Last year, this was my water chestnut pond. And it worked so well. In this little suburban garden I have so little space that everything has to be miniature, but the discipline of making every centimetre count has been good for me. Astonishing how much you can produce in a small area intensively managed. Water chestnuts in one side, kang kong in the other, and as much of each as we could eat in its season. If I’d had a bigger pond, I would have just produced more than we need.
I still have a couple of tubs of water chestnuts in the fridge, just as well. Cos all the best, biggest ones that I planted in there are gone. A pair of peewee parents have decided that is the perfect mud for nest building. All day, back and forth, beak full of mud with a little of the compost it is made from, a tag team for weeks now.
I did think of netting over the top, but peewees (besides being impossibly cute and having a glorious song) are carnivores with a special partiality for caterpillars, grubs, insects, larvae and snails. And they will need lots of them to feed the chicks.
So I think that is, for now, not a water chestnut pond but a Bunnings for peewee home renovators. They’re improving the neighbourhood.
