Erosion at work

Feeling inspired by the trip to ECHO, I decided I wanted to try my hand at growing avocados, I figured since avocado trees need to be elevated to prevent root rot here in Southwest Florida, I would create an elevated island for the trees and surround it with a pond in which I could raise tilapia. With trusty shovel in hand I began digging up my backyard. Of course, believing I am way smarter than I actually am ( I am a guy afterall), I realized that I would need to construct a retaining wall as I went so I set out to create a little island oasis in my backyard. The island itself went fairly well, I dug about 18" down and created a nice level area around which I set-up a retaining wall and then filled it all in so I could plant the trees.

Once the pond liner is in place I plan to add 4 more inches to the retaining wall and also raise the island and use plantation peanut as ground cover and for nitrogen fixation for the trees.

Feeling very pleased with this phase I begin digging out the pond...

making sure to build the retaining wall as I go! Everything is going well but as I am only one man, this project has taken several days and of course Mother Nature would not be denied her chance to assist me and sent a couple days worth of major rain and wind. My efforts to build a retaining wall as I went coupled with only having one side of the island dug out made for a very nice focusing of all the rainwater through my "trench".

You can see in this picture how the water was able to erode a nice shelf about 8 feet beyond where my planned pond would stop and create a nice hole about 18" deep that flowed through the tranch and washed everything into the canal behind my house. This will easily add an extra day or two to my project since now I will need remove all the deposits of the runoff and fill the hole in my yard. Maybe this was nature telling me that I needed a bigger pond for my tilapia? Either way, I got a first hand introduction to erosion in the form of a mudslide washing out a good portion of my backyard in just a few hours of rain. I just hope the next big storm can hold off long enough for me to finish the walls before it all washes away again.