To All the Dads

Happy Father's Day!

Oh, and ....

"Hello there!  Have you found yourself a nice home?"

Do you think you are safe from this guy while you are inside of there?

Nature happens.  Right here in the city, on our front stoop. 

Pass the Salt Please

Ocean Salt that is.

My ongoing Project for Seminole County elementary school age kiddo's is updated for the Coastal Systems Module.  This project is being developed by myself and other students in the Florida Master Naturalist classes to be used by adults and/or High School Community Service students to take groups of elementary school age kids out to explore and learn about nature. 

I took Coastal Systems in Volusia County with David Griffis and Linda Evans.  They were both just great.  I love how the extension office folks have been so knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the material they are sharing with us.  I also like how I am getting a broader scope by taking classes in different counties.  I took Uplands in Osceola County with Eleanor Foerste and now Coastal in Volusia County.  I think I will try to take Wetlands with the extension office in either Orange or Lake County.  Then after I've completed all three, perhaps I can volunteer to assist in future classes in the counties I did not attend a module.  That would be fun ...  and educational.

Important Life Lessons

• When you visit the ocean beach, carry out more than you took in.  My gosh the volume of trash is mind boggling.
• Water shoes.  Not sandals -  shoes.  Better yet, water boots with ankle support if you can get them.  Or use an ankle brace.
• Braces and other DME can be put in the hand-wash cycle of the washing machine.  Then air dried.
• Don't leave salty, sandy, fishy stuff in your trunk overnight when you come home in the middle of a hail storm.
• $5 snow ski poles from the thrift store - BEST.FIVE.SPOT.EVER.  And purely coincidental they match my hurriedly acquired water shoes.
• Clearance rack fanny pack?  Zipper fail.  
• Sunglasses.  Not transitions, not coated.  Plain old plastic frame tinted sunglasses.  Tinted dark.
• Put your sun block on your legs BEFORE you put your leg braces on.
•  New knee braces take forever it seems like.  It isn't here yet.  In the mean time, I have to be extra careful to watch for skin ulcers.
• New crutches aren't going to start themselves.  I need to quit talking and start doing.
• Need to check out the Active Ankle braces Ronnie uses.  She says I would like them, and considering my current choices it would seem to be a big improvement.  And I think I would also be able to get use out of them in other places besides coastal areas; for example when I go off to visit and/or work at other gardens.  I feel pretty silly sometimes waltzing in with my pedal-pushers and extreme hiking boots.
• Always, always, always carry mosquito spray, sun block and spare cash with your immediate belongings on all your trips with David.  You just never know what surprises he has in store.

It has been a totally fun 6 weeks.  I feel like I'm only scratching the surface of what all there is to know even casually.  I have lots of filling in the blanks to do just to catch up with the differences in the habitats here in Central Florida as compared to South Florida and the Florida Keys.  In a few weeks I'll have all my gear gathered and prepared to take this course.

Oh wait, it's over already????  Noooooooooo

Tomorrow is graduation day for the coastal systems module.  We will deliver our final projects and wrap up.  It was great having so many people from the Uplands class in this course.  Seeing friends again.  They are all completing the series now, I will miss them.

Maybe David will email us our class picture and I'll post it right here.

Tomorrow is also my six year ADD (After Drunk Driver) anniversary.   I can not believe it has been six years.  In so many ways, it seems like just yesterday.  But the years, they keep slipping on by, and I need to get on out there and do the things I want.  Celebrate each day that I wake up and get out of bed by myself.  Then get on out there and do.  Do it today, so that the today's and tomorrow's do not turn into lost dreams.  Remember The Senator.  That I never saw in person even though it lived for 3500 + years less than 5 miles from our home.  I kept waiting for some more-improved tomorrow before I would venture down the unknown path by myself.

Good Reads!

Priceless Florida : Natural Ecosystems and Native Species

Florida's Living Beaches :  A Guide for the Curious Beachcomber : Blair and Dawn Witherington

Explore the West Coast National Marine Sanctuaries with Jean-Michel Cousteau

A Field Guide to Coastal Fishes From Maine to Texas :  Val Kells and Kent Carpenter

Sandhills, Swamps and Sea Islands : Environmental Guidebook to Northeast Florida:  Heather P. McCarthy and Lynn M. Lisenby

Breaking News! War Declared!

I came home Wednesday afternoon from class and was bombed on my own driveway with one of my own full grown heirloom beefsteak tomatoes.  It came from the back garden bed.  I spent part of Thursday cleaning out an old computer file storage drawer to get silver platters and then hung them in and around the back garden.  Supposedly the random swirly silvery flash and reflection will help keep squirrels (and birds) away.

Not the squirrels at our house.  They have armed themselves and declared war.

Friday I got home after driving 30 miles in a horrible storm in a piss-poor mood because Hubby dearest couldn't be bothered by the fact his wife blows over in the wind and goes slip sliding in the rain so I had to stop in at the grocer.  Stepped out of the car to find my bell pepper plants completely stripped.  Fruit, leaves, stems and all.

My mood tanks even further.

Saturday morning, after a leisurely time reading on the front porch and enjoying my coffee, I go on a garden tour.  Every single last tomato from current to beefsteak in the back garden and side garden is gone.  Just gone.

War is declared.  Take no prisoners.  You do know that not too far back in my family tree my Florida relatives ate squirrel, right your thieving rodent?  Bet you would be pretty tasty added to some vegetable stew.

Update!  Can't help myself, just have to include this.  Step by step instructions with photos on how to skin squirrel.   In the mean time, I found a screech owl box to mount overlooking the back veggie bed.

Purple Sprouting Broccoli

Seed started mid August.  It is finally putting out some sprouts.  Maybe it has not been getting enough irrigation since it sprouted out along with the rains we've just had.

I can't believe you can see hints of lavender, I would have thought the purple part would require some cold weather.  Can't wait to try them!

Of course, with the wind and rain we've had the past several days, it is now laying precariously into the driveway.  Which puts it at high risk from huge motor homes and BJ's backing up [un]abilities.  Maybe time to invest in some heavy duty staking?

The plant is totally huge.  Before it started leaning we saw eye to eye (~ 5 feet).  It is at least a four foot diameter.  The leaves are platter size.  Wrapped grilled fish anybody?

I only planted 3 of these.  One fizzled out, one is planted in a raised bed on the inner path side and is getting big but not putting out side shoots or showing signs of sprouts.  If it doesn't do something soon I'm going to harvest all those leaves and make broccoli pesto. 

Figures the one finally putting out sprouts is the one hanging out into the driveway the week the folks are due to show up.

Just for perspective, here is a not so good photo with my stool in front.  Since you see my stool in the photo you know I'm not sitting on it in order to get a level frontal photo.  Too tired by that point to go fetch up another stool.

Several weeks ago, this one started putting out these little buds at the leaf axil.  [ Leaf axil is the point on the top side of a leaf petiole where it joins with the stem.  The petiole is the leaf branch. ] Proof I am not sleeping through MG class and I am keeping up with my homework.

These little bulblets started at the top of the plant and are making their way down.  They grow fast and leafy.  My guess is they will also have purple sprouting broccoli's.

I would love to see one of these go to bloom, and I bet the bees would love it.  Oh, well - next year.  Only I think I better start my seed in mid June.  And find a better and bigger spot to plant in ground.

In the trivia department, Purple Sprouting Broccoli is credited to the Romans.  It has been cultivated for years in England.  Not something you will find in the grocer, but suppose to be very tender and tasty.  Don't overcook!  Steam lightly.

Garden Decor Planning

While it is true that a well designed and executed garden can in and of itself be beautiful art, I don't believe most homeowners attempting an edible garden have the where-with-all to pull it off.  On the other hand, I firmly believe that a vegetable garden does not need to be soldier rows of evenly spaced plants.

I confess.  I am an avid planner.  I like to start a project by creating an image of what I want to achieve.  It makes my life so much easier as I go along my merry and haphazard randomly wandering path of finishing the project.

Hmm,,,,,

On second thought, a garden project is never finished.  A state of more complete perhaps, but never completely finished.

Though a garden is never finished, certain things such as hard-scape and functional art can certainly come near to a state of final satisfaction.  I personally find it much easier on my pocketbook, and my senses, to have a broad plan of what I'm hoping to accomplish and how to get there.

First - find your inspiration.  Something that speaks to you.  Something that you will love as much this year, as next year and next generation.  Timeless joy.

Your inspiration piece becomes the hub of your garden decor wheel.  From this hub, think of the spokes that run out to the rim.  How will those spokes function?  What form will they take?  How will they look?  How will the spokes join together along the rim?

I want to incorporate edible gardens into as much of my front (east facing and more sun) yard as possible.  Since edible gardens are for the most part short lived annuals, I need to rely on the functional bits and pieces of the garden to provide most of the decor.  I will plan strategically placed long lived perennials to help bring the looks and art of the garden together.

If I could keep it alive and thriving, I would have a specimen size croton as my inspiration.  Sadly, our occasional hard freezes make that difficult to impossible.


My inspiration piece is pretty simple.  The boldness and elegance of lime green and purple.  A large lime green planter pot with purple cordyline and purple oxalis.  You can see it to the left in this photo.   I love how the lime green POPS out from the shades of green in the garden.  And how the purple contrasts with the lime green and brings its own beauty with its deep rich color. 

OK - so the purple oxalis wasn't planted when I took this picture.  Evolution at work in the garden ....

From my inspiration piece, I am choosing lime green as my predominant color for decoration.  Purple and a few bits of blue (because hubs loves the blue) will be accent colors.  I will wind lime green through the garden in punches however I can.  Well, within reason of course.  If I went off and painted everything lime green, then it would no longer be a punctuation.

Picking a color, and repeating it around the garden will help to bring order and continuity to the garden.  It will help your garden to be more visually appealing.

While I would have loved to run right out and buy a dozen large lime green planter pots, my pocket book and budget refused.  I did buy two more, so that I had a trio of lime green planters spaced along the front of the house.  Then I bought lime green paint.  I picked a lime green spray paint that I liked and had the paint counter mix a quart to match.  Then I put on my painters smock.  Painted garden objects I already owned, crawled thrift stores, and bought a few new clay pots.

Cleaning buckets.  Drill many holes.  Add soil and plants.

Painted clay pots.

Painted pot rim.  With matching lime green plant leaves!

Thrift store finds, holes drilled with a diamond tip bit and glued together.

Unconventional and Colorful.  Yes!

OK (above) - certainly functional.  But think how much better it could be with a set of color matching pops?  And your functional items in the garden that match your color choice serve double time on the garden design page!

I found a waterproof shower stool and painted ti lime green.  The shallow hanging bird bath is a clay pot saucer water sealed and painted.  And you can barely see in the far back an old ice cream chair spray painted.

I even found a trowel with a lime green handle!  * I like to buy inexpensive trowels to leave stuck in the ground in each garden so that I always have a trowel to hand for those quick jobs discovered while walking the garden.



This is, finally, the second part of the garden as art series that started with Beauty is.  Inspired by a post on Root Simple.

To start the series, I took a long view photo of my NE Garden.  I find it much easier to critique my own garden from a photo than from in person.  This is my 'before' photo.

I was pulling in lime green, but I was also mixing in other colors that I like.  I ruthlessly pulled out the other colors and replaced the functionality with lime green.  Actually, what I did was create a lime green garden, a lime green and purple garden, and a lime green and blue garden.  tee-hee.  And lastly, I got my lime green paint out and updated a few things.

Huzzah!  The current iteration of my NE garden.

Take a look at the things you need for functionality in your garden.  In mine it is: a permanent garden stool, large permanent pots, medium size seasonal pots and starter plant pots; hose guards for corners of the beds, water for wildlife, plant stakes, trellises and clutzy human grab bars.   Shopping, browsing and thrifting with a clear idea of my garden inspiration and the needs of my garden makes it so much easier for me to get things I need for the garden AT THE SAME TIME I get garden art/decor.  Jackpot!  A couple of for examples from the photo above - lime green plastic bowls from the dollar bin for starter plants and the hanging lime green lantern (lower left) providing the hose guard for the corner.

This NE garden is right on the street and is my primary full sun garden.  I want to grow edibles, many of which need full sun - this is my spot.  Generally, I try to plan and plant this garden as would any mixed perennial/annual garden design book recommend.  In fact, I like to look at garden design magazines showcasing a mixed ornamental garden to get ideas for my veggie garden.  I find it easier to plan the planting of the bed by thinking of the plants as ornamentals.  In other words, pick and grow the plant based on your tummy, but plant it based on your senses.

It should be pretty clear by now, that you don't want to plant your edible front yard in neat and tidy rows.  And you don't want rows of neat rectangular raised beds in your front garden.  Nor do you want to harvest your entire garden all at one time leaving a bare spot taunting the neighbors.

My goal is to always have something growing in the garden.  The garden at times might be a bit bare, but having a few long lived ornamental perennials mixed in with short lived perennial's and annuals helps keep something of interest going in the garden.  Starting replacement plants early and moving them up to half or gallon pots to grow up and be ready for replacing a harvested plant or leaving bolted blooming and/or seeding plants for wildlife are ways of keeping interest in the garden.  If you have the option, choose your edible plant varieties based on good looks as well as good eats.  For example, I grow Chinese 5 Color Pepper and Black Pearl Pepper for (1) good looks, (2) hot pepper vinegar and (3) squirrel deterrence.  Redbor Kale (pictured) is good to eat and more striking than standard green kale.

This garden is the entrance to our home, so we do want it to make a good impression, and we do want to work to keep it neat and tidy.  That doesn't mean I have the luxury to toil out there all day.  But I can go through and keep things a bit spruced, use folding garden fences to keep unruly plants from sprawling, and get creative on ways to grow indeterminate tomatoes and hide the the gangly vines.

Most of all, I guess I would say - be willing to experiment.  Be willing to try new ideas and toss out the old tried and trues.  Always keeping in mind a Garden's Clues to Care and your own garden inspiration.

Have you hugged your garden lately?  Told it how much you loved it?  Thanked it for the good eats it gives you?

Flew the coup

Sunday, the fledglings left the comfort of their nursery.  Yup, they fledged.  I knew something was up when I went out with my morning coffee.  Mom and Dad both were making more racket than I've ever heard from them.  Hoping around on the ground near the nest and chirping.   And feeding the babies on double time.

The babies were eating it up -- literally!  It is hard to believe that 4 babies fit inside this small house.  But they did.  They would stick their beaks out to get feed then stick their tush out to unload.  Too funny.

At one point, a woodpecker came along to feast on the wild cherry near the nest.  Mom and Dad went into immediate action puffing up into miniature feathery balls of rage.  Chased the woodpecker right off.

I worked away in the front yard all day Sunday, wore my camera and watched the nest.  Somehow managed to miss 3 of the babies taking off.  That left one, and I swear he was male.  He started chirping up a ruckus after a few hours.  Hubs and I both tried to see him leave the nest.  We saw him several times trying to get brave enough to come out the door.  We both missed the actual event.

It has been pretty exciting having our own grand-birds right here a few feet from the front porch.  And I'm certainly going to miss Mom and Dad helping out with bug patrol around here. 

Mama Bird & Babies

She is a Carolina Wren.  Cute little thing.  Quite tolerant of us doting over her babies.

She hunts live insects to feed her babies, and I'm certain I've seen her with lubber nymphs.  She is welcome at our place every spring!

The babies hatched last week.  They were all mouth!  I think there are four chicks.  That is a lot of mouths to feed.

Their eyes are open now, and they are getting bigger.  The 'yellow' specs are their beaks, if you look very closely at the enlarged photo (click to enlarge) you can see little squinty eye balls.

Ah, grand-birds!  How sweet it is.

The Dirt on Dirt

What kind of soil do you have?  What is the dirty down on your dirt?  Outside of deep south Florida and the panhandle, most Florida gardeners will tell you they have sand.  Sugar sand is the common curse reference.

Actually, there are all sorts of types of soil in Florida.  Want to learn more about the soil in your part of Florida?  Check out the Florida Online Soil Survey.  The latest Seminole County Soil Survey is 1990.

This map of Seminole County shows the soil types and locations.  It is at the end of the soil survey.  Sand is yellow, everything other color is not sand.  So you can see that there is more to dirt in Florida than just sand.

Suppose you want to get really down and dirty and describe the soil in your garden?  Most counties have online property appraiser maps, including of course Seminole County Property Appraiser.  Once you find your counties property appraiser's record search, look for Map Search, Map It and/or Advanced Map Search.  There will be a choice for a Layers sub selection menu.  From the layers menu, you can chose various overlays for the map.  One of those layer selections is soil.

This is the soil overlay of my immediate area, taken from the above directions.

Now I can give my sand a name - Tavares-Millhopper Fine Sands.  Going back to the soil survey, I can read up a bit more on my soil:

"The Tavares series consists of soils that are moderately well drained.  These soils formed in sandy marine sediment.  They are on nearly level to sloping hillsides on the uplands.  The slopes range from 0 to 8 percent.  Tavares soils are hyperthermic, uncoated Typic Quartzipsamments.
.....
The reaction ranges from extremely acid to medium acid.  The texture is sand or fine sand to a depth of more than 80 inches.  The content of silt plus clay in the control section is 5 percent or less."

"Parent material is the unconsolidated mass from which a soil is formed.  It determines the limits of the chemical and mineralogical composition of the soil.  The soils in Seminole County formed in materials of late Miocene, Pleisocene, and Holocene geological ages.  Approximately 55 percent of the soils in the county formed in deep to moderately deep sands underlain by clays of the Orlando Ridge, Osceda Plain and Geneva Hill physiographic regions."

"Time is an important factor in the formation of soils.  Generally, a long time is required for formation of sail that have distinct horizons."

"In terms of geologic time, the soil material that makes up most of the soils in the county is young."

Of course, the reality is that I have urban soil defined by Bockheim (1974) as: "A soil material having a non-agricultural, man-made surface layer more than 50 cm thick, that has been produced by mixing, filling or by contamination of land surfaces in urban and suburban areas."

How is soil formed?  This soil interface diagram is a good reference.  To make this applicable to Florida fine sand, simply make percolation 150% larger than currently indicated.  In other words, drains so quickly that the good stuff also drains away quickly.  Leaving us with ..... wait for it .....  sand.

source:  Urban Soils by Phillip J. Craul, Professor of Soil Science

To answer the question, 'what kind of soil do you have'?  Sand.   'What kind of sand?'  Fine sand, sugar sand, Tavares-Millhopper series fine sand.  Fast draining and nutrient poor.  Very acidic.  Sand.

Want to grow something to eat in this sand?  mwaha-ha-ha-ha.

 Time to start growing your own good soil.  Yes, we grow soil first and plants second.  With constant additions of 'grown soil' to our garden beds, we can simulate the soil interface and produce better yields needing less inputs.

More pond

Added a few new plants to and around the pond.  The edge is taking shape!

Moving Day

Our fish have vacated the low-rent district temporary quarters and returned home.  They settled into the upgraded digs just fine.

Sadly, we lost 4 of our fish  and a frog the night of the deadly murder and mayhem.

The last remaining item is to secure and cover the liner on two sides of the pump box.  I'm not too sure how I'm going to handle it yet.  Still scheming.

It started raining this afternoon, so I took an up to date picture through the upstairs window. 

You can see most of where the next pond addition will be on the opposite side of the sidewalk.

Garden Pond: The Evolution

In the very beginning:

 The next beginning:

Our very first pond.  Our very first goldfish.  Named and loved.  How can you love a .27c fish?  Well, it just happens.  So serene and peaceful.  So much life and wildlife.  I was planning to redo it after the spring pollen fall.  Make up for some of the mistakes I made the first time around.  Then as fall progressed into winter, a few problems started.  The neighborhood hawk fishing, the fountain leaning.  Then after the first freeze, a leak.  A not so small leak. 

the makeover begins

(click any picture to enlarge)

By gosh, golly and lots of planning and work.  The fountain will be level this time around.

I'm not sure what species was the dead tree stump we found in the very beginning.  It was quite the beast.  And time consuming.  Many large roots were actually from the dead stump.  Much digging, sawing and cursing.  Many loads of sand carted off.  Sand in places sand had not aught to be.

I used pieces of the old liner to protect the side walls as I dug out dead roots and stumps.  I finally decided the old tree must have been a wild cherry.  Extremely hard wood that has probably been under sand for 30 years.  The last of the stump came out by way of the tree crew and their chainsaws.  Thanks guys & gals!

Trench under concrete sidewalk.  Success.  A 4" schedule 80 pipe will fit!  /flex girl power.  And a bit of water.

Done and said, the main section of the pond is roughly 8' x 4 ' x 2' deep.  I had planned to slope from the middle down to 3' but decided against based on the current swimming pool regulations being based on terminology that states "for the purpose of swimming and greater than 2 feet"  A simple change from and to or would cause some grief we don't need.  And water lilies and gold fish don't really need 3 feet.  I'll just work on more ways for the fish to hide away from fishing hawks.

The fountain is sitting on the undisturbed sand section on either side of the sewer pipe.  I put the red clay tile directly on top the sand.  This let me find the spot I had leveled and tested for the concrete blocks after the liner covered everything up.

Liner?  EPDM.  OH MY GOSH - this thing is a heavy beast.  My bright idea to get a few extra feet for the pond extension next year turned out not so bright.  It might have been better if I had cut the liner before we tried to maneuver it around existing landscaping and tight quarters.

Did I mention getting the liner in place is a real down and dirty tough job?

Getting all the bits and pieces of this go round to be water tight was quite the meddle.  I was thwarted at every turn.  Learned more about water tight connections than I ever thought could be possible.  Take One of the pipe under the sidewalk leaked.  Leaked at the PVC glue seal.  That wasn't a water tight seal.  Maybe I should have tested that before I drove it under the sidewalk?

I found a rubber cap at the store.  We sawed off the not sealed connection.  Implemented rubber cap.  Tested for water tightness.  Trenched out the opposite side of the pond, and drove the pipe back through.

Take Two of the pipe boot fitting over the 4" PVC pipe had a possible small leak.  Pumped water out of the pond to be just below the pipe outlet.  Sealed it up really good with PL Roofing and Flashing sealant.

I put in a bog pond along side the tree side of the pond.  It runs about 4' in length and about 1' wide.  It is shallow, only about 5 to 6" or so.  The purpose is for additional plant based biological filtration. The plants are all in pots or just bare root.  It is its own self-contained basin.  So I will be able to take all the plants out every so often and scoop out the muck for the veggie gardens.  Water is piped into the far end, and then falls over the rock wall at this near end.

The water line to the fountain also challenged us.  Turns out the water line got kinked.  We must have 'fixed' it 3 or 4 times.  Finally, we figured out how to really fix it. I'm getting air in the line right now though, so I might have a small hole from all that darn kinking.  Grrrrr.

We eliminated the separate pump inside the fountain.  One main pump will feed the fountain, spitter, bio-filter/stream and bog pond.  As well as the pond extension next year.  The water line for the fountain goes up the internal pipe intended for electrical access for an internal pump.  The water comes out the top, spirals down on 3 sides into the basin.  The basin fills to about 2" from the top and overflows down the internal pipe back into the pond.

The spirals are acting like a vertical stream.  Over time, the algae will grow back on the spirals and will filter the water.  I'm also putting floating water plants in the basin.  The thought being to help with filtration and to have a fish free spot to grow my own floating water plants.  Now if the mama frogs will just read the memo.

This near end will be the 'overflow' area.  After everything else is done, I'll figure out where I need to poke yet another hole in the liner to run an overflow pipe.

Speaking of cutting holes in your liner.  The instructions I read for making a pipe boot made it sound pretty easy.  Cut an X about half the size of your pipe.  Squeeze the pipe through and then hose clamp.  Sounds simple, hmm?  Not so much for me.

After a couple of boo-boo's I smartened up with the intake pipe that runs the length of the pond (on the path side).  I put the hose clamp on first.  On both ends.  Then tested and tested and double tested.  Left the hose clamps in place and used a very sharp knife to cut the liner out.

 Two steps forward, another leak backwards.

The lesson here?   Double and triple check all of your hose clamps.  Oh, and lay out your PVC rigid piping in trenches before you dig out the pond.

I pumped water out of the pond into the water trough to find and repair the leak.  Then pumped the water back into the pond.  Turned the pond pumps on and let 'er rip.  The next morning - no leaks!  Huzzah!  Dumped in the de-chlorinator pond treatment.  Early evening let loose half dozen Rosy Red minnows to be water canaries.  And to help build a biological load for the filters.

Following morning, the minnows are all accounted for and I find dragonfly larvae and water frog eggs in the pond.  I think setting up the bog pond first, and keeping all the previous filter material alive in the rain water trough has tremendously helped the settling in time of the pond makeover.

This was our previous filtration.  A plastic lunchbox with drilled holes stuffed with filter media around 2 small fountain pumps.  Now we have an 18 gallon heavy duty Rubbermaid bin.

The Rubbermaid bin is not ideal, but it is all I had room for working around the trees and existing path.  I dug out a hole and put one bin in the hole.  Layed out the liner to go over and inside the bin.  Then used a second bin inside the liner covered first bin.  It is inside the pond, so any future leaks will not be an issue.  If the bin itself cracks I should be able to just replace it.

Theory.

The pump is inside this bin.  Flex hose runs to a 4 way manifold.  One 2" intake from the far end of the pond and a 2" intake in the side wall a foot below water level.  A small 'skimmer' cut out at the water surface.  Eventually the pump box will be filled with filter material.  Probably different grades of Matala filter mat.

 
Biological Filtration.

The fountain, with the three spirals that I believe will act like a vertical stream.  Eventually, algae will grow along the ridges in the spirals, which will clean and filter the water as it makes it way down.  The basin of the fountain is about ten gallons, and it will be stocked with oxygenator plants.

This is a bio-filter pot.  A hole is drilled in the bottom and fitted with 1/2" pipe fittings and sealed.  A plant basket in the top of the pot will be potted with a Black Magic Taro.  The taro should put out a massive amount of roots, which will help to filter the water.  The water flow is from the bottom of the pot to over the top.  This time, I experimented with drilling in a hose barb fitting to create a bit of fountain effect to run down a short falls.  It came out pretty nice.  I can see there is a very definite art to building waterfall streams to direct the water flow where you want it.

A lot of pond muck and sediment will fall out in this bio-filter pot.  Which means I probably should have a bigger pot.  Oh well, next time.  Periodically, I turn the pond pump off and take out all that nutrient rich water for the veggie patch.  I've got both a back flow filter and a ball valve on the input side so that when the power is off, that sediment yuck won't flow back into the pump box.  The ball valve is for planned power off and the back flow filter is for all those lovely Florida unplanned storm outages.

Looking across the pond into the bog garden area.  On the back side is the bio-filter pot.

Calla lilies and ponds just go together in my mind.  I had a few pots of calla lilies last spring, and I sure hope they come back this year.  So far, no sign of live.  This is new, its purple!  From the big box store, I could just not resist.

Still a bit rough around the edges.  A few more pieces of rock are needed.  Time for the pond to settle in completely before I do a final liner trim. 

Thirty-six hours after stocking the pond with fish, I turned the pumps off and dropped a few pellets of pond food in.  I'm not entirely convinced the pond is producing enough food naturally quite yet.  It is a bit too young.

We started the pond with half dozen ruby red minnows, 3 sarasa type feeder goldfish, 2 white corydoras catfish, and one beautiful male betta.  I added some store bought cabomba plants to the fountain basin and one hardy water lily tuber in the pond.

I am basically using the pond as a quarantine zone.  I'll wait six days, and if things are looking OK, I will move our remaining goldfish from their temporary quarters back to the pond.  In the mean time, the tropical water lilies have been moved out to full-full sun and the tub sunk into a compost bed.  Hopefully they will sprout out soon (they are trying hard). 

Go fetch a bit more rock and plan the next years expansion!

PS - the porch visiting serial killer remains at large.  No real idea who/what critter it was that passed by and took out over half our goldfish and at least one of our water frogs.