Preparedness for when

craigywv

help peoples please......................dilemma,at present have oil fired ch. and our fire place is open....................local council doing gas in our area and we apparently are allowed it to be installed free of charge as ours is a housing assosciation house we just pay rent here we don't own it. should we go for gas or keep with the oil. see im afraid the oil will run out globally but will the gas also run out ? advise needed here please and thanks.xxx

[Deleted User]

Leaving aside, for the moment, the question of the fuel running out, isn't oil fired heating horrendously expensive to run?

craigywv

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

Leaving aside, for the moment, the question of the fuel running out, isn't oil fired heating horrendously expensive to run?

I have it down to a fine art bob on an hr in morning then off when boy goes to school.................light fire in living room about 4.30 then oil on again at 6 for warm water for max of 2 hrs. I can keep house warm like this for approx. 250/year that's coal included . my house is a tiny 2 bedroom house which is very easy to heat. I have door curtains,draught excluders etc.

ALIBOBSY

GreyQueen wrote: »

I'm easing into the day, going to head lottie-wards midmorning to delve around in the earth and discourage any dadblasted couch grass regeneration. That stuff reminds me of the magic broom in the Micky Moose water carrying scenes from Fantasia......it just keeps on coming.
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I thinki it's important to mention to any preppers who aren't presently gardening, that you don't just whip into a bit of lawn or a bit of misc wild country and make a garden in one season. You have a lot of graft to get good soil and it requires constantly tending.

Sooo, if you were half-thinking if the veggies get any dearer we're gonna dig up the lawn and grow our own, it might be better to make a start on the project sooner rather than later.

I agree about couch grass drives me mad, it got into one of the raised beds and I have been digging out for the last 4 years, finally starting to make some headway, but only just lol.

Also the growing veggies thing is very true, the biggest thing I have found is the books and "official" advice is often geared to large scale production and describes the "perfect" way to do things, this always seems to be expensive and/or time consuming. It also doesn't take into account the difference you local can make, not just the area of the country, but each plot has its own characterstics. I have found you learn far more by doing, than reading.

Apart from salad leaves which are dead easy and so cheap, which work from day one-as long as you watch for the slugs lol.

You also learn to chance things to see what works, where the general advice will not be the same.

E.G I have just normal lettuce/salad leaves romping away in an unheated greenhouse. I also have some oriental leaves that are supposed to take lower temps as a back up. I also have potted up a celery to move it under cover, so far it has romped away and is great for fresh celery at the mo. Admittedly we have only had a few frosts as yet, so a good solid freeze may take stuff out, but if you don't try, you don't know.

Also I am doing a little experiement with onions and leeks. I had quite a few leftover seedlings-I grow from seed for the saving in cost. Instead of throwing them away they are in module trays and I will see if they survive the winter for some early veg next year, worst case they will be chive like or spring onion type and go in stews/soups.

Ali x

GreyQueen

ALI, not happy that you share the hell which is couch grass infestation, but it is nice to know I am not alone in the fight. I have horsetail, too, plus both bindweeds and other stuff of vegetative horribleness. O the curled docks.............!

My Dad sometimes queries why I don't dig properly, i.e. with a spade and turning stuff under. I dig with a fork, so I can get hold of the horrors and remove them. He's now come to understand that there is a big difference between Nan's back garden (lottie sized and cultivated by him in 2-3 hours on a Saturday morning), and my lottie.

The garden has been cultivated consistantly since the 1950s by gardeners who knew what they were doing and did it well; the old boy, then Grandad, then Dad + Grandad and now Dad alone.

My lottie was derelict for several years and had completely reverted to rough meadow over trash piles.

The garden is bordered by a mown flat lawn on one side and an ancient hedge onto pasture to another. It doesn't have weed seeds blowin' in the wind and couch grass roots sneaking under the wire fence from next door on both sides.

My lottie has derelict plots to the left and the right with couch grass taller than me (and I'm just shy of 6 feet) dropping seeds. Plus a derelict top of the plot over the back sending brambles and nettles. I spend a fair amount of time fighting to hold the line against encroachment both from top growth and underground. In an ideal world, none of that would be necessary.

I take gardening books with about a bucket full of salt. There is NO substitute for getting out there and experimenting. No one can tell you exactly what will and won't work. In 2012, Dad failed for the first time in 60 years to get a single parsnip to germinate. Never happened before or since, still doesn't know why.

I was reading an excellent softcover book called something like The Daily Telegraph Book of Weeds and it colour-codes weeds red, amber or green depending on how pestilential their habits. Most of my weeds fell into the red category. It also told you what kind of soil was indicated by the preponderence of what kind of weeds.

Sooo, I have soil which is; dry, waterlogged, peaty, acid, alkaline, rich and poor. All at the same time. Which is BS; I have silty soil over almost pure yellow sand, free-draining and inclined to fly to dust at the drop of the hat. This I know about the sand because I have been a very long way into the soil after some bramble roots and it's like builder's sand down there.*

I read somewhere in a gardening book that you just pile up clods of couch grass, cover with a tarp to exclude the light and in a year or two it rots down to a lovely compost with no trace of the grass.

I returned that book to the library to stop me throwing it across the room. I tried that in RL; you end up with a very slightly lower-than-you-started-with pile of perfectly viable couch grass. Riddled with slugs. And if you put slug pubs out, they fill up with sozzled slugs which all disappear one day at once (presumably eaten by birds who are now flying upside down across the lotties going Wheeeee!!!!!!!!!!!)

* Passing wits were joking about digging to Australia. I have a mattock and an attitude problem when it comes to getting out brambles; leave the burgers nowhere to hide.

All in all, gardening for veggies is quite possibly character-forming. And blister and backache forming, of course.:rotfl:

jk0

craigywv wrote: »

help peoples please......................dilemma,at present have oil fired ch. and our fire place is open....................local council doing gas in our area and we apparently are allowed it to be installed free of charge as ours is a housing assosciation house we just pay rent here we don't own it. should we go for gas or keep with the oil. see im afraid the oil will run out globally but will the gas also run out ? advise needed here please and thanks.xxx

I would take the gas. It is a lot more convenient than oil. Keep the fireplace(s) though in case of power cuts. (Buy chimney balloons to temporarily block them.)

Regarding running out, they can make gas from all sorts of things. Oil is a little harder.

ALIBOBSY

GQ ours is in a garden and raised beds over what was a lawn. Not sure why the CG is just in the one bed, but so far the others seem ok.

Otherwise we have the usual suspect, dandelions, the odd nettle, and dock leaf. Most of the rest are annuals. I usually have two buckets when I weed, one for the compost heap and the other goes to the chickens. They love a nice pile of weeds to root around in/eat and nothing survives them lol.

Ali x

DawnW

craigywv wrote: »

help peoples please......................dilemma,at present have oil fired ch. and our fire place is open....................local council doing gas in our area and we apparently are allowed it to be installed free of charge as ours is a housing assosciation house we just pay rent here we don't own it. should we go for gas or keep with the oil. see im afraid the oil will run out globally but will the gas also run out ? advise needed here please and thanks.xxx

Well, we have gas now but have used oil in the past, when we lived in an area without a gas supply. I am talking several years ago, but I found oil to be more adaptable, in that there were no standing charges, I could look into the tank to see how it was lasting, and when it needed filling up could ring round different suppliers and easily compare prices. It was usually possible to play them off against one another by getting several prices and challenging the supplier I used last to equal or better the cheapest. All tried hard to get me to commit to a 'plan' where you paid monthly and were tied to one supplier. I resisted, but for all I know this may not be possible now.

So, it is not a straightforward choice - but don't let them take that fireplace out whatever you do!

COOLTRIKERCHICK

CraigWW..

We nearly changed our central heating from coal to gas 20 o years ago, so glad we didn't now... also the place was on an electric token meter, we looked at having to take it out, as the electric is cheaper by DD etc... but I am so glad we didn't.

If I was in your position, and this is purely from a financial/budgeting point of view, I would stick with the oil, as once you have paid for it, that's it, Plus you can monitor how much oil you have left, and as you can physically see how much you got left you tend to be a lot more careful with your useage..same as us with the electric, as we are paying by the prepaid method, it is easy to control the usage as you are going along... not in blind panic after you have ha the bill..

Are there any reasons why you would want to change, apart from the council, offering to change it??

COOLTRIKERCHICK

Just found this link via a post in the ms arms

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/443462/Winter-2013-expected-to-be-worst-since-1947-with-heavy-and-persistent-snow-forecast-for-UK

I know back in the late summer people who predict the weather via the signs in nature ( trees, berries, birds etc) and the rumours have been dismissed by the met office and such like, BUT the newspapers still keep on printing that this is going to be worst winter on record/ 60 plus years etc..

there will be blackouts due to the power surges, and not enough coal getting to the power plants...lack of food getting to the shops..Prices going through the roof..etc

I know again this has been talked about before, but people on here that have been following the sites that predict the weather by nature, and don't listen to the met office, do these sites tend to be right or wrong? Hit or miss??

Also I know this might sound a bit off topic, but for me its another way of prepping to get the max for my money, and try an beat the price increases:D

I have never bought from sainsbugs before, but I have had a £15 off a £60 online spend, plus TCB are offering £5.05 if you place your first online order via mysupermarket..

I have had a quick look and I can buy a load of tinned cat foo, but do you know of any REALLY good prices/offer they have on storecupboard things at mo?? As after taking off the price of the delivery I will be £15 plus up on savings on things I would have bought anyway..