seal a tiny pond - earthworks.sand.pond PEP BB

It was time to add another little pond* so that the ducks [and the frogs] could have some more space.

This did way better then I thought it was going to, it help water for over a week, even during breezy and warmish weather, it fills up nicely when it rains, and the ducks love it.

updated pictures with screwdriver as toothpick trick

Here’s my sealed pond test. It took about half an hour for the whole thing to drain after first digging the hole, before compaction. I had to compact it twice. For the first compaction I used a wooden mallet, a smooth rock and my fists. After an hour though, it dropped about an inch and a half. For the second compaction, I used the top of a long, heavy metal digging stick with a mushroomed head to compact the earth. Then it held 1/2” in one hour.

Sealed Pond Testy Time!

I got creative with the soil compacting and used a combination of a lovely log and the hand smear method to smooth around the clay found in the pit, there seemed to be a bit more on the one side of the pond- I was only able to tell by touching it!!

Thank you to wheaton labs for the space to dig this precious pond and perform this experiment!

So here we go:


1. the new hole         2. hole filled


3. show how long it took to drain 5 gallons- it fully drained by 10am!


show the compaction process!! mmm some good hand smoothing and pounding



- show the new 5 gallon with the green straw at the mark


- show another toothpick marking the waterline five minutes later


here is the water after an hour!


mmm that measurement though- just about half an inch give or take!


using what i have from the land instead of storebought toothpicks....

What an adventure!

Made a hole that held water for more
Than an hour!

I did this three times, I failed twice in Arakis and the success was on the shelf to the west of Arakis.

It took about 45 minutes to drain the initial hole.  The "toothpicks" are little sticks that arrows point at in the last photo.  The starting toothpick is on the right, 5 min toothpick is in the middle and one hour one is on the left.

Edit:  I added the last picture showing the tape measure against the toothpicks this morning.  That's why the hole is dry.  The right toothpick is angled up and you can easily see the end of it but the point where it enters the side of the pond is lower down.  The 1 hour toothpick is hard to see but it enters the side of the pond right by the end of the tape measure.

I made a mini sealed pond. I started the sealing by stomping on it with my boots and hitting it with a rock. My first attempt unfortunately drained a full inch within the allotted time, thus failing. For my second attempt, I used a sledge to whack it down nice and compact. After that it worked!

Here is my submission for the Earthworks - Sand - Seal a Tiny Pond BB.

To document the completion of the BB, I have provided the following:
- show the new hole
- show how long it took to drain 5 gallons
- show the compaction process
- show the new 5 gallons going in
- show a toothpick marking the water line once the water is in
- show another toothpick marking the waterline five minutes later
- show that the water level has not dropped more than a half-inch in an hour