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Guy filled swimming pool with mulch eight feet thick
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Posted by
californian 10 (
My Page) on
Mon, Jun 13, 11 at 22:49
| I met a gardener yesterday who rather than demolishing a swimming pool he no longer used decided to make it into a giant raised bed planter. He said he started with a layer of wood chip mulch and branches four feet thick and then covered it with a foot of dirt. He said it didn't stink. Then some busybody neighbor saw what he was doing and called the city. The yard police came and stopped him. Then the winter rains started and the pool filled with water which made it stink. He went to the city and said they were stopping his plan from working. He finally got them to give him permission to finish his project. He put another four foot layer of mulch on top and another foot of dirt. He made a well in the pile from which he could get hundreds of gallons of compost tea which resulted from rainwater filtering through the eight feet of mulch now turning into compost. He said the pile has settled unevenly so he will have to add more mulch, but in the meantime he says stuff grows huge in his giant raised bed. |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Guy filled swimming pool with mulch eight feet thick
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| It is impossible. Swimming pool walls and floor will prevent drainage, it is like a giant flower pot but has no holes in the bottom. |
RE: Guy filled swimming pool with mulch eight feet thick
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| Yep, not a great plan :-) And it is not a giant raised bed......it is a giant sunken bed. Like a huge bucket or bathtub. It offers none of the advantages of a raised bed garden and all the disadvantages of planting in a big bucket or other container without any drainage. Inadequate (read "NO") drainage will lead to anaerobic soil conditions and eventually a large, stinky bog. It may appear to work for awhile but its success will be short-lived. |
RE: Guy filled swimming pool with mulch eight feet thick
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| We don't get enough rain in Orange County, CA to turn 8 feet of mulch and dirt into a bog. We average 12.76 inches of rain for a whole year. Hoarding precious and limited rainwater is an asset, not a detriment. |
RE: Guy filled swimming pool with mulch eight feet thick
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- Posted by pt03 2b Southern Manitob (My Page) on
Tue, Jun 14, 11 at 12:12
RE: Guy filled swimming pool with mulch eight feet thick
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| check it out http://gardenpool.org/ |
RE: Guy filled swimming pool with mulch eight feet thick
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| This is not quite the same thing. Someone also had a swimming pool and rather then filling it in, the family created a water garden with koi fish and a lot of water plants. When they tend to plants in the pool while they can't swim they wade and apparently it's most pleasant. Sometimes water birds land in pool-pond. |
RE: Guy filled swimming pool with mulch eight feet thick
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| My spouse turned a mostly-above-ground pool into a koi pond. I have use the stuff from the drain to water all my perennials for several years now. |
RE: Guy filled swimming pool with mulch eight feet thick
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| It will work just fine unless it can rain 6-7 feet faster than evaporation and transpiration can work. That wouldn't happen even in much rainier climates. It's a good idea and a much better use of a stupid basin than using energy to maintain a swimming pool. |
RE: Guy filled swimming pool with mulch eight feet thick
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| Thats crazy. the mosquitoes have to be off the chain!! |
RE: Guy filled swimming pool with mulch eight feet thick
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by "GardenerBlog"
"It is impossible. Swimming pool walls and floor will prevent drainage, it is like a giant flower pot but has no holes in the bottom." There are gardeners who grow in 50 gal jugs with no holes at the bottom. |
RE: Guy filled swimming pool with mulch eight feet thick
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| @TheMasterGardener1 Did you mean is Hydroponics system |
RE: Guy filled swimming pool with mulch eight feet thick
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| Misquitos can't breed in moisture that is absorbed into OM. Has to be standing water. Plants will grow down until the roots meet saturated material, which would only be the very lowest fraction in a dry climate such as described. There are many examples of plants growing just fine in all sorts of large undrained containers. Some soils are underlain by undrained pans and they grow crops. |
RE: Guy filled swimming pool with mulch eight feet thick
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Also
Posted by GardenerBlog none (My Page) on Tue, Jun 14, 11 at 9:57
It is impossible. Swimming pool walls and floor will prevent drainage, it is like a giant flower pot but has no holes in the bottom. Seems the guy pumps water out of the well that is in the pool (He made a well in the pile from which he could get hundreds of gallons of compost tea which resulted from rainwater filtering through the eight feet of mulch now turning into compost.) Sorta interesting, nonetheless. This guy punched a hole in the bottom of his and did something similar
http://www.sunset.com/garden/landscaping-design/lakewood-washington-ne
w-life-for-old-pool-00400000016870/ http://farm1.static.flickr.com/238/524715566_27421032e0.jpg http://www.flickr.com/groups/abandoned/discuss/72157600334211252/ |
RE: Guy filled swimming pool with mulch eight feet thick
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| Maybe the reason the pool was no longer used was a hole or crack that prevented the pool from staying full. |
RE: Guy filled swimming pool with mulch eight feet thick
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| I think I would have turned it into a greywater recycling system, using marsh plants (I think that's how it's done?), or else into a pond and rain reservoir for the garden. Especially considering you don't get much rainfall. |
RE: Guy filled swimming pool with mulch eight feet thick
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| Impossible surly not nothing can be deemed impossible crazy maybe.. better than buying a lot of pool chemicals all year and in a few years that will be on heck of a deep dug garden It would seem most likely that the pool was no longer operational if it did still hold water it would take 5 min to break a hole in the bottom |
RE: Guy filled swimming pool with mulch eight feet thick
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| Someone has a pool/garden growing next to the school I work at and it seems to be growing lovely veges!They've closed down most of the pools in the area due to $$$$$. |
RE: Guy filled swimming pool with mulch eight feet thick
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| I remember my first compost experiment. This was in the late 80's, there was no internet. I filled this old fish pond that was in the yard with leaves and twigs and watered it. It turned into a giant mass of black sludge that was a pain to then empty out and discard. The scale of emptying out a swimming pool would be massive, if was filled with black sludge. I was always a compost pioneer. I just loved composting too much to not try that plan. You have to take out the sludge and let it dry out and then you can maybe bury it. |
RE: Guy filled swimming pool with mulch eight feet thick
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| Maybe this guy was making sustainable peat. |
RE: Guy filled swimming pool with mulch eight feet thick
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| It would take 100 years to make peat. LOL I assume you need a cold climate as well. |
RE: Guy filled swimming pool with mulch eight feet thick
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| I was kidding, of course! |
RE: Guy filled swimming pool with mulch eight feet thick
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| I went to all the links that tn posted, but none of those was of a swimming pool filled with compost. I would still like to see a photos of a swimming pool filled with compost with or without plants growing in it. I want to see if it looks like a healthy pile or black sludge. |
RE: Guy filled swimming pool with mulch eight feet thick
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| It seems that this guy knew what he was doing |
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