Preparedness for when

Perplexed_Pineapple

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

Is anyone storing seeds???

I am prepping for financial meltdown ( well for the ever increasing prices of EVERYTHING)

Up until now I have been half heartedly doing things, but thinking about it loads....

so with the ever increasing costs, we might as well have power cuts etc, as we will not able to put the lights on......

Also with the erratic weather we have been having over the last few years food prices are going to get worse and worse... and possibly seed prices will start going up too, as the demand is getting more, and poss less seeds being produced because of the weather??

I am going to look into which is the best way to store seeds for long term ( years) storage, before I spend hours searching anyone know????

I put an order in with realseeds.co.uk yesterday - the idea is that they use pure varieties rather than hybrids so you should be able to collect the seeds from the fruit/flowers that you grow and grow true to type (if not cross-pollinated by other nearby crops). I'm also saving seeds from this season's crops where I can. One of the good things about seeds is that they are very cheap to ship around the world so if local seed growing conditions are bad, it's unlikely to be a crisis.
I've noticed that in our part of the world there is a lot more demand for allotments over the last couple of years. We don't have one yet, will be looking for any to become vacant, in the meantime considering a bit of guerilla gardening in a local abandoned site :rotfl::rotfl:

nuatha

metherer wrote: »

Has anyone seen this chap's videos before?

What do you think of them?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRjIbIRXnQM&list=PLDF146EDA9066E4D5

I wasn't impressed with his approach to breadmaking, his assumption that all you would get from freshly milled grain was a brick - though he's added a still at the end in response to comments which changes his recipe and improved the final product.
Skimmed a couple of his other videos, and the comments thereon, overall seems to have a fairly level headed approach. However face to camera as a prepper could well make him a target.

I will look at some of his other videos, if nothing else its another point of view that can challenge my assumptions.

COOLTRIKERCHICK

Thanks GQ:beer:..

We haven't got a compost bin/area yet up the 'ranch' this winter we are going to prep part of the garden, we have already started cutting back/down some of the trees to open it up more, as the ground does seem to hold the water,did have some scaffolding boards for a £1 each to make some raised beds, but hubby has got them now to use to level the ground around the house for the scaffolding:mad: so need to find some more..

We will be prepping the area throughout the winter, and hoping that we will be able to plant a something in the next spring..

We have pigs, so I can 'poo pick' their runs and ad this to the tops of the raised beds throughout the winter, so it will break down into the soil...

We need to grow a lot more, to try and help with feeding the pigs, as pig food prices even though we have got a great deal at the mo, prices are going up and up... and if/WHEN SHTF we need to be ready for feeding the pigs too, even if it is up until they are pork chops:D

COOLTRIKERCHICK

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

If you have a riding school nearby, wouldn't they let you have the manure?

I'd imagine they'd be glad to get rid if it.

we have a livery across the lane, we buy our straw from them.

But I am sure there was something a few years back about you shouldn't use horse manure, something to do with the worming stuff, and weed seeds in the poo and then being transferred to your garden through the compost??

pineapple

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

and if/WHEN SHTF we need to be ready for feeding the pigs too, even if it is up until they are pork shops:D

Did you mean chops or was it a freudian slip? - perhaps another business initiative heading towards Dragons Den :rotfl:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006vq92

nuatha

Originally Posted by mardatha View Post
We had a power cut of 5 days once as well WSC.

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

How did you cope?

More to the point, how did any non-prepping neighbours cope?

When the likelihood of severe power-cuts is just part of your life then it isn't generally regarded as prepping, just normality.
I have family in some fairly remote areas, their pantries would put mine to shame, but that isn't prepping per se, just the way they and their parents before them live.
When I first met one of my Great-Uncles, he was on the mainland to buy a new freezer, the sort of thing you'd find in the back of a supermarket - he'd built a barn to house it and the gennys. He'd not regard himself as a prepper, and though other people might envy his location as the perfect off-grid lifestyle it was just where his family had lived for several hundred years.

COOLTRIKERCHICK

pineapple wrote: »

Did you mean chops or was it a freudian slip? - perhaps another business initiative heading towards Dragons Den :rotfl:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006vq92

ooo I am great at doing things like that, my mother allways used to say I was like Hilda Baker ( showing my age now)

pineapple

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

ooo I am great at doing things like that, my mother allways used to say I was like Hilda Baker ( showing my age now)

Don't worry. Now where did I put my teeth................? :think:

nuatha

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

Thanks GQ:beer:..



We have pigs, so I can 'poo pick' their runs and ad this to the tops of the raised beds throughout the winter, so it will break down into the soil...

We need to grow a lot more, to try and help with feeding the pigs, as pig food prices even though we have got a great deal at the mo, prices are going up and up... and if/WHEN SHTF we need to be ready for feeding the pigs too, even if it is up until they are pork shops:D

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

we have a livery across the lane, we buy our straw from them.

But I am sure there was something a few years back about you shouldn't use horse manure, something to do with the worming stuff, and weed seeds in the poo and then being transferred to your garden through the compost??

Horses aren't good at digesting stuff, so a lot of seeds survive going through a horse in a viable condition, you certainly don't want horse manure from an area that has Mares Tail as my Dad's neighbours found out - and my Dad a few years later when it had spread half a mile.
With pig (or chicken) manure you either want it very well matured (two to three years) or run a hot compost system which will break it down much faster (horse muck and straw can help achieve a hot compost that will also kill the seeds in the horse muck).
'Fraid I nothing about the worming meds causing problems in horse manure, I do remember scares about chicken manure containing heavy metals, but it hasn't reduced the popularity of it.
HTH

GreyQueen

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

If you have a riding school nearby, wouldn't they let you have the manure?

I'd imagine they'd be glad to get rid if it.

"Nearby" is the kicker when you don't have a car, Bob. There's plenty of places a few miles outside the city where they give manure away but you have to collect it yourself. And that's not feasible by pushbike (unless I was to be passing anyway and could pick up a small bag each time I pedalled by). But I don't bike that far out due to the ME............

If I had a car or van, I'd be sorted.

Autumn of 2011, I had a farmer from 15 miles out deliver 4 tonnes of mixed cow and pig manure, which did the lottie a power of good, and I'd previously had 5 tonnes of horse manure delivered as a favour (no longer available, unfortunately, those people have moved on). The last bits of that will go into The Rough - it's already stashed in a pile on the corner of it.

My current manure source is free but involves taking a wheelbarrow a quarter of a mile to the common and collecting the manure from the travellers' ponies. Our lottie holders does this frequently with their blessing. I'm building a heap of pony poo to compost over the winter and dig into the soil in the spring.

Baby steps. Depending on how well I feel after 2 hours of mattocking and forking carp out of the plot, I may mosey on down to the common again. Each round trip takes 30 mins, so I don't tend to do more than one a day.

In the future, we will sweat and trudge and lardiness will not be a problem for many, I suspect.:rotfl:

ETA nuatha, my lottie and the neighbouring ones (and half the whole large lottie site) are already infested by mare's tail which is terrible stuff. The mixed load of pig and cow manure was already partially composted, which was great.