Turning Pond Muck into Compost

This came up as a question from a friend who wanted to know how I kept the pond clean. The answer, this year, has been a plant filter in the water fall. We do have a filter set up for the large pond, but over the spring the parrot feather got so thick that it seemed to be enough.

Around April I took all the filter matter out of the filter and just let the vortex collect the bigger chunks. Over time, the pond got clearer and stayed clean. Meanwhile, the waterfall was completely full of parrot feather - to the point I started ripping it out in chunks.

As with all garden matter, it went into the compost. A lot of it. More than grass clippings from the lawn.

Then I had an epiphany. The plant was turning all the nutrients and solids in the water into its roots, stems and leaves (ok, i was a little slow on this). The more it grew, the less nutrition was in the water. It basically starved out the algae. To boot, the roots are SO thick that they captured everything that was passing through the falls.

The falls basically became my own little wetlands cleaning the water. AND, the plant is pretty! It certainly makes a nice carpet.

All summer long, I have been cutting the plant out and throwing it into the compost. I haven't had to clean a filter pad a single time all summer. Organic waste to parrot feather to compost to garden to flowers. It's been working perfect.

This week I decided to edit down a video explaining how it works. Enjoy!