Preparedness for when

Shropshirelass

What happened was, honeysuckle branches disappeared slowly, and plum-like shoots growth gradually got more, and started producing two or three small, purple fruits. I don't mind - you cant eat honeysuckle, just think we need to plant it in the ground to get a chance of a better crop, which in my future plans is going to make sloe gin.

GreyQueen

herbily wrote: »

Horsetail is supposed to be brilliant for curing cellulite, but you need a lot of it, the equivalent of a large jugful for each bath, and you need a hot bath with horsetail in every day for at least six weeks to see results - I've never been able to find enough horsetail to test this! So really you're very lucky to have this source of horsetail....

(Also, owing to something known as the Law of S*d, the moment you actually want a plant, it dies on you - ask me how I know:))

One man's meat is another man's poison, as they have it.

I'm insufficiently bothered by cellulite to faff around with weeds in the bath tub but I'm sure there'll be a gardener somewhere near you who'd just love you to help yourself to their horsetail.

You can scour pans with it, too; the silica in the plant makes it scratchy. next time I need to wash a load of greasy pans up on the lottie, I'm sorted.

Darned stuff is everywhere. I was picnicking on a mountain saddle in Bulgaria - yup, there was horsetail growing. Wandering in the Tuscan countryside - yup, more blinking horsetail. It's pan-(scouring)-European.

Sorry.

Time for my Horlicks, staightjacket and bedtime story.

Shropshirelass

We don't seem to get horsetail here, but a lot of groundsel . My mission is to pull it up before it makes its nasty floaty seeds.

Mrs_T_M

Shropshirelass wrote: »

What happened was, honeysuckle branches disappeared slowly, and plum-like shoots growth gradually got more, and started producing two or three small, purple fruits. I don't mind - you cant eat honeysuckle, just think we need to plant it in the ground to get a chance of a better crop, which in my future plans is going to make sloe gin.

Just jumping in here to say that you can eat honeysuckle. I make jam out of the flowers and they are also wonderful fresh!

I'll go back to lurking until I have a bit more in common with folks here to speak of.

GreyQueen

Shropshirelass wrote: »

We don't seem to get horsetail here, but a lot of groundsel . My mission is to pull it up before it makes its nasty floaty seeds.

I once borrowed something called (from memory) The Daily Telegraph Book of Weeds.

Very useful little paperback. It colour-codes weeds red/amber/ green according to how perfidious they are.

Most of the stuff on my lottie fell into the RED category. It aslo postulated the idea that a lot of a certain weed was an indicator of a certain soil type.

Obviously, weeds are illiterate, as mine were indicating that my soil is wet/ dry/ acid/ alkaline/ fertile/ poor/ shady and sunny. My conclusion is that what a weed's presence in numbers indicates is that it was previously present in numbers.

My litany of shame; curled docks, common mallow, horsetail, common bindweed, greater bellbind, fat hen, shepherd's purse, black medic, creeping thistle, field poppy, misc dandlionish thingies which I get confused about, sow thistle, dandelion proper, goosegrass, many different varieties of grass inc ones up to 6 feet tall, chickweed, hairy bittercress etc etc.

I also have feral English marigolds (calendula) and self-sown ruby and regular chard. I leave the marigolds for the insects and occasionally harvest the chard for myself.

westcoastscot

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

Talking about the newspapers, always reminds me of this episode of Yes Prime Minister.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGscoaUWW2M

Ouch BB :rotfl:

bluebag

herbily wrote: »

Horsetail is supposed to be brilliant for curing cellulite, but you need a lot of it, the equivalent of a large jugful for each bath, and you need a hot bath with horsetail in every day for at least six weeks to see results - I've never been able to find enough horsetail to test this! So really you're very lucky to have this source of horsetail....

(Also, owing to something known as the Law of S*d, the moment you actually want a plant, it dies on you - ask me how I know:))

Cor the gas bill for a hot bath every night for six weeks would pay for liposuction .... and leave all the dratted horsetail fror GQ to do mighty battle with!

bluebag

Greyqueen,
sadly for you all that lot is inedible adversarial herbage, but it's a herbalists stock shelf. Many of the weeds are good for butterfly and bees too of course.

Small comfort if you have to 'do battle' with them before growing green beans tho. But if they get too much you can comfort yourself that you are allowing a herbalist meadow garden to grow.

thriftwizard

GQ, quite a lot of your weeds are chicken heaven, too; find a local poultry keeper & I'm sure you could come to some arrangement like donating fat hen, dandelions, goosegrass, chickweed etc. in return for some eggs; one of our local allotmenteers keeps my girls well-supplied!

nuatha

GreyQueen wrote: »

How deep is a shallow mineworking, btw? Am from a non-mining area.

75 to 90 foot in this case (I don't know which end of the drive it was) that being a seriously old mineworking, most of the pit was a lot deeper.
(incidentally those were the workings that collapsed when I was young, taking several groundfloors with them.

I don't beat myself up about the horsetail although some tender souls have quit adjacent plots because of it. We shall square up regularly and I aim to hold the line. In my fantasies, I am a Boudicca in gardening duds, steely-eyed and determined, with a mattock in one hand and a tea flask in t'other. The [STRIKE]Romans[/STRIKE] weeds won't know what hit them.

In boring old RL I'm just another nutjob who likes playing in the dirt. Beats going to the gym, imo.

Really like the Boudicca image - would scythes on a skateboard work against the slugs?

Mrs_T_M wrote: »

Just jumping in here to say that you can eat honeysuckle. I make jam out of the flowers and they are also wonderful fresh!

I'll go back to lurking until I have a bit more in common with folks here to speak of.

Mrs_T_M with knowledge like that, please join in. We're a bit of a mixture of knowledge and experience, I've never heard of of honeysuckle jam, now I'm looking forward to making and trying it. Thank you.