Free food

Producing herbs, spices and vegetable matter

Free food

Postby jenny_haddow » Wed May 28, 2008 8:30 am

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

Image
Last edited by jenny_haddow on Sat Jun 28, 2008 11:12 am, edited 5 times in total.
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Postby Paul Kribs » Wed May 28, 2008 10:32 am

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.

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Regards, Paul Kribs
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Postby jenny_haddow » Wed May 28, 2008 11:32 am

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
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Postby Paul Kribs » Wed May 28, 2008 12:47 pm

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 :lol:

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
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Postby Spuddy » Wed May 28, 2008 9:49 pm

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

It's a bit big though :shock:
Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus.
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Postby wheels » Wed May 28, 2008 11:26 pm

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?

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Postby Paul Kribs » Wed May 28, 2008 11:40 pm

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

Regards, Paul Kribs
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Postby jenny_haddow » Mon Jun 02, 2008 8:24 am

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
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Postby saucisson » Mon Jun 02, 2008 11:31 am

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,

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