Great British Food Revival

[VirginVegGrower]

Thanks for the link Bren
Thinking about my gripe about bagged leaves rather than bunches, it must be the change from manual picking of watercress to mechanised, as was shown last night. From the watercress website:-
"When the watercress is ready for harvesting, highly specialised harvesting machines cut up to two to three tonnes of watercress an hour.
The plant is then transferred to highly sophisticated pack houses, located close to the watercress farms in the south of England, so within hours, the plant has been chilled, and packed into ‘washed and ready to eat’ bags."
So unless there is a small scale producer who handpicks, we are forever doomed to chopped up leaves and sprigs.
I'm planning my own little watercress farm

Don't think so VC as my watercress off the market still comes in those same bunches, tied with blue elastics that he showed last night. It's Hampshire watercress. Not the best time for the programme as everyone will look for UK watercress and not find it in season.

[veggiechicken]

Thanks for the reassurance VVG that bunched watercress is alive and well and available from a market near you.
It dawned on me this morning that I can grow my own in free running spring water. Not in the wood, although there are springs there so it may be an option, but at the end of the garden!! There's a small stream that forms the boundary between my garden and the horsey paddocks beyond, and the spring rises in the field itself OK, its not on my land and is outside the fence but there are ways of getting to it Yet another little project

[VirginVegGrower]

Thanks for the reassurance VVG that bunched watercress is alive and well and available from a market near you.
It dawned on me this morning that I can grow my own in free running spring water. Not in the wood, although there are springs there so it may be an option, but at the end of the garden!! There's a small stream that forms the boundary between my garden and the horsey paddocks beyond, and the spring rises in the field itself OK, its not on my land and is outside the fence but there are ways of getting to it Yet another little project

Oh my I'd love that. We look down to the river but I know I'd fall in trying It's a five to ten minute walk over the back fields through the farm to get to the springs/streams here. They're not mine either, but nobody ever goes there now. I flung my Tansy seeds along the banks there and must go back to check on them! I am thinking of putting in those Molly blobs (Marsh Marigolds) that I bought from Malvern - still not planted and living in buckets.

[veggiechicken]

I've been throwing flag iris around the stream and they're growing well, and I've dug a scrape pond below the stream level that is usually boggy and fills up with the rain. Tried to dig a connecting channel to divert the stream into the garden and back out again but there were too many tree roots in the way
I do like playing in water

[Mikey]

I do like playing in water

I like swimming too?

[veggiechicken]

Swimming No - Paddling Yes - Mucking about - big Yes

[Mikey]

I'm quite keen on bombing, but they won't allow you to do it in a pool.

A friend of mine used to like bombing rivers, he now has a career making fireworks in china. Who says mucking about as a child won't get you no where.

[veggiechicken]

Its one way to make a splash!
I never liked swimming when I was a kid because I wore specs and they wouldn't let me wear them in the pool for school swimming lessons. Without them I couldn't see who was who and the kids would swim away from me and make fun of me I was like a fish out of water -floundering about. I still have no confidence in the water

[Mikey]

I'm a pisces, and often wet.

[veggiechicken]

I'm an old goat - no head for heights though

[VirginVegGrower]

I've been throwing flag iris around the stream and they're growing well, and I've dug a scrape pond below the stream level that is usually boggy and fills up with the rain. Tried to dig a connecting channel to divert the stream into the garden and back out again but there were too many tree roots in the way
I do like playing in water

Ooh sounds lovely VC. I am hanging onto my flag iris for my one day I may get one pond.

[veggiechicken]

Sounds better than it is in reality, VVG

[Farmer_Gyles]

who saw this last night??

greg "buttery biscuit base" wallace going on about raspberries .... and attempting to cook ....

and clarrissa wotsit doing rabbit .... i've been trying to persuade the missus to try rabbit and after seeing clarrissa, she fancies trying rabbit ....

sadly, rabbit is very difficult for people round here to get hold of .... no local butchers round here .... there were 4 i can think of that all closed down after big supermarkets took over .... and supermarkets don't sell rabbit .... if anyone round here wants rabbit, they'll have to go out of town to find a butcher and hope the butcher actually has rabbit .... or they can go to the monthly farmers market and pay 5x normal price for a rabbit ....

but i can get free rabbit from a friend of a friend ....

[veggiechicken]

Forgot it - but I did watch the programme about the Wild Wood and that would have clashed. Might watch the raspberry bit on iplayer. When I ate meat, I used to like rabbit but you could only buy it at the market or Chinese rabbit elsewhere Rabbit are supposed be the easiest of food meats to rear so why we had to import from China I never understood.

[chris]

who saw this last night??

greg "buttery biscuit base" wallace going on about raspberries .... and attempting to cook ....

and clarrissa wotsit doing rabbit .... i've been trying to persuade the missus to try rabbit and after seeing clarrissa, she fancies trying rabbit ....

sadly, rabbit is very difficult for people round here to get hold of .... no local butchers round here .... there were 4 i can think of that all closed down after big supermarkets took over .... and supermarkets don't sell rabbit .... if anyone round here wants rabbit, they'll have to go out of town to find a butcher and hope the butcher actually has rabbit .... or they can go to the monthly farmers market and pay 5x normal price for a rabbit ....

but i can get free rabbit from a friend of a friend ....

Can't you find a local huntsmen? Bags of land around Surrey... I'm sure a couple of beers for a rabbit would be a fair exchange in their eyes?

My neighbour gets offered rabbits, pheasants, wood pigeon etc. I'd snap their hand off if I were offered it, but I know my wife wouldn't eat it.