Where Should the New Pond Go?
First, a multi-use pond should be pretty close to the family home.
The primary reason for this is that if the pond is to help provide water
for emergency fire protection, it has to be close enough for the fire
truck’s hoses to reach from the pond to the pumper. Also, irrigation
pipes don’t like to be run too far from the pond to the garden.
Finally, if the pond is close to the family home, the homeowner will get
to enjoy the wildlife which will come to the pond to drink.
Selecting the actual pond site is vital, and really should be done with
the help of a professional. A professional pond construction
engineer can recommend places that are best suited for a pond.
Obviously, a pond needs a source of water - if you are one of the blessed
and your small farm has a natural spring on it, count yourself very lucky.
A live spring gives clear, live water which supports maximum numbers of
fish. If no spring is close enough, or no good natural drainage from
hillside or valley is present, then that location is not a good pond site.
A pond building professional can walk over your farm and recommend
suitable places to build a pond. This advice may cost the farm owner
a bit in the early stages of the pond building, but the advice of a
professional can save lots of money and misery later. The best place
to locate a pond professional is to contact the local extension agent who
works for the state. Neighbors and other smallholders in your area
can usually recommend a reliable pond builder who would be happy to work
with you.
The Virginia Cooperative Extension service in their Publication Number
420-011 says that multi-use ponds should have easy access, adequate
volume, and water level manipulation in order to be of maximum use to the
smallholder. All of these points can be best designed with a
professional pond-builder’s help.
Can You Dig It?
Most of us moved back to the country in order to be more or less
self-sufficient. However, when it comes to pond construction, using
some outside professional help is wise. I will not deny that I have
seen very productive, beautiful, long lasting ponds designed and built by
homeowners with no pond engineering training. It does happen.
However, I have seen many, many more ponds built by homeowners which
turned out to be disasters. The rural countryside, no matter where
in the nation we look, is dotted with poorly planned, poorly built and
non-functional ponds.
