More Google Earth Updates - Circa 2010

It seems that I have not been paying attention to how things look on Google Maps. However tonight I noticed that the pond was visible when viewing the property. In fact, two imagery updates had been done in 2010 without me noticing.

The first aerial photograph, taken on the 9th of March 2010, shows the beginnings of the swale orchard on the bottom left-hand corner (the south western part of the property). This had just been marked out with grass clippings along the contours of the land. The citrus orchard north of this had also been recently mulched. My parents were visiting at the time, thus I was able to get a significant amount of work accomplished. In the center of the property, the pond is now clearly visible.

The second aerial photograph, taken on the 21st of June 2010, shows the swales as being more substantial as planting had been well underway. The citrus orchard mulching was also being taken over by grass seedlings and other weeds. This area is a bit of a jungle now. To the west of the citrus orchard is the start of the mango line. This area has poor soil due to the cut for the road. It is also exposed to strong westerly winds. So it should be perfect for growing mangos. I have supplied them with manure and compost as mangos can be gross feeders when young.

Notice the colour of the pond water as compared to the other picture. The natural flow of the water and my sediment trap design at the inflow to the pond, really seems to help reduce the amount of suspended particles which most dams suffer from. As a result aquatic life flourishes in the pond. We have even seen evidence of a platypus with heaps of fresh water clams along the pond edge. We know that they exist across the road in our neighbours pond, so they are probably checking out ours as well.

Pumped

I have been fairly excited in recent days. I feel liberated from one of the great worries of farmers. And that worry is, when will it rain? While there is no replacing natural rain, having a water source which can be used for irrigation is absolutely fantastic.

The primary purpose of the new pond was for irrigation of the property. We are extremely fortunate that this is a spring-fed pond. So it just keeps filling and overflowing.

I was also very fortunate that the previous owners happened to put the waste treatment plant a short distance away from where I wanted to locate the pump. To me, electric was the only choice to power the pump. While solar might have been a distant second option as well, it is simply more efficient to put larger scale solar panels on the roof, than it is to have a small solar panel only driving a pump. So I have been able to run a temporary extension cord from the power point at the waste treatment plant to the pump.

After extensive research and comparison of Davey, Onga, and Grundfos pumps, I decided that the Grundfos JPB 4 PC15 was the best option. I was only looking for about 30 L/min and it can deliver up to 60 L/min. Moreover it takes much less power to do so than its Australian counter parts. Not to mention it was significantly cheaper even with a recent price rise. So while I would have like to support the Australian pump manufacturers, the simple fact was their engineering did not match my requirements without additional cost and, most importantly, additional power consumption. Power was my foremost consideration due to the existing power requirements of the waste treatment system.

For the piping, I chose 1-1/4 inch rural piping. This is also known as green line. It is an economical pipe with reasonably priced fittings. While it obviously has greater resistance than 1-1/2 inch and 2 inch pipe, the pump is able to still provide the required flow rate through this diameter of pipe. The longest run will be about 100+ meters with about an 8-meter delivery line static head and a 2-meter supply line static head. We have not fixed the pipe in place at this stage, as I wanted to see how well it worked at various locations on the property. So there is still some work to be done for the final fixed set up.

In the meantime, I have been able to lug the pipe around and get water back into the subsoil. How to I know that? Well, I put in 5 Jakfruit Blackgold seedlings into the chook free range area. I intensively watered the ground before I planted and the soil sucked it all up, including the clay subsoil (the green in the grass is thanks to the irrigation). However I did find that for the final planting hole, I had not watered the ground sufficiently. The soil which a shovel was able to shift in the other holes, required a mattock. Even then it was hard going. When I reached the clay layer, I had to stop. I filled the hole with water and let it soak in over night. The next day I was able to resume the planting which included working gypsum and organic matter into the clay layer.

So I look forward to being able to continue with an aggressive planting schedule as are in the driest time of the year for the SEQ area. Next stop, swale-ville.

Oh yes, I should also mention that the pump enclosure was made almost entirely out of recycled materials, with the exception of the roofing screws.

A Hazy Shade of Sepia

The weather forecast for today was dry and windy with a haze developing. Well the dust from central Australia certainly did envelope, most of the Australian east coast for that matter. We lost site of Clear Mountain (how ironic) and Mount Samson, as the first two pictures show. The landscape was visually surreal, as the colour was stripped from the background but present in the foreground. It was almost as if some Photoshop whiz was exercising their artistic flair on a grand scale.

The wind and heat over the weeks has been sucking the soil dry. This has required more water from our household water tanks to keep the main food gardens alive. We still have a good supply of water for the house, probably around 19000 L. This is mainly due to sound water conservation practices which attempts to utilise our water multiple times. For instance, we bucket the water from our daughter's bath into the cistern of the toilet. And after we flush, the underground treated effluent irrigation from the waste treatment plant waters our citrus grove.

Tomorrow I hope to get a new pump up and running, so with that in operation we will be able to start irrigating more of the food gardens using the water from the pond. This will hopefully keep plants such as the asparagus and passionfruit quite contented until the rainy season.

Pondorama

Here is a panorama of the pond shortly after the earthworks were completed. On the left hand side you can see me working on the earth which was put where the water exits the pond. This has helped raise the water level about 30 cm since I did the depth check. The water level is now at the height of the southern end high water flow prior to its construction.

On the south-eastern edge of the pond you can see the concrete 375 mm pipe which allows the water to flow into the pond. This provides a constant pleasant waterfall from the stream coming into the pond. Over time, the lomandra hystrix planted around the piping should cover up the look of the urban pipe-work.

On the final day of earthworks, I also had a new plant shelf on the north-eastern side of the pond put in. This has increased the surface area of the water considerably, and provided a large shelf on which water filter plants like grey rush will be planted.

The final dimensions of the pond are about 40 m long south-to-north and about 15 m wide east-to-west (at its widest point).

You might have noted the use of the word pond instead of dam to describe this new waterway. As there is no real dam wall, it really is more appropriate to call it a pond.