"How to Make a Forest Garden" establishment questions

I'm reading Patrick Whitefield's "How to Make a Forest Garden" and have a few questions of those who've tried these practices/read this book.

In creating a pond for frogs, he specifies certain measurements to discourage toads (which are only preferred for eating snails): 30cm deep by 1m wide. If dug in solid clay, could such a pond be sealed by fire? I doubt clay ponds can ever be heated enough to be glazed as in a kiln, but could the right combination of harmless sealants, biofilm and heat do something?

I'm interested in experimenting with some clay burn pits after seeing them accumulate water overwinter...

I am very interested to see what you come up with. I have been trying to get ideas for an amphibian habitat myself. Typically I hear of people using bentonite to seal clay ponds that won’t quite seal themselves. My biggest concern with a fired clay liner would be the risk of it cracking in the winter if the pond froze.

I have been thinking of just putting a rubber liner in for a small pond, and was even considering a rubbery “water trough” of roughly those dimensions for that purpose. The rubbery material would not break when it froze. I could put rocks inside it for ingress/egress reasons.

I have some pretty large rocks I need to dig out of a couple areas, I was thinking of putting the large rocks and maybe some log pieces in an area around the “pond” to act as additional cover and habitat. I figure this needs to go under a tree for shade reasons. Beyond that I am a bit out of ideas.

John, in my time here I generally haven't seen the kind of freezes that could crack a pond liner. One anomalous year we had subfreezing temps for 2 weeks, that might have done it, but usually it's more like 25 or 20 for a few hours...at the coldest. The question is whether that would freeze a whole frog pond solid. I will probably experiment with a fired pond liner in the highest-clay area, where if you dig in winter, you come up with a spadeful of clay full of spaces where water has frozen in the gaps, very pretty. I have a picture somewhere. Anyway that pond is already full of charcoaling material, so once I burn and harvest that out it may be part-fired if not completely.

Log pieces and rocks are good for habitat support. Even stacking the logs into pyramids like I think Daron Williams recommends. I will for sure be doing that. Ideally ponds should be located away from heavy leaf-drop areas because a lot of leaves will unfavorably alter the water chemistry...unfortunately I don't recall where I read that. But a big enough tree or treeline can keep a pond in shade yet away from immediate leafdrop.

Whitfield recommends using a pond liner, I'm just being cheap and ecologically-minded. For similar reasons I like the idea of gleying and am sure I'll get round to that some year.

It's hard to imagine I won't be able to put in a few tire ponds this year. Like many forests, ours grows a lot of used tires, sometimes in piles like mushrooms! They often naturally occur where roads become gravel paths, like logging roads. I think used tires are an edge species! I just need to find some tractor tires, which are worth the effort. Wild tires are usually of the car and truck variety.

Fredy Perlman wrote:

It's hard to imagine I won't be able to put in a few tire ponds this year. Like many forests, ours grows a lot of used tires, sometimes in piles like mushrooms! They often naturally occur where roads become gravel paths, like logging roads. I think used tires are an edge species! I just need to find some tractor tires, which are worth the effort. Wild tires are usually of the car and truck variety.

I had not seen these tire ponds before but I like the idea, with the pond liner as a barrier between the tire and water. The potential for toxins released from tires would worry me otherwise.

I just built a small wildlife pond last fall. I made it mainly to support garter snakes and frogs but hopefully other wildlife will use it too. I made a post on permies about how I made it: https://permies.com/t/154174/permaculture-projects/Building-wildlife-pond-manage-garden

You might find it helpful.

It's an interesting idea. Unfortunately I don't think it will work. I would try gleying it, which can be done with only green manure plants. If it's pure clay it will probably gley itself given enough time

I'm from Mason county originally. If you do develop a bullfrog problem, you can always eat them. Lots of people up there do

Daron, I'm planning something like that if I have time! Looks great as well. The tire ponds will be subject to giant tires crossing my path, which even out here hasn't happened yet.

James, how do you gley with green manure plants? I haven't undertaken gleying yet because I need to borrow someone's pigs, and I only know one pigkeeper...I don't think we're on those terms. I would do it this quarter if I could with plants!

I've eaten many a frogleg in my time, so be sure, I welcome those bullfrogs to my plate.

 Have you considered an old jacuzzi/hot tub? They are often free to anyone willing to take them after the heaters or water pumps break.  I have seen a few jacuzzi frog ponds before and they were big enough to support goldfish as pets and adopted wild frogs.  


 

Thanks Brian, I hadn't thought of that -- which is funny considering broken hot tubs are free here all the time. I might have to agree to haul it off and dismantle it, keeping only the tub, but that's a great project one notch up from the tire pond!