Preparedness for when

GreyQueen

Glad to have been some help.

Nope, never grown salsify, never even eaten it, so would want to establish that it was palatable by my standards before giving over some ground to it.

I forgot the strawberries, which is nuts as one of the things I was doing today was breaking up a 3 y.o. strawb bed which was overrun with couch grass and moving the strawbs to a new bed. These strawbs are known on our site as Mike's Strawberries and have been passed from plotholder to plotholder for about 3 generations. I heard that they were one of the Cambridge varieties (possibly Delight or Surprise) but they have been passed from hand-to-hand for so long it's impossible to know.

They've got very large and fragile berries, extremely delicious, but they don't like being carried away from the site and I usually feast on them in situ. Still have friends raving about the bumper crop a few years ago when I had a strawberry tea on the lottie.

And I do mean RAVING. These are sophisticated people but they've never tasted one of these older varieties straight off the plant. And I love sending lottie visitors down to pick a peapod and eat them raw. They think I'm bonkers until they eat a raw pea for the first time ever - it's delightful to watch their eyes light up.

ETA. am LOL at the woodpigeons around your way being sweet and gormless. The ones on my lottie site are fat, cunning and positively evil. A lottie pal told me how he'd driven up with some trays of cabbage plants which he'd started at home and was down on bended knee planting them out, when he happened to look up.

A row of the evil beggars was already lined up on the runnerbean frame, leaning over with evil glints in their eyes, waiting to swoop the second his back was turned. And I'm still nursing a grudge about the 6 Sweetheart cabbaged the beggars shredded on my plot back in 2008. I only had 6, they were absolutely perfect, and the pigeons ripped the crowns of them into ribbons overnight.

I've made pigeon pie in the wild wet woods with the Mad Bushcrafters. Starting point one pigeon, shot and be-feathered. If we get into a famine situation, those beggars will be my go-to source of protein.

Hollyberry

Eating straight from the plant is always a bonus. And I'd forgotten the pleasures of peas from the pod (plus the pod itself, come to that). More additions to the list there then.

Salsify is one of those veg that you love or hate, as it has a very distinctive taste (think asparagus/Jerusalem artichoke kind of territory). I found two sources of it last year, but both more than 20 miles away, so only do-able if we were heading there for other things. One was black salsify, which I'd never heard of before, but was delicious.

[Deleted User]

siegemode wrote: »

Hi,
Have some catching up to do, but just watched a thought provoking film and wanted to share as it falls within the possible shtf events.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/dirty_war

OH found it on you tube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Husw6T7rlo

Off to catch up now.

Thank you seigemode. I don't have a TV license and don't generally watch that much on iplayer. I watched this and boy am I glad that I live in remote area of the country. This had had me on the edge of my seat this evening.

jk0

fuddle wrote: »

Never say never

I don't know what kind of dwelling you are in BB but if you're anyway attached to other dwellings it can happen. I was sat in my lettings office the other day when the call came into say that there was water coming up through the floors and quite quickly. Turned out to be a burst in one house that effected all 3 in the street.

It made me think twice about flood risk not being solely due to weather issues and another reason why I really should get that bob assembled again.

Ditto! Thought you guys might be interested to have an update about my tenants' flood:

Cleaners arrived on Thursday with dehumidifiers and fans, and ripped up all the carpets. In view of the extent of the damage, the builders seem to have had a change of heart regarding their liability, and have suggested we claim on our buildings and contents insurance. This does not pay for tenant's alternative accomodation, so I will be stuck with now five nights' hotel bills.

Pictures here: http://www.getreading.co.uk/news/loc...-after-6368949

thenanny2die4

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

The other bane of life is those who think it is fine to park ON the pavement, be they mums collecting kids from school, delivery vans, workmen doing jobs or many people involved in a building project they all park just far enough onto the pavement to make it impossible to pass on the inside of the vehicle thus pushing mums with pushchairs and dog walkers into the oncoming traffic on the road.

I get SO cross about this. When I worked for a family with identical twin girls, I would walk for miles with them in a side-by-side double pushchair. Some days I would just growl a bit and walk in the road but, if I was in a particularly awkward frame of mind, it wasn't unusual for me to go banging on doors and demand the offending vehicle be moved. :rotfl:

Kittikins

jk0 - I would resist the builders' entreaties for you to claim on your own insurance if at all possible. 5 years ago I had a blocked pipe in my loft which caused quite a lot of damage to my house. I claimed on my insurance and since then, some companies refused point blank to insure me, others wanted 2 or 3x the previous year's rate - just because the word 'water' is involved.....


Even if the builders do pay for things, you will still have to declare the problem has happened, but hopefully you won't have such high premiums!


HTH - and naturally, so sorry to hear you're having this nightmare

nuatha

jk0 wrote: »

Ditto! Thought you guys might be interested to have an update about my tenants' flood:

Cleaners arrived on Thursday with dehumidifiers and fans, and ripped up all the carpets. In view of the extent of the damage, the builders seem to have had a change of heart regarding their liability, and have suggested we claim on our buildings and contents insurance. This does not pay for tenant's alternative accomodation, so I will be stuck with now five nights' hotel bills.

Pictures here: http://www.getreading.co.uk/news/loc...-after-6368949

JKO I would talk to your insurers and see whether they wish to pursue things with the builders insurers. I would also ask the builders for details of their insurers - they should be paying public liability insurance - and inform their insurers that you will be pursuing a claim against their clients and how do they advise you proceed.
Anything that is not covered by insurance should be a separate claim against the builders.
Landlord's insurance usually does cover emergency accommodation, I've provided emergency accommodation several times with the invoice going directly to an insurance company.

siegemode

[Deleted User] wrote:

Thank you seigemode. I don't have a TV license and don't generally watch that much on iplayer. I watched this and boy am I glad that I live in remote area of the country. This had had me on the edge of my seat this evening.

I found it a bit disturbing and I'm glad I hadn't watched it prior to going to Wembley Stadium and staying overnight back in September. I hate London, in fact any large urban area and was nervous and on high alert as it was. When I'm away I feel really wobbley without my preps close by. When we visit FIL up north for 4/5 days every 6 to 8 weeks as lovely as it is to see him I can't wait to get home and back to my comfort zone in bumpkin land
Wish he didn't live 200 miles away and in urban hell but we tried to encourage him to move when he was younger but he wouldn't hear of it.

GQ I can relate to so much in your posts and I'm sure we aren't far apart. I love peas straight from the pod and can't help my self when shucking them for dinner, sadly I don't get to pick them. As for Strawberries, how lucky you are to have such pedigree plants. I really miss the old varieties, it's the same though with apples and plums etc the old ones seem to taste better but are so difficult to find. Grandad grew strawbs for market and I'd eat so many when helping him pick them, 1 for me, 1 for the punnet and those odd shaped ones had to be eaten, all quality control of course

Hollyberry, Abel and Cole organic can be found online and they have Black Salsify when in season if that helps. Some of their produce is pricey but some is comparable to the big shops. I think they deliver to most areas and min order is £10 and delivery 99p

thriftwizard

Oooooh, fresh strawberries - I had some on my old 'lottie that were fantastic. Best eaten when orange; if you waited until they were red they'd gone squishy. But so delicious you could actually smell them from the road as you walked past the allotment site. Sadly they didn't "take" in the garden here, although we're only about 50 yards away, and my successor (jolly nice man, not his fault the "management" got the plot numbers mixed up & gave him mine whilst I was away, despite it clearly being worked) pulled them all out; he thought they were no good because they were squishy when red… A bit like my friend frantically picking off her beautiful black tomatoes & waiting for some red ones to appear!

Hollyberry

GreyQueen wrote: »

:)ETA. am LOL at the woodpigeons around your way being sweet and gormless. The ones on my lottie site are fat, cunning and positively evil. A lottie pal told me how he'd driven up with some trays of cabbage plants which he'd started at home and was down on bended knee planting them out, when he happened to look up.

A row of the evil beggars was already lined up on the runnerbean frame, leaning over with evil glints in their eyes, waiting to swoop the second his back was turned. And I'm still nursing a grudge about the 6 Sweetheart cabbaged the beggars shredded on my plot back in 2008. I only had 6, they were absolutely perfect, and the pigeons ripped the crowns of them into ribbons overnight.

I've made pigeon pie in the wild wet woods with the Mad Bushcrafters. Starting point one pigeon, shot and be-feathered. If we get into a famine situation, those beggars will be my go-to source of protein.

I can see the reasons for your lack of love. :rotfl:

The ones here provide way too much entertainment at the bird tables. I am particularly fond of the one that can't quite figure out how to fly in to land on the roofed bird table, and spends a lot of time sliding down its slate roof like Eddie the pigeon-faced Eagle, and spectacularly failing to launch until it realises it's time to fly. Perhaps I should send them over to your local feathered Fagins for reprogramming.

ETA - Siegemode - thanks for the nod on Abel & Cole and black salsify. I use Riverford at the moment and have never seen it there, so it might be time to switch.