Duck Pond Aeration Keeps it Open All Winter

The smallest opening in the ice so far after a very cold night

We've been aerating the duck pond water since day one. The aerator I use only consumes about 30 Watts so (EasyPro KLC25 Linear Diaphragm Pond Aerator Air Compressor 23 Watt). It's been running 24/7 for almost a year.

I was really curious what would happen in the cold temperatures. For the past week or so, we've had below freezing temperatures and some very cold overnight temperatures (single digit Fahrenheit).

The pond stays open immediately above the aerator bubblers. If the temperature is warmer, the hole is larger. We break up some of the ice that formed overnight on a daily basis. Since we only have 4 ducks, they're all able to get in the water and stay clean and play around.

The aerator I'm using is for a 5,000 gallon pond which is roughly the size of the duck pond. If I ever need to replace it, I'll probably get a larger one.

Geauga Glacial Landforms Resources

Geauga County Glacial Landforms Map

I've been reading up on the glacial geology of northeast Ohio lately. There are many resources available for free online. I thought I'd put a collected list here.

The map above is a combination of one from ODNR with a topo based terrain map underlay. It looks like the maps projections are slightly different. The topo map geauga outline is from the shapefile that the state and Geauga auditor's office seem to use. The ODNR one is close, but looks a little bit off.

The legend is:

• Green is ridge moraine
• Pink is kames and eskers
• Light Blue is lake deposits
• Yellow is Outwash

Big Creek starts in the Defiance Moraine, which was depisoted around 14,800 years ago. What's now Geauga County was covered and uncovered by sheets of ice for thousands of years prior to the current geological era.

A really interesting map which shows all the glacial landforms of Ohio is this one:

http://geosurvey.ohiodnr.gov/portals/geosurvey/PDFs/Misc_State_Maps&Pubs/Landforms_withCitation.pdf

A detailed list of ODNR provided maps is here:

http://geosurvey.ohiodnr.gov/publications-maps-data/free-downloads/maps

Wet Soil Versus Aereated Water

Kale Roots

We had some kale and strawberries growing in a 4" PVC pipe over the second half of the 2018 summer. As winter approaches, I potted the strawberries in sand and put the kale in the compost bin. The root systems of all the plants were impressive. The kale roots were at least a foot long.

The water is aerated by a pond pump. Apparently it puts enough oxygen in the water to keep the roots healthy, so even though they were submerged 100% of the time, they didn't rot or get diseased. (Another approach aquaponics systems take is to periodically flush out all the water in a system and allow air to reach the roots.)

The seasonal problem areas of our garden are the water logged areas. They're too wet for plants to grow there year 'round, so the soil stays compacted and anything that's planted there even in favorable weather conditions lags behind. Compacted wet soil eventually becomes oxygen depleted so (most) plant roots will die.

Amazing Quackuaponics

After 3 days The seeds sprouted

I tried to get some kale to start in garden beds late in the summer season, but it was either too hot, or something was eating the seedlings before they could ever get going. The seeds I started in the aquaponic system I slapped together took off though.

The plants have been thriving and don't need any maintenance. Next season, I'm going to try to do a large number of strawberries.

The plants remove excess nitrates/ites from the water. I've monitored it since the ducks moved into their pen. The levels spiked in the summer, and then dwindled down to zero measureable levels once the roots got into the water.

After 4 Weeks

Duck Pond Aquaponic Experiment Update

Kale growing in Duck Pond Water

The duck pond has been filled and hosting 4 ducks for a couple of months. I messed around with several different options for filtering and growing plants before putting some kale plants and a strawberry plant in a 10' length of 4" PVC pipe.

That's working amazingly well. The kale went from seeds in rock wool starters to plants in a week. The plants drop a large root system into the water and grow quickly. They're significantly larger on a daily basis.

The pond went through various transformations since it was filled. It started off as clear, cold well water. Then once the ducks started swimming on it all the time, it bloomed with algae. Bacteria sucked up the nutrients and the algae died off, and finally the plants started  growing and cleaned up all the extraneous nitrates and nitrites from the water so now its actually pretty "clean".

As this season winds down it is more obvious what improvements would be beneficial for next year. It's also pretty obvious that this type of approach is really pretty efficient in terms of resources used.

A Half Wild Farm

Our second growing season here is wrapping up. I've got a much more concrete idea of what we're doing than I did when we started.

One idea that's on my mind lately is the people who settled northeast Ohio from the east coast really never figured out how to live here. Rather than adapt to and make the most of the new environment they were in, which was overflowing with natural abundance they literally razed it to the ground. They really wrecked it almost as throughly as they could given their population and technology. In the 70 or 100 years since they gave up farming on our little property, the damage persists. If they had known what they were doing would they have done anything different? I think so. 

This area around Big Creek is really distinctinctive. Thanks to the parks all along the creek and up to the lake, there's a lot of habitat for animals and plants. My current thought is to try to have a half wild farm where the native animals and plants--the flora and fauna that are best suited and complementary to the climate and landscape here--are complementary to our activities. 

Cover Crops versus Nutsedge

This seasons (2018) garden has developed a new "problem"--nutsedge. The plants produce tubers fairly quickly, so pulling out the plant is typically insufficient to kill it off.

My approach to weeds this season has been to try to smother them with cover crops, which can be easier said than done. When I can get the cover crops established, e.g. white clover or sudangrass, they take off and can easily outcompete things like nutsedge. If they don't get established, the nutsedge and other weeds takes over.

Another problem I have to solve with this approach is mowing or trimming back the cover crops stuns them and lets the weeds start to pop up again. If you don't cut the cover crops back, though, they'll end up swallowing the plants you're trying to grow.

In areas where the cover crops dominate, there's no nutsedge. The plants are stunted, then die off. So my current approach is:

• don't disturb the soil (that lets the weeds get established)
• bury/smother cover crops to make planting space

We need a border/buffer zone around the garden where it blends into the regular lawn, so reformatting the garden will start in the fall probably.