IH3444,
Glad you like it.
It is solid clay.
I hit good clay about two foot down, with about 6 inches of topsoil. So I have about 18 inches of "damp" sticky unpackable clay. I won't need a pond liner.
hugs, Brandi
First of all, sorry to hear about the lost of your Mother.
From the looks of the pictures, your doing a great job and you have
the right soil to work with, (If you can keep it dry)
When i bought my property in 2000 it didn't have a septic system on
it. I didn't have a backhoe so i had to hire someone to install it.
when they came out to look at it they did a soil test. Then the guy said i have some bad news for ya, he said about 1 1/2 to 2 FT deep there is solid clay and it holds alot of water, i told him thats ok and i'm kind of glad, he couldn't understand why i was so glad until i said the word (POND) then he got it and laughed.
They had to install alarge concrete tank with 4 small chamber tanks
coming from the large tank.
So i bought a new tractor with a backhoe attachment to do some work on our property, dug footers, cut trees, planned a place for a garden, we have a river behind our house and i hauled rich black top
soil from the river bank to our garden. Once all of the important things were done, then it was planning the pond.
I started the pond in april 2002, i started digging and once i got down about 5 FT. i hit water, I dug most of it with the backhoe, then i
had to fix a slope to get down in THAT MESS, i used my fel some but i
did better with the backhoe because the clay was so packed so hard.
I hit water at different depths, (5ft. 7ft. 10ft.) once i got down 10ft i decided that was deep enough. during digging i had to use a pump the wet clay stuck to my buckets, my tires had about 1ft. packed on them, it was a mess. when i decided that 10ft. was enough then i sloped the sides using my backhoe, after i got the right slope i took my backhoe bucket and curled it and packed it down.
Then where i drove down in i put large rocks on the bottom to hold the back fill of rocks, and clay dirt, packing it down with my bucket.
that is my dam, it was so steep i had to be pulled back out
I put a six inch pipe close to the top on mine, I haven't had any problems of over flowing with a six inch pipe. back on top i filled in on
three sides with clay dirt packed it and sloped it. My front yard has just a little slope, When we get a really hard rain the water finds its way to the pond. (That's why i didn't fill the back side facing the house)
I don't have a liner in mine, it is solid clay once you get past the 2ft.
mark and the clay holds water very well. Unless it gets very hot for several days without rain then it starts to drop a little.
In 2004 i came up with an ideal to get more water in the pond from
the rains, I have gutters on my house and garage, so i dug a ditch 250 feet from my house to the pond, and put in 4 inch pipe from the house to pond and works out real well.
Then there is a small creek over the bank beside my house, that runs through a bottom and into the river. I bought a well pump from
harbor freight and ran 150 feet of 3/4 inch pipe from the creek up the bank and tapped it to the 4 inch pipe when we don't get any rain.
I saw where water plants was mentioned, i haven't had any problems
with weeds or any kind of grass growing in mine at (10ft) deep i guess because of the clay bottom, but i did plant a water lily pad plant the fish love it, but in the summer when it comes back out it is
getting wider every year.(i may have to take it out if i can) We caught
bluegill,crappie and bass from the river after the pond was done and they nest every year.But the bass have ate some of our other fish.
It took my pond a couple of years to really settle, but the rain water
from the gutter and pumping from the creek has really helped it, the water going into it helps clear the water up and keeps film off the top.
My pond is just about thirty by forty and is ten feet deep, Now i wished that i would have made it bigger but with all the water and fish i guess I'll just leave it alone for now. (and the wet clay dirt too)
I hope this has helped you with the clay dirt issue.
I think you are doing a great job, just hang in there.
