00:06It's a year since we were filming here and a lot has happened in that time, not least a very
00:13dry
00:13summer. The pond did fill up briefly in January last year and then it pretty much stopped raining
00:22at all. We just had dribbles and it was never enough to maintain the input of water from the
00:29ditch which we had hoped would keep some kind of level here. So during the summer we managed to get
00:36some tadpoles actually to into frogs before it got too dry and then the water almost disappeared.
00:43In fact at one point there was zero water here. There was just a bit of mud in the bottom
00:49and it
00:49looked like a lost cause and I was coming under a lot of pressure to get a liner in there,
00:57get it full
00:57of water. But then in September the weather changed and we started to have some rain.
01:07This is the 4th of November and look how the pond has filled recently but only very recently.
01:14We've actually had 130 millimeters that's just over five inches of rain in the last two weeks. It's been
01:21unusual storms and the pond has gone from being not a pond. It was dead empty as little as three
01:28weeks
01:28ago. Then there was a little puddle in the bottom for a week and then it's suddenly gone like this.
01:32I don't yet know how well this is going to hold longer term. The drain there is flowing a little
01:38bit
01:38so the ditch has filled with water. We've had enough rain for that and now well here's hoping we'll come
01:44back
01:45in the middle of winter and see what the next stage is. And here we are in late December.
01:54Since that little clip in November we've had nearly 200 millimeters of rain. That's around eight inches,
02:01a little bit more than normal, wet autumn. It's been fantastic for the pond as you can see. The level's
02:06almost as high as it can be in fact. It will go a little bit higher. There's a pipe over
02:12there which
02:12would take away excess if it gets too high. And well, it's a great joy. It's a culmination. No,
02:22it's not a culmination. There's no end point in this story. It's a pond without a liner,
02:28which is what I want to achieve. I don't like too much plastic. I use plastic in my job for
02:34sure,
02:35but never more than I need to. And this seemed like a project we could do without using plastic. And
02:41I
02:41have done that before. Back in the 1980s, I made a pond. I dug it by hand. It was stone
02:49soil where I
02:50was at the time. And it definitely needed a liner. There was no way that was going to hold water.
02:55And so I put in a liner there and filled it with water. And yeah, got a pond. You know,
03:02I've done that. I know you can do it. And then of course, there is always the question,
03:06what if the liner gets a hole and you lose all your water and then you've got to throw away
03:10the
03:10plastic. I don't know if you can repair them maybe. So that was where I didn't want to go. And
03:16Jack,
03:16who was helping me, was keen to do it in clay as well. And we had experience actually also
03:24at my previous garden making a pond on clay, which more or less worked. And there,
03:30there was a big advantage, which was an input of water. That's something we have not got here.
03:36So that's why Jack went to some trouble to dig out the ditch over there and put in a pipe
03:41underground from that ditch, which is slightly higher output than the entry point into this pond.
03:49And we've noticed through the year that whenever there's been sufficient rain, which
03:53has only happened since September, in fact, that ditch will be sending water to the pond
03:59quite a lot after it rains. But then the level drops fairly quickly. And in the last three days,
04:05for example, we've had eight millimeters, about a third of an inch of rain. And that hasn't been
04:11enough to maintain the pond at its very highest level. It's just sinking slowly, but it's still
04:15maintained. There's still input of water. I'm pretty sure you can't see because that's now below
04:19surface level. Jack reckons that there is still a hole here at the bottom. We tried puddling it
04:28during the year. Adam and I got in here in our boots, mainly Adam. And I must say, hats off
04:34to him.
04:34He spent a full morning, really hard work, struggling through the mud to squash it down.
04:40And then it rained a bit and we could see that it still wasn't holding water.
04:46Okay, people have said put in ducks and pigs, you know, well, that's all very well. You've got
04:49to have quite a bit of fencing and all that kind of thing. Yeah, maybe it's an option looking ahead.
04:55And then a guy appeared in May out of the blue. It's fantastic. With some bentonite clay.
05:03It's 13th of May. And in the four months since this pond was created, it's mainly been going down.
05:10And there's not much water, but it's pretty stable at the very low level that's left. We have a puddle.
05:15It has a few tadpoles in actually. And I've had a fantastic offer from some neighbors, Brendan, who's a chemical
05:22engineer,
05:23and his mate, Ben, and they have brought some bentonite clay. And if you see what they're doing,
05:32they're pushing it into the cracks. What it turns out is this clay here,
05:39Brendan has been explaining, is not strictly like, it's not like potter's clay. It's called mud rock.
05:46And it has too many bits in for the water to not be able to flow through. It doesn't make
05:52a proper seal.
05:52So this bentonite clay is very liquid and it goes almost liquid when it's damp. And if you can get
06:01it into
06:01these cracks and then we're going to water it, you will have to use a hose to refill the pond.
06:08So here we are, four hours later, and Brendan and Ben have done a great job of putting in the
06:14clay.
06:15And Brendan is going to explain to you what they've done.
06:19Okay. Hi there. Yeah. So we've brought 125 kilos of sodium bentonite clay with us today.
06:25And we very carefully sprinkled it all the way along, targeting the areas where there were the
06:32biggest cracks. But basically we put a fine layer over the entire thing. We brushed it in as we've
06:38gone. So we've gone multiple sort of times. And because you don't want it to clag, you want it to
06:43go right down to the bottom of the cracks and coat all the cracks. And then we scarified the surface
06:48with
06:48just a very, very lightweight garden moss remover or scarifier. And because you only want to break
06:55up that top centimetre. And then that's all been brushed in because that's all clay. And already
07:00now you can't see any of the cracks. So we brushed it all in and then we've wet it all
07:06on the top just to
07:10stop the clay from blowing around in the wind. And also if it does rain, you don't want little
07:15rivulets washing the clay down. And so yeah, overnight, I anticipate that putting in about
07:2115,000 litres of water, looking at the flow rate on there. And hopefully you'll be in a good position
07:28from now on. But again, it didn't hold. There is bentonite clay now. I'm still hoping that the weight
07:38of the water maybe will push it down. And, you know, it could still settle. Jack was saying,
07:44maybe, you know, it's not a deep pond. And when we were, or when he was digging,
07:49but below the clay, it looks like there might be rock. And this, this is perhaps the point here that
07:56it's not pure pond clay, if you like. It's something called grit, grit soil or grit clay. It's got bits
08:05of
08:05of stone in, in the clay. And in that case, maybe it'll never work. I hope that's not the case.
08:12Oh, why do I want a pond? Why am I messing around with all this? I want the wildlife. This
08:17is nothing
08:17about irrigating the garden. It's, it's for wildlife. And we have already had fantastic wildlife here.
08:23We see quite a few dragonflies and the amphibians, which we also have in the garden as a whole. And
08:28they're
08:28great for toads eat slugs, all that kind of thing. And also one, one great feature that you get with
08:35a
08:36pond is the edge. And with the clay heaped around the edge, the poor soil by, because it's clay,
08:43we sowed some wildflowers in February and had a fantastic wildflower selection here through the
08:51summer. It was really a joy and we're slowly finally time to do some more planting. Haven't done as much
08:57as,
08:57as we could have. It's another project, but this will go on. It's a long-term project. It's
09:04probably never going to reach an end point of being perfectly full all the time,
09:08but it's fantastic chance to interact with water and nature and plants and flowers and wildlife.
09:21So
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