It was getting tough in 2006 and the workhouse still threatens us in 2011

mardatha

I thought it was very interesting too. In fact I just stared at the pic for ages.....:rotfl::rotfl:
Question - for those of you who have LED lighting. Do you need a whole special fitment and transformer for each light ? I have a shop near me that sells them so could ask there - but he's 20 miles over a horrible road and its still raining and has been for days and I dono what state that road will be in.

GreyQueen

Good morning all, am awake and tea-d up but still shattered. Even tho I only work p/t (because of the M.E.) I find I'm really struggling by the end of Thursday. Just gotta make it thru a few more working hours and the I can go and wrangle with the lottie and a little of my social life.

Kittie, you asked me about storage of my spuds a few pages back.

After a few years of multi-variety experiments, I settled on Kestrel (2nd earlies) as a good, all-round tasty spud which seems to keep nicely.

According to the books, you're only supposed to store main-crop varieties but when I started on the lotties the old boys warned me not to do main crops as they always got blight. Since virtually every plot has tatties, it'll go across the site like wildfire.

The first year I grew lottie spuds we did get blight anyway, in early-June. I was up there about 8 pm one evening and all was well, haulms green and lovely and by 5 pm the next day all the haulm was listing 20 degrees from the horizontal, was yellowish and with dry dead brown bits.

I admit I stood there looking appalled; for one dreadful moment I thought a vandal had sprayed them off with weedkiller, it just didn't seem possible that nature could've gone so badly wrong, so quickly.

One of the old boys told me what to do; cut the haulms off immediately and get them off-site, then he said I could either leave the tatties underground and hope that the blight spores hadn't wicked their way down to the tubers, and dig them up in a couple of weeks, or follow Plan B.

I went with Plan B as that lottie (one which I shared before I had my own) had a small glass green house. Dug the tatties up and laid them on the greenhouse staging, with a couple of sheets of newspaper to keep off the light, for 24 hours.

Then, using an old paintbrush, brush loose dirt of each spud, checking for sort of "bronze" patches on the skin. It's kind of hard to describe the look of early blight damage, you sort-of have to see it to know it. Basically, any tattie which looked even slightly "off" as well as any which had been spiked by the fork, was put into a separate container.

I put the OK-looking tatties (and it was an excellent crop btw) into paper feed sacks from the farmer and tucked a few sheets of newspaper over the top to exclude any more light and kept in the lottie shed. Becuase of the blight, I'd tip them out on the floor twice a week for the first few weeks, then once a week, looking for anything which had started to go dodgy. There weren't very many and there were fewer each time.

You want to harvest the tatties on as dry a day as possible and leave them on the surface of the soil for a few hours, perhaps even turning them over once, so that they are as dry as they can be. If you consider that they aren't perfectly dry, lay them out indoors on newspaper, with newspaper above to exclude light, for a day or two. Hold back any with green bits, dings or piercings from the garden fork or slug/ critter damage for immediate consumption.

It's a good idea to police anything which you have in store, but my normal regime is to keep the tatties in their sacks (I normally have a couple of sacks, any excess go to family). Until the temperature cools in late autumn, they run the risk of sprouting, so you need to tip them occasionally and rub the shoots or they'll put their energy into that and go shrivelled and rubbery. Once it's cold outside, I hoik the tatties up onto deckchairs (I know it sounds bonkers but this is the truth) and wrap the sacks in newspapers and blankets. My reasoning was that they were stored in a wooden shed and this would get them off the floor to prevent frost penetrating and to allow some air to circulate. The sacks were in the centre of the shed with various other bits of carp piled up around them.

This eccentricity worked very well for me, and they kept very nicely, only needing checking and de-shooting in spring. I'd finish the last of one year's crop just as the new ones were ready.

Last year's viciously cold snap caught me on the hop and the tatties got frosted. I was beside myself; I'd expended a lot of effort protecting these from the late-May frost when they were growing only to lose 50% of them in storage due to carelessness. Kicking myself? My shins were black and blue, believe me. The only thing which made me feel a little less incompetant was that my country rellies lost stored potatoes for the first time since the terrible winter of 62-63 including ones inside garages and sheds and wash-houses.

A frosted tattie is a nasty thing; it rots and suppurates and blows out stinking white frothy liquid with an audible squirt. Eww.

This year, as mentioned a few days ago, I am going to use a rattan-type linen bin inside the bike shed at the Towers, with a hessian sack inside. The bike sheds are built of breeze blocks and the back wall of them is the side wall of a flat, so I figure it should be frost-free. I shall have to be discreet about loading them in, fetching them out and the sprout-checking, as we have a lot of thievery around here.

In the 17th century cottage which my parents rented as newly-weds, there was a proper attic, room height, window, boarded floor, which they didn't need to use for living space. Dad used to keep the tatties loose on the floor with newspaper under and over, and this made it very easy to keep an eye on them. There was no heat there bar a wee fire in the main room so it would've been pretty cold.

Most people seem to use sacks in shed and outbuildings.

One other thing that is worth mentioning is that the Vitamin C content falls dramatically throughout the year so that the same potato in September is 2-3 times better for you than it would be in February. Perhaps, if people eat a mixture of tatties, rice and pasta as their carb component, it would be best to eat the tatties in autumn and early winter when they ate at their best, and use the other things after New Year, for example.

Gosh, I've written an essay.:o Must slope off for more tea. HTH.

Hope everyone has a good day.

3v3

Frugal_Dreamer wrote: »

....
I shall not respond further and shall unsubscribe from the thread.

I do hope you reconsider and continue to post; we all have differing points of view and we are all entitled to them. In the same vein, we all have something to offer in terms of advice, tips, experiences and it would be such a shame if you withdrew your input - someone may welcome your knowledge (someone who may not have taken part in that particular aspect of the discussion which has caused you offense). Likewise, there will be ideas that may be new to you and could be of benefit.

On the OS front, its final day of teen boy visitors and I am not baking! The more I bake, the more they eat; the more they eat, the more they want to eat. Bottomless pits, for sure!

I'm waiting for a delivery today (replacement parts for the Dyson) so I think decluttering will be on the agenda, followed by a trip to the charity shop so they can utilise any of my culling

Have a good day, as best as your circumstances can make it

mardatha

Just had to lift all my tatties, blighted. We are so fedup of squelching through mud and we can't remember when we last saw the sun.

cookie9

Blackberry picking getting slightly harder now as some out of my reach and cant stretch much as pregnant. Apples now all ripe so planning to stew some. Anyone got an easy recipe for some form of tart as do have some puff pastry in fridge?

[Deleted User]

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mardatha

Oh dont start me off about men. My RV gets even rattier every day! it does drag you down although you try hard not to let it. We have somebody coming round from the council this afternoon to check the house is up to standard re insulation & heating. The RV went mad cos I had had laid the potatoes we lifted this morning, neatly on 2 sheets of newspaper on the spare room floor, to dry out. He went beserk! I said well excuse me but I didn't grow the bloody things all year just to have them rot because some erk from the cooncil is coming to look at the house - and anyway I dare say he will have encountered a tattie before in his life ! :rotfl:

redlady_1

Mine are stored in paper sacks and they last for months and months. All the farmers back home sell them in the paper sacks too. I generally have two sacks a year when I go home and that does me.

Margaret54

Hi everyone Have been reading all the posts and have picked up such wonderful tips so thank you so much. For the first time ever I decided I would grow tomatoes, and there are so many now. I feel so excited when I check on them every morning, and my dh loves to look at how they are growing too. Some are bigger than others and lots are like tiny peas:) but all is well, and we grew lettuce too. I find that just picking off the leaves we need for salads works well. I passed a couple to our lovely neighbour and she was so pleased bless her. I felt good that I could do that, as I love to share. Lots of rain here in the past few days. Price of food climbing every day, so being very careful. Lots of little things as well to prepare for winter, thanks to all the great tips from you lovely people. Have a good weekend and hugs to those who could do with one.xx

gailey_2

Hi guys

apologies for absence im still alive.

school hols and small baby boy 19weeks yesterday times gone too fast.

enjoying no school runs.

news with us

*had joint christening for 2youngest last sunday was lovley but pricey even me trying to do as much on the cheap as I could.

*garden bit dissapointing this year and struggling to forage there were no cherries this year dont know why? also I missed the edlerglower was gutted so going totry making elderberry wine instead.

*since the car insurance confusing costing hubby 500quid of fine the 9points meant over 1000 a year increase in car insurane so need to find savings of £100per month just to stay even.

*I started with sky and cut down package, negocaited half price movies my only luxury and moving phone/broadband over from virgin saving us £60a month.

*need to focus on food again as used few dicount codes done online shops.
but we need totopus fresh weekly so doing smaller weekly shops instead of stockpiling.
think we need to go lids soon.

*lost 1half stone on slimming world but thats costing me about £25 a month but hopefully reach target soon then be free.

we all eating healthier just the kids like locusts and eat eat eat. doesnt seem to last 5mins.

we spending approx 400a month including some nappies and household and all foods.
going to try reduce this to 350.

*no hols for us maybe few daytrips. went to zoo farm other week as won tickets in a raffle I never win anything one bit of good luck.

*panicking as not managed to save for xmas but have started xmas shopping already gotbargain rocking horse in milgarage need todo a few carboots.

*trying to have mass declutter tidy and organise house once and for all.we giving the girls our room the largest!

*workingout what clothes they need finding with 3kids its ahell of a lot of laundry,use cloth nappies on baby too.

Talking of laundry our driers playing up still under warrenty so someone coming to look.
using line more on nice days.
Washing machine making horrible noise on spin like its going totake off think its the bearings and its slowly dying.
went to shop and he said most manufacturersthink people do 4loads a week we do 3-4,loads a day which is what they classify as commercial.

*trying to find part time job to fit in around hubbys as struggling on 1 wage.

*hubby finally tookkids camping in garden they lasted 2hours!

*eldest my stepson being good at the moment at least.

*sickened by riots in news i avoided bristol centre this week. just dont getit.yes its tough but to turn to crime and violence feel really mad about it.

Do hope everyones ok. thankyou for everyone who missed me.will try to regular post again just find not enough hours in the day!