really old style living?

mardatha

PHEW! Thank god I have no money and didn't buy ! wow annie thank you. I will have a ferret around and see what I can swap you for them
Hex, thats a terrible difference ! There is a poundshop I could get to if I had to , but we dont have Wilkinsons. Whoohooo roll on next summer !!

huxley

Hi and thank you all for the brilliant information I pick up from here, although this thread and some of the other similar ones are very addictive! I'm getting a dab hand at the five minute sprint clean because I spend too much time reading:D If you have a Savers near you (like a superdrug) they are still doing sugar at 59p I am stocking up for blackberry jam making

RAS

mardatha wrote: »

Ok ta. A neighbour with a big garden gave me the blackcurrants, and she has redcurrants too, so I thought I'd ask. I am sat here looking at gardening sites that sell fruit and veg plants..:D My moneysaving crusade is def clashing with my self-sufficiency/survivalist crusade !

Hold it.

If your neighbour has a big garden with redcurrants, she will need them pruning.

All you need to do is ask her nicely after leaf fall for some of the prunings. Stick 6 inches in the ground somewhere were they will get rain and leave until spring. By then you will have some free reducrrant bushes, the same size or bigger than you could buy. It really is that easy, I have a dozen right now that no-one wanted this spring. Hope to get rid next spring.

I do some with quite large "cuttings", I mean anything up to about 60cms and they make decent sized bushes. Most flower and fruit in their second year, about what you would expect with bought stocks.

You can do the same with gooseberries and all the currants.

hex2

Thanks Ras - I wonder if I am brave enough to do this to the communal garden ones......

RAS

hex2 wrote: »

Thanks Ras - I wonder if I am brave enough to do this to the communal garden ones......

Do you mean there are plants in the communal garden that need pruning this autumn? If so, read up and offer to do it, then use the pruning to make you own bushes.

After all this is how the big garden companies make bushes, although on a massive scale.

Easy peasy and all parties are happy.

mardatha

Just been out a walk along the back road and found a load of rasps ! Knocked at a door and asked for a carrier bag and I CAN MAKE MORE JAM NOW !! whooohoo

Gigervamp

Watch out everyone, Mardatha's on a roll! :rotfl:

mardatha

A jam roll

RAS

If you are making rasp jam, these do not have much pectin. You need lemon juice, or a few of those red currants from your neighbour to boost the set.

katholicos

mardatha wrote: »

Just been out a walk along the back road and found a load of rasps ! Knocked at a door and asked for a carrier bag and I CAN MAKE MORE JAM NOW !! whooohoo

Mardatha, you crack me up. LOL! I wouldn't have the confidence to knock at a door and ask for a carrier bag...or did you know the person whose door you knocked on?

Oh i do look forward to reading your posts, so many of them make me :rotfl: