Garden/plants in old fish pond?

[Nugget89]

So I haven't had a garden since I was a kid and that was a regular one in the backyard. I've never done anything with container gardens.

I have an old fish pond by my deck. All intentions of getting the system repaired have no yielded any action/results. Instead of spending the money on repairs and ongoing maintenance, I'd like to drain the pond and put soil/plants in for a small flower garden.

Is there anything I should be aware of or are there any issues that could arise? I wondered if the lack of drainage at the bottom could cause any issues.

[rainbowgardener]

Yes, indeed, the lack of drainage at the bottom will cause severe problems unless you want to grow bog plants. But even for that, if the pond is where it gets rained on, it will fill up like a bath tub. Not really possible to use it as a planter, unless you can put drainage in it.

Only other possibility I can think of is to fill the bottom of the pond with say 4-5" of gravel. Then put containers on top of that and plant in the containers. The gravel gives somewhere for the water to drain to. Which would be fine as long as you are just watering the containers. But rain is still a problem. If you get several inches of rain, even though it doesn't come up to the bottom of the pots and so doesn't cause problems for the plants, the water will just sit there and get stagnant and grow algae... You could cover it to keep rain out, but then it will be too shady to grow much.

If you don't want it for a pond, why not just get rid of the whole thing?

[applestar]

What is the problem with the fish pond? I need to start with that. If it is cracked and doesn't hold water, slowly draining away, it's one thing. If the water circulation -- pump, filter, etc is broken it's another.

I could think of a couple of ways to convert this into a working Sub-irrigated container which would allow you to grow almost anything -- but to do that, you need to limit the maximum depth of water to a few inches. What is the actual constant depth of this pond?

If it holds the water, and you are flexible about the choice of plants, I might suggest a water garden of flowering pond and -as Rainbowgardener mentioned- bog plants. There are many lovely flowering plants in this category.

[Nugget89]

Thanks for the replies! To your questions:

The fish pond has no circulation, filtration system, etc. It's completely non-functional and I haven't found anyone in my area who works on ponds. The contractors/handymen I've had working at the house for other purposes have no idea what to do with it. It seems to hold water fine - which I suppose would be part of the issue of using it for a garden. It's been broken since I bought the house so I'm no help since I have no idea what the original system was.

Mosquitoes around the water have been a bit of an issue so I'd prefer not to go with bog plants (if I understand the term correctly).

What would I need to do to get some drainage? Would drilling holes at various places in the bottom work?

Sorry again for my ignorance.

[applestar]

This is what I was thinking of :
Subject: Self Watering Container and Sub-irrigated Planter
https://www.insideurbangreen.org/corruga ... e-cdp-sip/

As you can see, we have a thread going about this technique/similar designs. It's something I want to learn more about, but some of the members here already have several years of experience.
Subject: Are there any Earthbox growers here?

From what I understand, all you would need is access to create drain holes in the SIDE of the pond -- it appears to be a raised pond? OR if there is no way to gravity drain it, to use a pump to keep the water at the bottom of the pond at not more than a certain (rather shallow) depth.

You may not want to jump right in by converting this pond this year. You may want to get some "feel" for it by acquiring a smaller, more manageable commercial or DIY container to experiment with.

I would just toss some inexpensive feeder goldfish, minnows, or mosquito fish in the pond if you are worried about mosquitoes breeding in it. I have kept ones and twos in small pails and buckets up to storage totes all summer season and they do their job fine.