Preparedness for when

maryb

GQ I really appreciate it when you tell us what you are doing on your lottie because that seems much more real somehow than those lists you get in gardening books (which always start off by saying " this month you should be harvesting...." none of which grew last year!!).

But it is a perennial mystery why my seed potatoes which have been sitting in full light for the last two weeks are as smooth as the day they were dug up whereas my supermarket potatoes bought less than a week ago and kept cool and dark are positive triffids!

maryb

per Zerohedge, capital controls have been imposed in Ukraine and withdrawals limited.

When we bought our woodburner five years ago one of the reasons was so that we would have a source of heat if Russia turned off the gas to Ukraine. I was laughed at for being paranoid

RAS

maryb wrote: »

GQ I really appreciate it when you tell us what you are doing on your lottie because that seems much more real somehow than those lists you get in gardening books (which always start off by saying " this month you should be harvesting...." none of which grew last year!!).

But it is a perennial mystery why my seed potatoes which have been sitting in full light for the last two weeks are as smooth as the day they were dug up whereas my supermarket potatoes bought less than a week ago and kept cool and dark are positive triffids!

mary

Chitting of seed potatoes is not necessary; basically it prematurely ages them and leads to slightly earlier yields (possibly) but smaller yields.

Seed potatoes will have been kept on cold stores until released for sale quite recently.

How well ware potatoes have been kept varies massively; even more so if they have been imported. It also depends on variety. One lot of mine were growing legs when I looked a couple of weeks ago and the other had barely shifted; they are bags in the same sack under hessian sacks in the cellar.

Shropshirelass

Just calling in to say, definite smell of frost tonight (Welsh hills were white with snow today) I have just tucked up my few remaining salad greens, under a cosy blanket of bubble wrap for the night.
Love hearing about your growing tips GQ though I know the ground and conditions here are quite different.

Situation in Crimea is interesting - armed men in unmarked combat gear and vehicles, occupying airports and border posts. Like a prepper novel, or do I mean nightmare?

GreyQueen

maryb wrote: »

GQ I really appreciate it when you tell us what you are doing on your lottie because that seems much more real somehow than those lists you get in gardening books (which always start off by saying " this month you should be harvesting...." none of which grew last year!!).

But it is a perennial mystery why my seed potatoes which have been sitting in full light for the last two weeks are as smooth as the day they were dug up whereas my supermarket potatoes bought less than a week ago and kept cool and dark are positive triffids!

It's perverse, isn't it? I have about 1lb of last year's tatties in a bowl in the kitchen and I'm rubbing the shoots off them, at the same time I have this year's seed potatoes sitting in egg cartons in the living room with shoots on them.:rotfl:

The best place to chit potatoes is somewhere light but frost-free such bedrooms with little heat in them. My living room isn't ideal according to tradition (very warm) but it works OK and is the only option I have. The potatoes were bought with the starts of shoots on them and they will grow, in the light, stubby shoots. Tatties in the dark grow long spindly shoots which isn't what you want.

Commercial growers plants tatties by machine and they aren't chitted but they smack 'em in deep and hope for the best. With chitting, the home gardener/ allotmenteer is attempting to get the drop on the growing season by starting them off. I plant my potatoes when the chitted shoots are about 1" long and the tips look like they're about to uncurl into leaves. Once you see that, into the ground they go.

I plant by running a garden line across the patch and digging a hole with a trowel and then placing the potato gently inside. Because I'm daft, I smile beneficently upon it and may give a small word of encouragement. With each row planted, I get a landscaping rake and draw the soil over, working first from one side then the other, to form a steep-side baulk. Then I pull the line out, place it about 1 meter./1 yard from the baulk, and repeat.

The reason I do it this way is that I can break off the planting one line at a time. One year I didn't have any help and had to plant the spuds on 3 consecutive days, it was so tiring. By raking up the baulk as I plant, I can essentially leave the spuds alone, bar weeding, for months.

Spuds break the soil erratically across the baulk, some coming thru sideways near the bottom of the trench and some peeking out of the top, and any point in between. And on my plot they come out on the southerly side of the baulk before the other side (the soil will be warmer to the touch if you care to test this with an ungloved palm).

There's also a pretty big time-lag between the first sign of the first spuds and them all being through, easily 2-3 weeks. By experimentation, I can say that my spuds will first start to emerge about 20-25 days after planting. I want them to be relatively small by out last-frost time which is circa 16th May. If they're too big, they'll get badly burned. Frosted tater tops will grow back, but you have to remember that they energy to do this is in the tuber, and if they have to do it twice or thrice, the tuber is getting weaker. Until those tater tops are unfolded and photo-synthesising, the stored energy of the tuber is all the little darlings have.

If I have help from Dad, we sometimes do the speed version of tater planting which requires a helper. Put the line across as described above, one person sticks in a spade vertically and levers it back-and-forth to create a v-shaped slot, and the other person slides the tater down the back of the spade and into the ground. Earth up as before.

I am a little concerned about your seed potatoes not sprouting, though, as the ones I was looking at in various shops (got mine in Wilk0) were already shooting well in mid-Feb. Is it possible that they were somewhere and got frost-nipped? Dad had that last year with some bought from a ususally-reliable market trader. He returned them and got replacements which were fine. The trader had had a few complaints; he'd got unlucky with leaving the seed spuds on a van when there was a freakishly bad frost and didn't realise that they'd been injured until his customers starting bringing them back again.

You sometimes get the odd seed spud which just won't shoot, the gossip is that they have 'virus' in them, which may or may not be scientific, but that should be the rarity. And I have a couple of gaps every year on my rows, ususally a patch on 2-3 adjacent baulks, where I knew chitted spuds had gone in and nothing but weeds appeared. Never figured out what happens then.

I would say if they don't show signs of life soon, think about taking them back to where you bought them and complaining, as that just isn't what should be happening at all. Plus, if you leave it too long, you'll be chasing all over your town for the last seed spuds and may not get the varieties you want.

I'm sowing mostly Kestrel Second Early and some Nadine Second Early, about 3:1. Grown Kestrel many times and find them good on my soil, the Nadines were make-weights so we'll see how they do. HTH.

Frugalsod

mardatha wrote: »

I wonder what would happen to state pensions paid through a bank if that bank failed? It's never happened so I suppose nobody knows, but all our money comes through the RBS and its looking a bit dodgy now. Makes you think eh?

The government would be forced to step in and maintain the payments system. If they did not it would cause panic from customers in other banks and you would have a run on all the banks. Though there could be a limit on what you paid out. Maybe no more than £100 a day.

[Deleted User]

GreyQueen wrote: »

We shuddered at how near he'd come to leaving a widow and two young children fatherless.

Did you hear about that young lad who killed himself, because his parents confiscated his mobile phone? :eek:

[Deleted User]

paidinchickens wrote: »

Any advice on how to deal with blackmailing scum?

Put it in the hands of your insurance company.

That's what you're paying them for.

GreyQueen

D'you remember when the Cyprus fiasco was in full-furore last year and the UK Govt said it wouldn't be paying UK pensions into bank accounts over there which were locked-down? Anyone recall how that played out?

I was a bystander on a group convo with a bunch of people discussing the Ukrainian situation earlier today. One man remarked on how soldiers were pulling out of one area, and the other pointed out that he was Hungarian and the Russians did that to them once. And came back 4 days later with tanks.:( He said Hungarians don't trust their own government not to rob them and they sure as hell don't trust the Russians.

Putin isn't adverse to sabre-rattling and revels in his hard man image, so it's always hard to know what is posturing and what is real and probable cause for concern. If you check out the 'Hedge, they're reporting ordinary people withdrawing their money from their accounts. Not a bank run, but possibly the first signs of one.

The trouble with bank runs is that they are a self-fulfilling prophecy as if people think they can't get their money on demand, they're sure to try, and as we all know with fractional reserve banking, your money is a) their liability as you are their creditor and b) not even there in the first place.

ETA Bob, was that the lad who'd run up a big bill for it? Heart-breaking. Youngsters are so vulnerable because the parts of your brain which control judgement aren't properly formed at that age. His poor family............

ALIBOBSY

maryb wrote: »

OOh Alibobsy, you've brought back some memories with mentioning 78s.

There's one I remember which my mother always used to find killingly funny. Looking back I can see why

It's about a pioneer woman who for some reason I can't recall had to battle through a blizzard to her intended's house then collapses on the floor when she gets there. I think she rejects her mother's advice to dress warmly (plus ca change!!)

The chorus goes
Git up off of that floor Hannah them hogs has gotta be fed
It ain't no use a layin there like a doggone lump o' lead
I don't want no lazy woman if'n ever we get wed
So git up off of that floor Hannah them hogs has gotta be fed.

Every now and then when I am feeling unappreciated and overworked I find that chorus running through my mind:rotfl:

I recall one old song that for some reason terrified me and made me cry when little, it was "My baby has gone down the plughole", what a horrid song:rotfl:.

Ali x