Free food

[jenny_haddow]

Whenever I go out for a walk I always take a 'scrumping' bag. You never know what you are going to find that is edible and interesting. Young nettles and fat hen are often served here, with the home produced sausages etc.

Here's a picture of the corner of my pond, just visible are the small white flowers of, what is turning into a nice little crop of watercress. Last summer i made a packed lunch for us to have on our way home from France, including a bag of watercress I'd pulled from the local river. What was left when we got home had roots on it so I planted it in the pond. It obviously likes it in there as I have been able to cut quite a bit so far this year.

Cheers
Jen

Sorry the picture doesn't seem to be coming up, I'll try again

[Paul Kribs]

Jen

One of my pond filters just happens to pass the water from a spraybar, through some brushes and over a partition and then through watercress roots..
You don't need roots on the watercress to get them going, I just threw in some cut cress which I had bought from the chinese supermarket and up it comes every year. It never really dies right back, although the frosts do hit it a bit, but being quite well protected it just comes back.

If I pinch out the flowers it produces nice big peppery leaves almost 3" across... very impressive. I already have this years early flowers on, but will say the running water appears to give better growth. A few of my carp are about 14-15lbs in weight so probably the larger volume of waste helps with growth as well. Better weather permitting, by the beginning of July I will have to cut it right back as it creeps into the other section and roots into the brushes.. The stems get to almost �" dia, but can be used to good effect along with the larger leaves when blitzed with potatos for soup.



Regards, Paul Kribs

[jenny_haddow]

That looks good Paul. I find it a very useful crop to have at hand. I'm afraid my fish are tiddlers compared to yours, but I find the pond fascinating, I waste a lot of time frog and newt watching.

Jen

[Paul Kribs]

I don't seem to get many frogs.. I have only seen one this year.. I believe my fish might be cropping the tadpoles. I have had a big mirror carp grab the leg of said frog whilst it was swimming across the top.. It doesn't do much swimming now, preferring to lurk in the iris stems

Last time I was at See Woo's chinese supermarket I noticed they sell frogs legs, so if the carp get used to them I know where to go. They love prawns, cockles whelks etc.. as do I..

Regards, Paul Kribs

[Spuddy]

I fixed your picture Jen.
With ImageShack only the "Direct" link seems to work.

It's a bit big though

[wheels]

Big but yummy!
What the most sensible pic size for the forum? 400px wide? I haven't tried it but there must be an optimum size so that people don't have to scroll sideways?

Phil

[Paul Kribs]

I generally knock them down to 600, but I reckon you can get away with 800..

Regards, Paul Kribs

[jenny_haddow]

Thanks Spuddy, I used to post pictures quite successfully with Flickr, but they seem to have changed their system since I last used it, so I was a bit flummoxed.

I will get back into it now I seem to have a bit more time to post things. I've had a very poorly dad who is now well on the mend so I've been a bit preoccupied of recent months.

Jen

[saucisson]

When you submit the image to Imageshack there is a tick box which resizes the photo for you. I generally select 320x240 (for websites and email) but there is also a 640x480 (for message boards) option,

Dave