A few years ago, we moved into a beautiful old farmhouse that had a swimming pond in the backyard. I prefer to swim in rivers, not so much lakes let alone ponds. Therefore, the idea of swimming in a pond did not appeal to me, too much muck to walk through.  Nevertheless, the thought of having this beautiful swimming hole right in my backyard pulled at me, especially as the temperatures hovered in the 80’s so early in the year.  Then, I heard of a nontoxic way to inhibit algae growth. For our small pond, it would only cost $10 and a couple of hours effort, so it was definitely worth a try.

The secret is BARLEY STRAW. It is not completely understood how this works, apparently, the barley releases a chemical that inhibits the growth of algae in the presence of oxygen and when exposed to sunlight, but does not kill it once it is there.

Therefore, I needed to rake out all the algae before I started.

After the algae were removed, I started to break down a bail of barley straw and stuff it into empty onion sacks.

I wanted to position two sacks tied together at 3 points in the pond. I weighted the sacks with a stone to keep them stationary and tied them to a buoy, so I could find them in the fall for removal.

At first, the barley sacks float and then once they become waterlogged, they will sink, the buoy will keep the sacks in the mid-level of the pond.

I purchased the barley bail at Agway. They also gave me free onion sacks for stuffing the barley. What a fabulous investment. It worked like a charm and gave us so much pleasure. This year, I need to figure out how to create a ramp or walk way to get into the pond easily. I tried laying rocks but they did not work out too well as they were so uneven. Do you have any easy low impact suggestions?

Two months after the barley straw was floated in the pond – look no algae!

Enjoying the pond