"jammer" wrote in message
news
Hello good people

I have a pre-formed 70gallon pondlet that looks quite dead
right now.
No matter what i try to grow over the edge, no matter what
size sticks
i put in the water, the toads still come before plants
have a chance
to grow and they can't seem to climb on sticks. Last year
i had bricks
stacked all over and it not only cut down on the fishes
space, but
there are only two little shelves on the short end. The
little guys
seem to panic before they ever make it out, and they need
just about a
half a width of a brick more. These bricks also take up
the little bit
of plant shelves i have. So........ What i really want, is
a way to
make a ridge all the way around the pond just about 4
inches wide and
an inch or two below the surface. (Leaving a place to
overflow the
pond from time to time)

I'm having a hard time visualizing your setup, but I'll give
it a shot. Is there any way to make a sloping beach out of
dirt and pea gravel? We have heavy clay here and if I press
a layer (about 1/2") of pea gravel in it the beach tends to
stay (not get washed away). Some sort of sloping type pan
as the container, like those paint pans used with paint
rollers (and cut down to fit) might work.

Screening material might also be useful, unless you think
the toadlets might get caught in the screen. And that would
be easy to manipulate, mold, bend to your needs.

[snip]
Someone in the Dallas area refresh my memory. Is it the
end of april
that the toads spawn? That isn't very far away! I want to
get their
love pond ready! haha

I'm in the San Antonio area. I've seen a toad near my
in-ground pond (the one that gets a gadzillion toadpoles)
but I haven't seen any babies yet and I can't remember from
last year when they showed up. Water temps in the in-ground
pond and stock tank ponds has been ranging in the 50s and
lower 60s, but we tend to be warmer here than Dallas.

Gail