is not a pond; that is a paradise. You must love it; I know I would. Great pics from start to finish. No problem with the "hijacking". This thread has turned into more than just permaculture/food forest, but we always seem to come back to that topic, and we're enjoying it (I hope). That's all that matters. I'd love to see what others are doing, even if on a smaller (or larger) scale. That's also why I include the greenhouse in the FF thread; it is the nursery for our FF vegetables and my laboratory to conduct experiments. i.e. indoor cucumbers, beans, cantaloupes, etc. vs. growing them outdoors. Look at me talking like Dr. Frankenstein! We can learn about permaculture/sustainability from each other, even if a contributor is just starting or only has patio pots, right?

You are right, the loss of a large pond gave birth to the food forest, although there was a 27 year hiatus or thereabouts! I cut grass down there all those years instead. How wasteful.

Did I ever post a pic of what it looked like a year or two after we cleared the woods. When we purchased the house, the woods came up to the edge of our small backyard. (We brought in truckloads of fill and soil to extend the backyard by about 15 feet before the slope down to the field.)

This was Summer of 2000, a couple of years after the land recovered from all the cutting and stump removal.





Quite a different view after 23 years .Last summer:




New GH pond pics with the new plants. I added hyacinths two days ago and am waiting for water lettuce to arrive this week. I have decided to make the GH pond and the one just like it outside the greenhouse into nurseries for new/replacement plants and places to overwinter some plants for the larger pond. That should help me keep the larger pond better covered earlier in the season with my own developed and "child bearing" plants...not to mention saving money buying new annual pond plants each new season...I hope.

You can see in these pictures how well the greenhouse pond plants are doing in early May, while the outdoor pond plants are just beginning to awake from their winter slumber, and the FF pond water is turning greener by the day despite the oversized UV light and beneficial bacteria; just too much sun exposure, and I really don't want to "ruin" the FF look with something one would erect over their patio, like a shade sail.

I plan on planting the outdoor annual vegetables by the end of the week. I took them all out of the greenhouse for 2 hours this afternoon. With a greenhouse, the hardening off takes about 1/2 the time as compared to indoor starts.

I spent most of the afternoon in the FF inspecting and making notes of what needs to be done. I have about 2 dozen pictures to share. The food forest looks so different when I am in there as opposed to taking a picture from up at the house. A good number of the pics were taking around the FF. I'll resize them later or tomorrow (rainy day) and post them here.

I always have a million things on my mind as far as "lists" of what needs to be done in the FF, GH and general property, and can never remember them when I get back inside. I usually have my cell phone and earpiece on me while gardening listening to talk shows, podcasts or music. Today, I downloaded an app called "Voice Recorder". I can make an ongoing recording of all the "tasks" I need to keep track of. When I get back inside, I can easily play it back and jot down everything. Great for gardeners, grocery shoppers, and anyone who needs to "remember" to make lists later on. Voice Recorder by TapMedia Ltd for iphone and iPad. It is free. I'm sure if you have a android phone there must be a similar app. The little "recorder" even has an interface that looks like an old cassette tape recorder for us old folks! I really like the "pause" feature. It turns it into one recording no matter how many times you start/pause. There is even a web address to go to, and there is your recording. You can listen to it over any computer and make your hard notes at your leisure.

I am going to create a spread sheet with tasks for the FF, GH, and GP (gen property). List them all, post it on the fridge. I can cross off and add as we go along, and easily update when the lists needs to be freshened up.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/...

You are WAY too organized, Jim!

(and I am way too disorganized!)

OCD, which really should be abbreviated CDO, so the letters are in alphabetical order!

CDO: completely disorganized operations -- that would be me!

Jim, I have to laugh at your organization because I am just like you in that respect. With all the rainy weather lately, I sat down about a week ago and made a new list of all the tasks I want to do in the gardens. Before I was done, the list was 5 pages long, grouped by garden area, and had about 150 tasks itemized It is printed out, and with a green hiliter nearby, I cross off things when they are finished. I even hilite the finished tasks with green in the word document so that when I add to it and reprint it out, that satisfying visual checkoff is still there

I don't carry my iphone around with me - no pockets in the stretch pants that I wear, but I do have an apple watch that I wear all the time. I got it because I am often on my own for most hours of the day and with Type 1 diabetes issues, or any emergency for that matter, I can make calls or answer calls when my husband checks up on me to see that all is well. It also has all the fitness app stuff, so that has been helpful to track steps and exercise activity while I'm working in the gardens. I wonder if thta record app would work from the apple watch.

Terri, I love it! When I can keep tasks organized, whether in my head or on paper, I feel better. Disorganization makes me uncomfortable; I feel uneasy at best, and brain-fried at worst. I have always been a stickler for details, too. (I'm sure you guys never noticed this about me! )

Last night, after I posted about the voice recorder, and Sandy and I joked about OCD, I created my list on a spread sheet. It has 4 columns: House, General Property, Greenhouse, and Food Forest. The columns are equal in size in a landscape format. There are plenty of lines for jotting things down. The "tasks" go at the top of each column, and anything I need to do at my desk (phone calls, ordering, etc.) or buy (locally) goes at the bottom of that column.

I'm sitting here looking at it right now, feeling a sense of peace and control. (Maybe I'll post a "sample" after I get it EXACTLY the way I want it. ) I was thinking of ranking the tasks in each column by priority, but I'm not THAT crazy! I'll probably wind up updating it everytime I have to cross something out or add something in ink...messy look!

Now, I used to be a real OCD freak when I was a kid. I can tell you about incidents that I would have to ritually repeat to feel calm and comfortable. It felt like something terrible was going to happen if I didn't repeat the "rituals". (i.e. constantly turning on and off the "twist" light switch on top of the 5-gallon aquarium I had in my room, until the switch would turn on and off without squeaking. Sometimes I would stand there for 5-10 minutes twisting that switch) A near breakdown and years of therapy helped begin to change the severity, especially when the OCD was just the tip of the iceberg and the outward manifestation of the craziness going on inside of me. Believe it or not, the 68 y/o version is a "pussy cat" compared to what I was in the earlier part of my life. Only took about 45 years to get a handle on it, but still seeing it in my life every day. One of my triumphs...starting a food forest and the forgoing of gardening in nice, neat, tidy, controllable raised garden beds.

I better stop here while I have written an even number of paragraphs and not an uneven number! OMG, this one makes 5 paragraphs!

Please be advised, this is just a filler paragraph to get me back to an even number. Please disregard this paragraph unless you have a touch of the OCD!

Does Companion Planting Work?

I have been paying more attention to companion planting the past few years, not just to repel pests or attract beneficial insects, but to place plants next to each other that are supposed to "support" one another.

Well, today, I run across this video from Robert Pavlis. I like this guy, no hype, no screaming at you. I first started watching Robert when I watched his 17 videos on natural ponds. He has another 461 videos on gardening. He's been around making videos for about 10 years, but his experience goes back to when he was a young man. I suspect he is a left-over hippyish type who has always been into "natural."

Some people swear by companion planting. Robert says there is no scientific evidence for it. Some are valid; most are not. Most of the books on the subject are mostly fiction. Reports online are usually not based on any type of evidence, and some of the claims can actually increase harm to your plant from things like pests.

I know some people swear by companion planting, and that is fine. I am really beginning to question the efficacy of "blanket" effectiveness for all recommendations from what I read about companion planting. Does "companion planting" work in only some situations? i.e. area, environment, weather, gardening habits, soil condition, etc. I could go on list variables. Example: Some folks swear by marigolds to chase away aphids. Right now, my flat of 18 peppers are surrounded by two flats of blooming marigolds, and the aphids are bothered in the least. I am still spraying them daily with insecticidal soap I made up a month ago.

Did I plant the borage too late last year around my cabbages and broccoli to protect them from the cabbage moth, or is that an old wives tale, or does not work in MY garden?

Is planting comfrey, shreding it, and using as a fertilizer better since the "tap root" goes down to 20' and pulls up minerals and nutrients that aren't available for plants that only have roots that go down inches. I'm beginning to question the "wisdom".

He even questions herbs as companion plants!

Blasphemy!

Although, now a days, you can look up any topic online (gardening or other), and you get answers from one extreme to the other and in between...very often contradicting each other. What gives with that?

So, what is the REAL deal? Have time? Watch his video. His calming voice and demeanor make for very easy listening.



Address if you don't want to watch a small screen video and may not know how to expand it here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Thoughts? Experiences? I look forward to your responses.

I actually said I had about 2 dozen pics of the food forest from yesterday that I would send last night or today. Well, those will have to wait until tonight or tomorrow morning - too many to number, date, and resize. Instead, I am sending these from when I was in the greenhouse this afternoon.

Cucumber Corner has expanded to Cucumber Commons it has become so crowded. It wouldn't be a problem expanding except I have 11 or 12 nursery trays of seedlings (and bigger) that are scheduled to get planted in the FF this week. Once I get them cleared out, I'll have some breathing room. It seems like I've been rearranging the whole place this past week to accommodate sizes, sun needs, trying to keep some in the shade to slow down the growing, etc.

Cucumber Corner and Commons with a few others scattered.


Just a few more days until this baby is the first one eaten of the new season!


The 2 Sierra Gold cantaloupes are sending out 3 to 4 vines per plant. Did I create another potential monster? We'll see. All I know is I had to scrap the idea of growing the Small Persian Melon in the same area. I'm going to buy another trellis and grow them in the opposite corner. https://www.rareseeds.com/melo...



Some fresh asparagus for tonight's roasted chicken dinner with beets, peas, and corn. We have been eating them 2-3 times a week. We are leaving about as many as we take. This is the beginning of the 3rd year for them. We didn't take any the first two years, limited this year, and can take more next year. As you may well know, this "method" encourages strong root growth, more asparagus in the coming years, and many years of production.

Green - left - Martha Washington
Purple - right - New Jersey Giants


Now, a little TV to unwind. I think James Prigioni put out a new video, and I'll check my favorite YouTube channels for new vids. I'll start working on those FF pics before I go to bed. Let's see how much I get done. I want to post them as a group from yesterday.

Awesome that you have a cucumber nearly ready to harvest, Jim! We are also picking and eating asparagus, I picked 2 lb 10 oz today (and have over a pound already in the fridge; planning to pickle some in the next couple of days, as well as making some asparagus-mushroom soup. I haven't been very happy with my attempts to freeze it, so we give some away every year and otherwise pig out on it while it's fresh!

Thanks. You must have a big asparagus patch. How many plants?

We have 16 plants. Bought 20, lost 4. We have 8 Jersey Knight Giants and 8 Purple Passion. I was wrong before when I said we also had Mary Washintons which I referred to as "martha". We should have started more. They are so tasty when fresh! Maybe I'll order more. (Time out) OK, back. Just ordered 10 Mary Washingtons and 10 Millenniums from Stark Brothers, where we bought our original plants. https://www.starkbros.com/sear...

We have freeze dried some store ones in the past. Not pleased with the reconstitution. Taste was there, but not the correct texture. Pickling sounds great. Wonder how they would be fermented? I am starting a jar of fermented yellow onions tomorrow.

I'm not sure how many plants I have exactly - 3 rows approx. 7 feet long each, so I'm guessing around 20 plants (I'll count them tomorrow!). A few years back I could see that my old patch was declining - I suspect it's been taken over by tree roots - so I started a bunch of plants from seed that I collected. The old patch is now down to just a couple of clumps, and the "new patch" is just coming into its own (last year was a rather small harvest overall). We also have what I call the "way-out" patch, farther out in our yard and unprotected from the wildlife, but nothing (other than asparagus beetles) seems to bother it anyway, and that is about a year behind the "new patch" which is inside my veg garden fence. Next year we should be quite overrun and I'll be begging people to take some...

Interestingly, almost all of the seed-started plants are purple; I only had a few purple plants in the old patch, I think the rest was Mary Washington, planted something like 25 years ago. I didn't pay much attention to which plants the seed pods came from so I was surprised that most of what grew from them was purple. I'm not sure what variety the purple one is - Purple Passion, maybe? Whatever it is, a lot of the stalks are huge, like an inch or more in diameter, which I'm not crazy about, but I peel those to remove the large scales and then cut them up to cook.

Nothing better than the first asparagus of the season...unless it's the first beans, or the first cucumbers, or the first ripe tomatoes... .

Or the first pizza!

There is no "first pizza" here, it's a staple of our diet!

Pictures from down in the FF taken on Saturday.

Can you find the 4 frogs sunning on the beach this picture?


Look how green that water is! You can see the new lily I just put on the shelf. It has about 6-7 leaves now. It should grow to a 3-6 foot spread, and I'm still waiting for the red other one to arrive.


Need to bury the hoses with more wood chips. You can also see the liner near the rocks. More wood chips all around!


So, that's what I keep in that red box facing the house...the filter.


View from the bench in the pergola.


I think the strawberries may have crept out of their boxes...no problem in a FF. We are planning to harvest the new runners and plant some under each tree.


Garlic is looking really good!


Two little trees are hazelnuts: lots of comfrey. Large planters in background already have onion seeds (will not harvest until 2025). The others will get cabbages, broccoli, and ?.


Elberta Peaches!


Different view of the strawberry escapees from the two wooden boxes.


6 blueberry bushes. Looking for even more bb's this year.


Rhubarb I started from seed last year. Looks funky. I waited too long to clip the flowers off this year. Should have done it right away. Rhubarb can handle the setbacks.


Can you see all the little gooseberries? Hundreds of them! Forgot to take a picture of the Honey Berries. They are "long" berries, almost like a real small tootsie roll shape.


Comfrey is in clumps and spread out individually throughout the FF. They are about to have their first blooming; then we'll cut down and mulch the other plants. You can get 3 cuttings a season.


View from the East entrance.


Did you find them?


More to come!

Great photo tour, Jim

And tadpoles in the first photo - I think?