Paddy field part one

As can be seen in my posts about the pond (to come, sorry!), I'm planning on digging an overflow down to the ditch. This line is currently marked by some white tape that the previous owner had left lying around (it's electric horse tape). I recently had the idea from watching some permaculture video on YouTube to use this surplus water more effectively. A bit of research indicated that a Japanese rice variety, oryza sativa, can grow in the UK and establishing it in a paddy field would help to keep weeds to a minimum as few other species thrive in water (aquatic plants aside).

With that in mind, I hacked out a 5m circle with the machete to mark where to start digging. I'm hoping to get a mechanical digger in here but it's so wet that might not be possible. Going to be a big task to dig out by hand but I've done it before so I'm sure I can do it again!

The flow from the spring upstream of this should stop the water from getting too stagnant and the overflow from this will still flow into the ditch where I can pipe it into the lake as planned.