• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

This Park Slope gardener sent in her tales of bird feeders and goldfish ponds… The “before” was taken in 1984. I added the pool in 1993. It’s a kit from a company called SunLand in California that I’d seen it in a magazine about five years before I bought the house. Basically, you build a box out of marine ply and they supply a vinyl liner to your specifications. Then you do some simple p.v.c. plumbing for the pump & filter. I have to take the equipment out each winter and reinstall it each spring as well as draining the pool half way; it’s two feet above the ground and two below.

I did most of the work myself except installing the fence—digging the hole for the pool, running the electrical conduit, building the deck & shed and installing the arm for the bird feeders, which are on pulleys so I can fill them easily. The dirt from the hole for the pool was exactly what I needed to make the garden level side-to-side so I didn’t have to trundle it through the house. The goldfish can live in the pond year ’round so long as it’s more than 18 inches deep and this one’s 24 inches. I put a heater in there in the winter just to keep a breathing hole when water freezes. Leaf net is to keep cats out as well as leaves. I take the feeders down in the summer for the pleasure of people sitting underneath on the patio.