Dawgluver
Chef Extraordinaire
- Joined
- Apr 12, 2011
- Messages
- 25,033
Stalking the wild asparagushroom.
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OK, I'm going to guess that this conversation morphed a whole bunch along the way. I just tuned in and read the last page and there is nary a reference to mushrooms at all.
OK, I'm going to guess that this conversation morphed a whole bunch along the way. I just tuned in and read the last page and there is nary a reference to mushrooms at all.
Watercress grows in very cold water. Last April when I went to MN, we went to WI for my uncle's b'day (Easter weekend, 2011). On Easter Sunday, we went out and gathered watercress. It was a pain to clean, but oh was it good! I miss watercress. I've tried to "seed" the area in the bush around the culvert, but the water is not cold enough (or deep enough).
This is not a street culvert, it is a drainage culvert that we put in to help drain the runoff from the tile-drained fields into the bush. Where I live, because fields are tile drained and there are 6 ft drainage ditches between fields, it is common to put in a culvert when you make the path to cross from one section to another. The water is ground water--no cattle, no runoff along it. I've been eating wild watercress my entire life. Based on the locations were we get it in Northern MN and Wisconsin, I'm not worried about the quality of the water. These locations are not along roadways. There is such a thing as being too paranoid. And, no, we do not cultivate the fields, so no fertilizers on the fields back there. The neighbours no longer farm their acreage either, so no fertilizers. However, it is a moot point, the water wasn't cold enough nor was it fast-flowing enough for the cress to grow.Be EXTREMELY careful re: harvesting wild watercress. It's an unfortunate fact that long gone are the days when one could count on pristine waterways, & since watercress liberally sucks up the water it's growing in, you are in turn also ingesting that same water & anything that's in it. Frankly, I'd find it an unappetizing turnoff thinking about the purity of water flowing through a culvert.
Sorry to sound like a wet blanket, but being intestinally compromised myself, I strongly dislike the idea of anyone becoming ill - possibly seriously - due to easily preventable food misadventure.
Be EXTREMELY careful re: harvesting wild watercress. It's an unfortunate fact that long gone are the days when one could count on pristine waterways, & since watercress liberally sucks up the water it's growing in, you are in turn also ingesting that same water & anything that's in it. Frankly, I'd find it an unappetizing turnoff thinking about the purity of water flowing through a culvert.