Pre-Vernal Ponds

Our turtle, frog and Wood Duck ponds were pretty low all winter, but we've been glad to see nearly all of them at full capacity this week. This will ensure the best conditions for wood frogs and peepers in early March.

Before we bought our farm, the wetlands were drained by dredging the original intermittent stream to create a narrow channel. The creek boundaries may have been ambiguous after the extensive flooding in 1996, but by creating a channel, a lot of wonderful wetland habitat was no longer available. We merely created stream crossings with 6-inch flow-through pipe and 90o ends that can be rotated to allow for variable depths. We can raise the water level by up to 8".

As many of you know, we didn't have to plant a single wetland plant; they immediately appeared from the existing seed bank.