Cunning Plan... Frogs, Ponds and Biocontrol

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Cunning Plan... Frogs, Ponds and Biocontrol
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cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Mon Feb 14, 05 3:46 pm Post subject:
I've sent an email to them.

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45670
Location: Essex

Posted: Mon Feb 14, 05 3:49 pm Post subject:
Ta mate

Bugs

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 10744

Posted: Mon Feb 14, 05 3:53 pm Post subject:
Yes, thanks Cab! Borrowed book by bloke from them, of the same name, (man is called Mr Fern, is it a law that garden writers have appropriate names? Apart from Gay Search obviously ). It was very interesting, so much so that I've deliberately not bought it because we don't have enough space for everything in it. Yet

wellington womble

Joined: 08 Nov 2004
Posts: 15051
Location: East Midlands

Posted: Wed Feb 16, 05 9:57 pm Post subject:

Don't forget to include a seat (or a space for a deckchair) sounds like a lovely place to while away a summers afternoon, watching frogs plop in and out of your pond, and listening the vegatables grow (if you shut your eyes you could ignore the weeds!)

Maybe if you put a metal grid over your pond (a really sturdy one) then the foxes wouldn't be able to get to it (weighted it down with stones) and the frogs would be have a safehouse. Also, if you put a black plastic drainpipe in, they can hide from the herons.

i don't know about the watercress - I know it gets a parasite near stock, and thats why you should eat wild stuff from clear running water, but I'm not sure about a pond. I'm having a go in a box this year - I was planning to make an overflow channel so that i could flood it, and water all my other veg at the same time!

gavin

Joined: 10 Feb 2005
Posts: 93
Location: Leeds, W Yorks

Posted: Mon Feb 21, 05 8:25 pm Post subject:
Just a wee thought - according to the older guys on my old site, frogs like to return to their original pond to spawn; for a bit of insurance, collect some spawn and pop it into your pond? All best - Gavin

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Mon Feb 21, 05 8:32 pm Post subject:

The general advice is to not to move frog spawn. Reasons:

1) There are quite a few diseases of frogs and toads that can be easily transported between ponds.

2) You may endanger an area of rare frogs.

I thought it was generally accepted that frogs and toads returned to the same pond but we have found frogs, toads and newts all spawning within the same year in our ponds. When we installed one in a relatives garden it was full of spawn in the next spring.

Marigold123

Joined: 06 Feb 2005
Posts: 224

Posted: Wed Feb 23, 05 1:00 am Post subject:

Perhaps frogs etc just remember where their nearest pond is rather than necessarily the one they were spawned in. If a better, or emptier pond appeared near the old one, some might go there instead.

I think the main problem with watercress is liver flukes from sheep. If you have a pond that isn't stagnant or obviously contaminated with anything nasty, there's no reason why the water has to be running. You can grow it in a bucket of damp soil, or even a jar of water on the kithen windowsill, until it runs out of nutrients. The watercress you buy in the Summer seems to have longer stalks, and I sometimes stick a stalk or two in a jar of water and watch the roots grow and new leaves start again.

When I was a kid the watercress my mum bought used to contain pond snails, freshwater shrimps and all sorts of wildlife, and you had to wash it carefully. We used to put the creatures in a small tank and keep them instead of goldfish!

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