Building a Natural Swimming Pond (And Digging it by Hand)

since the day my permaculture Journey started I dreamed of building my own natural swimming pond and during the last weeks I finally made this dream a reality I transformed our small pond in front of the passive solar Greenhouse into this natural swimming pond this video I show you how I built this pond how I overcame a big challenge during the building process and how the natural cleaning system works that cleans the water inside the pond I started the project with marking the outer edge of the pond with some wooden sticks then I took my wheelbarrow

and my shovel and started digging the soil beneath our garden is soft and very rich in clay so it is quite easy to dig and after the first few hours of digging I already ended up with quite a big hole on the next day I started to drain the existing pond with a submersible pump the existing Pond was full of sludge and therefore very shallow because a few months ago a nearby excavation caused a flood in our garden the flood filled our pond with sediment that caused an algae bloom a few weeks later and this

was the time I thought if I have to remove all that sediment from our pond I can also make it bigger and transform it into a swimming pond building this new pond ecosystem also meant to destroy the old one I was quite sad when I had to remove all the beautiful Reeds seeing the habitat of so many insects disappear and destroying one until after another but it will all come back once the new Pond is built for the next days I continued digging my estimation was that I had to move about 55 cubic meters or

about 700 wheelbarrow loads of soil I always worked about 5 hours a day from early in the morning until it got too hot so what did I do with all that soil I used it to raise the surrounding terrain by about half a meter in this way I didn't need to dig down as deep as I would have if I brought all the material away wheelbarrow by wheelbarrow left the hole [Music] day by day the hole got bigger and the shape of the new plant started to become visible and on day 11 I finished the

digging work I was very satisfied with how they hold turned out and was looking forward to the work ahead of me The Next Step was bringing out the fleece and the liner I laid out the first layer of fleece which protects the liner from any sharp stones or roots then I rolled in the liner on top of that you might now wonder what is natural about this swimming pond however a natural swimming Pond is not defined by the way it's sealed but by its biological cleaning system this Pond will only use plants to clean the

water and the system with bubble pumps but more on this later after the liner was well laid I roughly trimmed it to size and put another layer of fleece on top of it the pond is not deeper than 1.4 meters so that we can stand in it and because we don't want to stand on the fleece I put the layer on top of it in the swimming area then I did some cleaning work around the passive solar Greenhouse and was finally able to start working on the interior of the pond is separated into three areas

the swimming area in the middle the surrounding plant area and the beach area to prevent all the gravel and soil from the plant area from sliding into the swimming area I built a wooden wall and that was the next step the wall is made out of large root which is the most durable hardwood we have in our region so piece by piece I transported the timber to the pond and after a few looks on my plan I started to make the first cuts I dry fitted everything and cut some holes that I need for the

filtration system later then I prepared some wooden blocks and some stainless steel rods that will hold the wall together after some preparation work inside the pond I brought in the first pieces of the wall and started bolting them together few hours of woodworking later the wall was finished The Next Step was to install the filtration system I use a system that was invented by David Pagan Butler if you want to build a pond like this too I highly recommend checking out his YouTube channel and ebooks instead of using high energy consuming pond pumps this clever

and simple system uses only air to move the water around it works like this underneath the plant area is a perforated pipe that is covered with gravel and the layer of geotextile the pipe then goes through the wall into a pipe without holes and then straight up an air stone is placed at the bottom of the upright pipe that is supplied by an air compressor somewhere outside of the pond if air is pumped into the air stone air bubbles will rise within the pipe and therefore accelerate the water inside the pipe this creates low pressure

inside the drainage pipes underneath the plants and draws water into the plant zone in this way a lot of water can be moved with very little energy input so I started to assemble the system by placing the air stone through a pre-drilled hole and connecting the six millimeter Air Supply two more Peak pipes attached and it was ready for installing the pond on the other side of the wall underneath the plant zone I laid the perforated pipes and connected them to it then I put some gravel and geotextile on top and installed the supply pipe

from the air compressor I then laid the pipe around the wall and connected the small pipes that Supply the air stones to it until now everything went according to plan but then it started raining and it rained a lot so much that groundwater gathered underneath the liner and started to lift it up this was a serious problem and at first I didn't know what to do I took a day off the project and then decided to take three segments of the wall apart and take a drainage trench away from the pond to pull back all

the completely soaked fleas was quite a struggle after that I dug the drainage trench and filled it with gravel which was also very hard work then I rebuilt the wooden wall and immediately started to fill the pond so that pressure was applied to the water underneath the liner and it worked the water on top of the liner pressed the water underneath liner to the drainage Trench and away from the pond a lot of water was flowing out of the drainage Trench where then was able to pump it into the pond with my submersible pump it

took three days until the amount of water flowing out finally decreased with this big problem solved I was able to continue the project by filling the plant zone with a mixture of Earth Sand and Gravel all in all I moved about 20 tons of gravel and sand into the pond after I finished this task it was time to build the chatty but before I was able to start with the woodworking I first had to build the foundation outside the pond for it Circle 2 formworks filled them with concrete and put two stainless steel rods into

the concrete once the concrete was cured I fixed the mounts for the jetty to the foundation after that I was able to build the frame of the chatty two days later the water level finally reached the top of the bubble pumps and was time for the first test I connected the air compressor to the supply pipe and the bubble pumps turned to life I then extended the supply pipe through some existing pipes in the soil and built a small shelter for the air compressor quite some distance away from the pond this spot in the garden

isn't visited often so that the noise from the air compressor doesn't bother anyone here then I return to the chatty I cut some boards to size rounded the edges and screwed them onto the jetty however I quickly realized that I've built the chatty too high so I disassembled it again and cut the posts a few centimeters above the water surface with my chainsaw after that I put the boards back on much better a few days earlier I also started to build a strong Edge in the Beach area The Edge needs to be stiff here because

otherwise we would destroy it with our feet by entering the pond I used stones that I found during the digging process for a more pleasant look finally I put the first plants into the pond which I had been looking forward to for a long time I planted water lilies small Reeds loose Drive swamp Iris and a few more different species and with the plants also life returned to the pond the bubble pumps were now running for a few days and the water is turned crystal clear time for a First Swim what a great feeling after

all that work stay I started to clean up the mess all around the pond and shape the soil with my shovel and my rake I used the topsoil that I store it aside when I started to dig the hole for the pond to now spread it on top of the subsoil it was a process that I really enjoyed Shovel by shovel a smooth surface started to appear once that was done I mixed the bucket full with seeds from perennial grasses different kinds of clover and other herbs and seeded the prepared area with this mixture I

then spread a light layer of our humanure compost and some soil from our chicken area on top thank you as a final step I planted a tree and a small hatch that will provide us with shade in the beach area in a few [Music] thank you so this was how I transformed our Old Pond into a natural swimming pond it's been an incredible experience for me building this Pond and I'm very pleased how it turned out this Pond is now the heart of our garden which makes it feel even more like paradise [Music] if you

like this video please consider giving it a like and subscribing to the channel I very appreciate it thanks for watching and see you next time [Music]