Allotments 4 All

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So... the sink bowls have certainly attracted wildlife, several species of which have thanked me by sinking their teeth into me. Bar stewards!

Now it's time to scheme a bigger pond (doubtless to attract bigger critters to bite me...) Given the size of my back garden there's not really room for a pond and a rockery (both of which I want), so my "plan" (as far as it has got) is that I raise the pond partway out of the ground and build a rockery round it.

So now I'm going to ask for advice, opinions, and no doubt get a few pond horror stories too! Please tell me when I'm talking spheroids.

This site: http://www.wlgf.org/Establishing_pond.html  suggests I need 30-50cm of water for invertebrates to survive (wot about froggies?) - I have several tons of nice slabby limestone that I can build the sides out of (and collect more from local fields if I run short part-way, guess what a lockdown project was for me!), and I can use some for the edges to have shallow sloping edges too. Outside of the pond, I'm looking for an effect a bit like a drystone wall, but looser, with soil for planting in between slabs, which will also help things get in and out. I'll probably use a flexible liner as all the ready-made ponds I've seen seem to made for fish, so have steep sides.

So... what am I missing, what have I forgotten, please?

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Just the mention of Tee Gee ‘s name scared my tomatoes !! Two have now started to ripen!! 😂😂😂

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18 months ago, I had news from the Doc that if I did not change my eating habits,  I would shorten my life considerably. So out with cakes, pies, pasta and pizzas and in with all fresh cooked stuff at home so I did not have to eat all the 'additives' that food manufacturers bung in the mix. I have always eaten veg from the plot, but even some of those were forbidden, now the plot is mainly legumes, brassicas and squash with plenty of fruit to take the place of the nice puds. No troubles at all now apart from some of the extremes we tried. Did you know that having a cup of green tea instead of coffee in the morning looses you 67% of what little bit of pleasure you have left and what's with this stevia stuff, do you just imagine the sweetness or what.  Healthy drinking as well, no ale or wine but luckily single malt is still on the menu. Losing weight was also in the mix so I looked around at the skinniest people I know and they all turned out to be hippy types, so wholegrains and all the macrobiotic rubbish I could find went into my hippy diet, it works, very righteous  but incredibly boring but with a third of me now gone missing I can relax a bit. Had my first tablespoon of mash spuds yesterday, lovely, really sinful eh.

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Hello…. Is anyone else having this problem! ??