Hi all, I am looking for info on creating a natural pool. I read a great article in this months organic gardener but could not find much info on the net. The natural pool is a man made swimming pool with self cleaning water filters (plants) on the fringes (no swim zones). It looks like they are pretty big in Europe and are either made of concrete or lined with pond liners. Any ideas? Thanks Judy
Hi Judy The Permaculture Designers manual by Bill Mollison has a small amount of information about natural swimming pools. If you don't have a copy it is available in most libraries. See page 180 and the previous page has a good diagrame. We swim regularly in our dam, I try to educate people about not swimming with sun creams, deoderants, insect repelents etc, etc. I have a shower banana circle planned close enough to the dam where people wearing such things can shower before entering the dam, which we are slowly stocking with local fish, turtles, fresh water prawns and plan to also include mussels. These will all help to keep the dam clean and will also provide us with some of our food. A good edge planting will also help reeds being wonderful filters. Sindhu
Hey Judy, I have a buddy in Bali who recently designed and oversaw the construction of a pool for a rich fella in Bali, I guess it could be best described as a low input pool i.e. build it then add water! the main design factors attempted to mimic the actions of water in a stream or river with all shapes rounded to eliminate any dead spots and keep the water moving, the water drained from the bottom like a bathtub as opposed to the normal skimmer type pool set up that just rakes the surface of the water, post this it went through an initial strainer made of a local material sourced ( I should say to be factual, oversourced) from a local palm tree, it then passed through a common chlorine pool type integrated pump/filter followed by a run through a reed bed and finally a cascade down a series of flow forms, it was truly a treat to swim in yet bloody expensive to construct (in Balinese terms a fortune) and needed the pump running most of the day to enable good flow, in those terms plus the fact it's run by coal fed power it was hardly sustainable, but if it had to be built, better to have it low input than a bathe in dilute chlorine, Don't know of any others in this hemisphere but I have'nt seen it all yet, it could well be the first tropical low input pool ever built, I'm glad it works.
Hi Sindhu & Justin Thankyou for you replies on "natural pools". I apologise for not responding earlier my computer died & I have only just retrieved my mail. I do have "Bills" designer manual but am interested in consruction methods for slaking the surface as our red earth will not hold water. I have read about lots of approaches but have not been able to talk to anyone who has done it. Thanks again Judy
