Having made the mistake, from a purely horticultural point of view, of standing my plant pots in saucers, I decided to have a microscopical look at what might be in the water collected therein.

I expected to see bits of rotted vegetable matter from the compost and maybe fragments of silica from the blood, fish and bone fertiliser that I fed my plants with, but little did I expect to see what is shown in the two short videos below.

As far as I can ascertain, these little beasties are copepods, which are tiny aquatic crustaceans and free swimming in the first clip. In the second clip the copepods appear to be trapped in a bubble with compost debris.

As we say here in Cumbria:

‘Ave a go yersel’!

stewartr178ATyahooDOTcoDOTuk

James Stewart

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