Preparedness for when

ALIBOBSY

Wow this thread moves so fast you get busy for a while and its a nightmare to catch up lol. Managed to skim the last few days.

Congats to Nuatha who appears to have got married and good luck to ev1 who is dealing with tough stuff and prepping hard.

TBH it's the garden that's taking up all my spare time at the mo.

My GH toms are covered in flowers and in some cases LOADS od green toms. The seeds I got from Lidl last year, but didn't use till this have been brilliant. The variety is "Hildare" which I think is German and is supposed to be disease and blight resistant. So far the 3 plants have grown like triffids and are covered in green toms.

If they taste good then its a winner with me just for speed of growth and early formation of fruit.

From a prepping POV I found that turnip flower tops taste pretty much like sprouting broccoli and that 60 day Italian broccoli "raabe" is amazing easy to grow and produces a fab crop in such a short time compared to the other brassicas.

I also tried the yellow brassica flowers in salads from the various items "gone over". I also read recently that turnip seeds are great eaten in the pods as a snack and are full of good fatty acids-great for a prepping food so as well as eating the turnips tops and flowers from the 2 plants that randomly bolted out of the row and leaving some for the pods.

Reading up it seems rapeseed is in the same family as turnip/broccoli et al so growing some to let go "over" for the fats in the seeds could be a useful prepper knowledge.

MIL gave me a book she got and decided it was no use to her. called the "many uses for bicab or soda" its a useful preppy book that has given me a few new ideas already e.g. a teaspoon dissolved in a glass of warm water helps stop hiccups or relieves indigestion. An idea I had never heard of before was as an ant killer. Basically mix icing sugar and bicarb at a ratio of one to one-the sugar is to attract the ants and make them eat it. They take themix with them to the nest and it gets eaten. The bicarb reacts with the formic acid in the bodies and the resulting "wind" literally blows them up :eek:.

Ali x

spanishlivinginUK

Hi all!
Just a quick update on my elderflower champagne!
I got back from Dubai last night and bottled it this morning, it's still quite fizzy! It's already made the bottles quite hard with pressure! I'll let you know how it tastes in a few weeks.
This has made me read quite a lot on home brew and I think I will be trying different things! I've seen a recipe for strawberry wine made with ribena! It sounds very interesting and its a 'beginners wine' all ribena is is a fruit concentrate I guess. Watch this space!! Lol

lillibet_dripping

ALIBOBSY wrote: »

Wow this thread moves so fast you get busy for a while and its a nightmare to catch up lol. Managed to skim the last few days.

Congats to Nuatha who appears to have got married and good luck to ev1 who is dealing with tough stuff and prepping hard.

TBH it's the garden that's taking up all my spare time at the mo.

My GH toms are covered in flowers and in some cases LOADS od green toms. The seeds I got from Lidl last year, but didn't use till this have been brilliant. The variety is "Hildare" which I think is German and is supposed to be disease and blight resistant. So far the 3 plants have grown like triffids and are covered in green toms.

If they taste good then its a winner with me just for speed of growth and early formation of fruit.

From a prepping POV I found that turnip flower tops taste pretty much like sprouting broccoli and that 60 day Italian broccoli "raabe" is amazing easy to grow and produces a fab crop in such a short time compared to the other brassicas.

I also tried the yellow brassica flowers in salads from the various items "gone over". I also read recently that turnip seeds are great eaten in the pods as a snack and are full of good fatty acids-great for a prepping food so as well as eating the turnips tops and flowers from the 2 plants that randomly bolted out of the row and leaving some for the pods.

Reading up it seems rapeseed is in the same family as turnip/broccoli et al so growing some to let go "over" for the fats in the seeds could be a useful prepper knowledge.

MIL gave me a book she got and decided it was no use to her. called the "many uses for bicab or soda" its a useful preppy book that has given me a few new ideas already e.g. a teaspoon dissolved in a glass of warm water helps stop hiccups or relieves indigestion. An idea I had never heard of before was as an ant killer. Basically mix icing sugar and bicarb at a ratio of one to one-the sugar is to attract the ants and make them eat it. They take themix with them to the nest and it gets eaten. The bicarb reacts with the formic acid in the bodies and the resulting "wind" literally blows them up :eek:.

Ali x

Hi Ali,
The field outside our back gate has been an absolute picture of yellow loveliness this year as the farmer has planted rapeseed there. As happens, some has grown in my garden and I have, without meaning to:o, let it run to seed.

Can I harvest the seeds and somehow press them to get oil or are we talking a large scale operation? Are they any use at all - there are probably 4 - 5 plants which have grown about 5' tall.

Ta muchly
Lilli

babyshoes

My brother has been evacuated from the floods in Calgary. I'm not sure where he's staying (I have a feeling his friends in the area may be far enough away to escape the floods, so he could be with them) but we've had brief messages to say he's safe, which is a relief! Doubt he's got anything that could be considered preps, but we come from a family used to 'making a plan', so I'm sure he'll cope somehow!

pineapple

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

Forgive me Pineapple, but I thought that salt kills yeast and sugar makes it grow. Salt is used as a preservative more than anything.

I think you meant this for the perplexed version! :rotfl:

mardatha

We seem to have a stash of pineapples..

D&DD

Speaking of pineapples I'm drying two more in the hope that some may make it into store..I'm not counting on it tho!

Glad to hear the day went well Nuatha and MrsNuatha X

I'm a year older t'day :eek: 21 a couple of times over plus a bit!

OH surprised me with a bunch of munstead wood roses and a beautiful card and the boys got me a Keep calm and carry on clock and apron,choccies and an amazon voucher! Feeling very spoilt and looking forward to my flake cake later

Will catch up when things are back to normal OH has tomorrow off so we'll be attacking the garden so I'll be glad of a sit down by Tuesday

Have a great day all XXX

VJsmum

Happy birthday D&DD

Congratulations Mr and Mrs Nuatha

:T:T:T:T:T:T:T:T:T:T

the_cake

Huge congrats and love to Mr and Mrs Nuatha - look forward to hearing more about your happy day, xxx
I am currently 'recycling' a couple of things surplus to requirements on the bay of E, they finish in about an hour and a half, and am happy to report that they have just reached enough £££ to allow me to buy a dehydrator (sadly not an Excalibur), just in time for the fruit and veg. season. Woohoo!

[Deleted User]

Hello all, I'm back again

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just when you thought it was safe?????
Interesting reading the debate about water over the past couple of days. I'm of the opinion that if you don't make the connection between emergency prep at home, for you and yours, take some responsibility for your own future, even if it's only setting up a waterbutt underneath a downpipe from the roof then you are only going to suffer mightily if and when there is a problem with the water or any other utility supply. I like to keep some big containers full of potable drinking water indoors, these are emptied into the water butts for the garden regularly every 3 months and filled again from the tap. I like to keep in good stocks of tinned, dried, preserved even frozen food, so in the event of shortages we wouldn't add to the problem. We, like so many others of you have a productive veg garden, and an allottment and use as much of our crops as we can fresh, but maximise on them by making pickles, chutneys and jams and freezing veg and fruit, it is only common sense. I can believe that there is a percentage of the population who are oblivious to anything that isn't directly in front of thier noses but for the life of me I cannot think of how to get the population in general to actually take on board that the ubiquitous 'THEY' will have to let it happen, and everyone will suffer the subsequent consequences. I think that in the long run the 'THEY' would look after themselves first and maybe the unprepared would find life extremely hard, Lyn xxx.