Garden Pond | Rearing Carp: Dinner’s In The Pond
First it was fruit and veg. Then we turned our hands to keeping chickens and bees. Could the next thing be using the garden pond to grow our own edible carp? Is it time for Gordon the Goldfish to move over?
Jimmie Hepburn, formerly a salmon farmer in Scotland and one of Britain’s leading experts in organic aquaculture, certainly believes so. He argues that at a time of depleted wild fish stocks – predicted by some scientists to collapse by 2048 – backyard carp could play a vital role in feeding us.
The joy of carp is that, unlike most other farmed fish – which depend on a diet of meal made from wild fish (which further depletes fish stocks) – carp are omnivorous and devour almost anything. Basically, they’re the aquatic equivalent of the household pig that was fattened on kitchen scraps.
“At present we’re locked into a stone-age system of fish farming using wild fish that’s completely unsustainable,” says Jimmie. “Now that wild stocks are pretty much exhausted, we have to think of other ways of producing fish.”
One answer, Jimmie believes, is back-garden fishponds like those that helped to feed us in medieval times. The challenge is to persuade Britain’s pond owners to rear fish as food rather than ornament.
“Unlike on the Continent, in Britain we love our ponds – we have over two million in this country. So there’s a huge interest already. Fish is part of our culture,” says Jimmie, who admits to becoming hooked on fish at the age of five and now runs Britain’s first organic carp farm.
“I chose carp as it’s the easiest fish to rear, and the fastest-growing. And, unlike other farmed fish such as salmon and trout, they don’t need lots of fresh running water.”
This autumn Jimmy and his wife, Penny, will be running small-scale fish farming courses to help people get going. Last month they gave me a taster course at the 10-acre former trout farm, hidden in deep Devonshire countryside, that they bought in 2006. “All you need is a pond that’s at least 3 by 3 metres,” says Jimmie as we tour his 17 ponds, keeping an eye out for kingfishers which unfortunately are as enthusiastic about Jimmie’s new venture as he is.
“We feed our carp a mixture of grains,” he explains, showing me a tub of soaking grains that look much like my morning muesli. “The bigger ponds also get regular doses of organic cow manure, which creates its own ecosystem of algae and plankton that provides the fish with around half the food they need.”
Carp ponds are great for children as they can help to feed the fish – anything from worms to bread, says Jimmie, who hopes soon to invite schools to visit so that children can be given a chance to grasp the idea of rearing their own edible fish. Will carp ponds one day be a feature of the school playground? I wonder.
“You stock your pond in the spring with baby carp. In around three years you will have plate-size fish which make a very presentable family supper. The best months to harvest them are November to February.”
A murky carp pond may not be as eye-catching as an ornamental one, just as a veg patch can lack the visual appeal of a herbaceous border. But given the constant stream of inquiries he has received, Jimmie believes perceptions are changing. “Many people now find a pond that’s producing for the pot more attractive than one that’s just designed for the eye,” he says.
So with carp as easy to grow as cucumbers, what’s not to like? Some complain about the taste, which they say is muddy. Carp rarely features on restaurant menus and you’ll be hard-pressed to find it in your local fishmonger or supermarket. Let’s face it, from a gastronomic point of view, carp isn’t cool.
In Britain, that is. But look further afield and you realise we’re on our own. In Asia, among the Jewish community, and in Eastern Europe, carp is highly sought-after. More carp are farmed for the table worldwide than any other fish. In Poland and the Czech Republic the fish is the prized centrepiece of the Christmas festive dinner – visit any home on Christmas Eve and you’re likely to encounter a carp languishing in the bathtub, waiting for its final knock on the head before being turned into a feast.
There are signs things may be slowly changing here in Britain. When Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall did blind tastings for his TV series on fish two years ago carp came out surprisingly well. London’s El Vino chain of wine bars has been putting Jimmie’s carp on its menus, and several supermarkets now sell carp at Christmas, mainly for their East European clientele. Consumers are also increasingly eco-conscious, with many preferring to buy fish they see as truly sustainable to fish that’s been fed a diet of
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