The liner was too hot to handle in the sun yesterday, so today’s 12ºC was chilly, but we could at least touch the liner. It went fairly well. It ripped down a seam early on, which was alarming, but fortunately we had so much that turning the liner 90º still left us with plenty to work with.

There’s a paddle stone sitting on a scrap of polythene at the bottom of the deep part. It’s narrow part down, leaving some hiding spaces – until all the stones inevitably fall down there. I’ll also double line the bird bowl to give it some more protection against pecking.

The liner is a little short on the left hand side, but I’m hoping it will still be ok. I’ll probably stick some extra liner in there as backup. We filled it up with the muddy bottom water from the old pond and I threw in all the hornwort I could find from the top water box. The elodea isn’t going back, but needs a good rinse to save the wildlife.

The pots of pickerel weed, yellow iris, water violet and creeping Jenny have gone onto the marginal shelf. The water violet needs to be bigger before it can go down into the deeper hole.

Most of the water has come from the well, collected by Mr B. He’s going to do another jerry can for me, so that’ll probably be all I need from the well. Then comes all the work of building back the banks…

I bought two new pond plants today to take over from two from the old pond. The sweet flag that’s probably got rust is going to be replaced by pickerel weed. Since the elodea took over and made a big web of roots, I plan to remove it. It’ll be replaced by a pot of water violet. I hope to put the pot down in the deep hole on top of the paddle stone. Just need to check the measurements.

I’ve put those plants in the storage tanks at the plot. In the evening I weeded all of Bed 7 and thinned the parsnips. There are also a few little radishes coming along, so maybe I’ll dot some more of that seed around the place for amusement. A big volunteer sunflower has been moved to Bed 9, where I believe a couple of new nasturtiums have arrived.

I spent the morning finessing the shape of the pond and checking the levels of sides. I built the back shelf up a bit with mud and everything else is good enough. I continued being bugged by miner bees, with one pursuing its own hole (which I then sealed with clay).

The bottom of the pond was about 18″, and I managed to scrap another couple of inches of yellow clay out to account for the paddlestone that will go at the bottom.

Afer lunch Mum and I used laminate flooring underlay as the pond underlay. It took longer than the sand, as it was less malleable, but we pinned and cut it to fit fairly tightly. So I’m hopeful that the liner will sit fairly smoothly over it. I’ve put the underlay over the tile I couldn’t shift and the rock that goes there should hide any rise in the liner.

I started shaping the pond and discovered that it’s not so much that the sand had slipped, some of the earth has slipped over the sand. So when I scraped at it, as soon as I’d got rid of the sand, I knew I was back to the original carved shape.

I straightened the sides of the pond and carved out much better small shelves front and back. I’m hopeful that some stones will catch here and not immediately roll down to the bottom. The underlay and liner might undo some of the shape, but we’ll see.

There’s a much more defined bowl for the beach / bird bowl now. I’ve tried to keep a lip to stop stones being knocked to the bottom; it might be that more farm rock goes here too.

The last piece of bank by the gate was too difficult to shift. The plants behind the fence posts have stayed, because the liner goes in front. The tile to the left was too firmly wedged under two poles that were behind the fenceposts, so I’ve cut the liner and the new underlay and liner will have to go over it and be covered by the rock.

Having spent so long working in the corner, I made sure to enjoy this little piece of my left border. Everything else in the plot is so desperate for water and there’s now a bunch of weeding to be done too.

    

Time to redo the pond. The blackbird had pulled all the earth out of the creeping Jenny, so I might need some pond soil after all. He stood on the fence yelling at me like he owned the place for a while.

I set up two red boxes with some aged tap water and started adding water and weed from the pond. I’ve got everything split up into areas, which will be great as long as I remember what’s where.

Down at the bottom of the pond was about 2.5″ – 3″ of mud and stone, being held together with the roots of elodea. I think I’m going to try just depending on hornwort and possibly another floating pond to give shelter, which won’t take over the bottom. There was a lot of life in the mud, including – I think – a water boatman. So I need some mud and stone, but not that much and not something trying it all together.

I brought in reinforcements after lunch and Mum shifted most of the shelves, the clay having dried like concrete. Couch grass had crept all under the plastic and it’s amazing it only pierced it once. There wasn’t much sign of sand, but the earth had sagged in places.

In other news, something has pecked a hole in the side of my second bug hotel. I don’t know why my bee hotels are so attractive to vandals.

The pond water was a little low and the edge of the latest patch has suddenly started to lift. As far as I can feel, it’s still watertight underneath, but clearly I need to remake the pond to stop it being an issue.

Last year’s bee house is filling up fast, having been completely spurned last year. The teasel is now in its second year too and has grown vigorously. I need to get another first year plant so I can keep a constant flowering/seeding cycle going.

I’ve added new Bidens left and right. I can’t find any other spaces at the moment, so the third has gone home and will probably go in a pot.

I did some weeding in Bed 1, though not particularly thoroughly. When you have a close look you see more seedlings appearing – godetia and poppies perhaps – which also get disturbed when pulling up the weeds. I’ve added a few floppy cerinthe to the bed, with Mr B mocking the time it was taking to decide on their location.

I moved some nasturtium, candytuft and sunflower volunteers from Beds 5 and 6 to Bed 9. A couple of sown nasturtiums have appeared and more sweet peas are coming.

All but three of the garlic are doing poorly, so I’ve weeded around them, scattered fertiliser and watered them.

I watered the transplants and select seeds – the parsnips are doing great – but we really need more rain.

The callicarpa isn’t doing all that well, but I’ve noticed new growth coming. I’ll do more about trimming off dead bits when the new growth has done more.

I spent a few hours with my plants this afternoon, potting on silly indoor plants. The zinnias and cosmos are now in their own pots. I’ve potted on the stupid thin sweet peas, two per pot. I need to try and prop them up somehow so they don’t get caught on anything. All the new moves have been fed with seaweed.

Having realised that I was using 2023 seed, I bought new sweetcorn seeds and sowed replacements to go with the five plants that have come up. That tray is inside to let them germinate.

All four cucumbers are now up. I’m guessing they’ll break when transplanted, so I’m hoping that the direct sown seeds will come up soon. Everything is super dry at the allotment and we need some more rain soon.

The tomatoes have been outside for a couple of days, with the cover up and down. With the warm weather we’re having, little is left inside and the grow house gets zipped up late afternoon and opened in the morning.

I’ve potted on the tomatoes and buried them deep, adding vermiculite on top to reduce the fungus gnats. The Romas are doing better than the Red Alerts; some of the latter are very small and have been kept in small pots in the office. The big plants are now in the conservatory with the door open.

The sweetcorn and cosmos are being troublesome this year, so I’ve sown more backups. The former is old seed, which I didn’t realise until today.

I’ve sown some brand new Rudbeckia Aries seeds. They’re inside for germination and will then go outside.

After doing some major filling yesterday, the pond level was still good and high, which was great. The water had a film over it, which I tried to lift off a little with the net, but I might have just broken it up. I’ll leave the water now and with any luck the water will rebalance. There are lots of diving beetles and spiders are taking over the stony edges.

Two calendulas are just starting to flower. There are signs of tiny seeds appearing in the border, but I’m not sure what they are. Poppy, maybe, along with corn cockle. What I thought was a Californian poppy on the ledge now has a deep pink, cornflower-like bud. It’s the rhodanthemum I planted last April.

I’ve sown more godetia and candytuft all around, so I hope they’ll fill in any holes.

I’ve added another row of parsnip and uncovered the rows. A few radish might be coming up in that short side row, but they’ll take their chance.

The hawthorns are doing beautifully, the big one in particular. I’ve trimmed a few bits off them where they were coming through the fence, and pushed other pieces back through the chicken wire.

We had lots of rain the night before last, but I didn’t gain much in my buckets and the pond. I have been wondering if there was another hole in the liner somewhere, but I’ve concluded that it’s pretty ok, but simply needs more water in it. It’s dropped maybe an inch since the repair, which is to be expected with sun and wind. I’ve got more tap water airing to get lower the chlorine content and I’ll add that in the next few days.

I noticed some new creatures in the pond, some of which sat still to be photographed, while others were busy swimming around. They’re very young diving beetles.

While looking for holes, I cleared out a little creeping jenny and forget me not to reduce transpiration. One piece of creeping jenny came out with some roots, so I’ve planted it on the far bank and covered it with some bark to let it settle. By the gate the plant has hopped into the grass, so it does take over once established.

Bed 1 has a lot of weeds coming and some other seedlings that might be good or bad. I do finally have poppies showing now though.