Preparedness for when

DawnW

Possession wrote: »

We have a small garden unfortunately, and much of it given over to large rabbit enclosures! Oh no, so thornless tayberries aren't really thornless? I haven't bought them yet so still time to change. I have a thornless raspberry I put in last year that I've had to move, and that's still thornless at the moment. But I don't have anywhere out of the way so I don't really want any evil plants! I have lots of herbs in pots already but the children like rhubarb so could do that (personally I think it's Satan's fruit). What's a stepover apple, do tell!

Stepover apples might be a bit fragile for a limited space with rabbit runs etc? How about a loganberry? The fruit is similar to a tayberry and has no prickles. They are very easy to grow.

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

JKO look in the Polish section of world foods in Mr.T and you will find tins of p a t e and also foil tins of the same. A health food shop will have tubes of Granose p a t e in various flavours and if you get to the near continent, or know anyone who is going you will get glass jars of p a t e in lots of different meats. Hope that helps, Lyn xxx. If you have a B & M anywhere in reach they often have the small foil tins in packs of 3 and there is one decent portion in each tin so no opened tins to keep cool as you can use it all at once.

Lidls have jars of pate at the moment, 6 continental ones for around 3.99. Very nice they are, too. Any use?

nuatha

D&#8517 wrote: »

Possession step away from the tayberries!!!! lol I tried growing these for years and now um wish I hadn't as my 'thornless' varieties have turned out to be evil boogers! The fruit is lovely BUT grow them somewhere out of the way

I'll second this - in fact anything bramble related. Unless you have a lot of space and the time/willingness to fight them to a standstill ear in and year out.
I have a couple of square metres of raspberries, they will try to take over an area, but they grow vertically with some lateral shoots, brambles grow in every direction they can and branches root themselves where they touch earth.
I removed three briar roots in excess of 5 inches diameter last year - all from a loganberry my helpful FIL planted against my wishes. Half of my gardening work last year was attempting to eradicate this loganberry and a bramble, this year I'll have to remove and replace fences. (And thornless is an aspiration, not a reality) to have any hope of winning.

You could try a stepover apple underneath or strawberries,rhubarb,row of perennial herbs??

Stepover apples (horizontal cordons) are an excellent idea. Good description/instructions here

If you have a large garden then you're laughing. My father kept us in veg around 9 months of the year. He grew less fruit, and blackberries and cobs were always foraged rather than take garden resources. He also did fresh stawberries and new potatoes for Christmas dinner.
I have nowhere near the space he had so I'm more selective in what I attempt to grow and plant more intensively - if you're in a similar situation it might be worth looking at Square Foot Gardening And if you've got a plot like my Dad had (120 foot by 40 as the veg garden, about the same as two flower gardens) then I'm jealous

jk0

DawnW wrote: »

Lidls have jars of pate at the moment, 6 continental ones for around 3.99. Very nice they are, too. Any use?

Oh, thank you Dawn. Very useful. I can see Lidl from my bedroom window.

Possession

That's very helpful thankyou Nuatha. :T
I definitely don't want to be fighting brambles. I need a rethink. The mini apples look very sweet, I'd like to try a couple of those as well as growing something up/across the fence. I have another fence to grow something up (spaces for 3 plantings) but other than that it's just containers I'm afraid.

GreyQueen

Love the look of your wood and coal stores, Butterfly Brain. And all the best for your surgery and we'll look forward to having you back when you're cleared to type. You did tell the 'orsptal that you're needed back on the web toot de sweet, didn't you?!

Gave Mum one of those butane stoves at the weekend and she watched fascinated as I demonstrated it by making tea. She's now a convert. Gave her a pack of 4 cylinders at the same time but did stress the need to get more, particularly if there's the start of some rocky energy times. Very pleasant to see LBMs going off. I have also stashed her home with candles and matches (she knows about this, thinks I'm bonkers) as trying to look out for the oldies in event of a crisis.

Was talking to my Nan (born 1923) about the 1930s. They were village dwellers and things were pretty darned poor, athough probably having veggie gardens and fresh air protected them from some of the worst deprivations which were common in urban areas.

Now Nan doesn't talk about The Olden Days very much at all, she much prefers modern times but I thought to ask her about crime, particularly as the banditry on the lottie sites was on my mind. Did people steal eggs and chickens back in the thirties? Yes, they did. Mostly eggs. Chickens were proportionally a lot more expensive than they are now, and even Mum can recall rarely eating chicken and that an old hen permanantly off lay or a spare male bird (to save the sweary filter having conniptions). So stealing a chicken in the 1930s was a serious dent in the houshold economy.

Righty, that's enough drivel for one evening. Keep prepping, lovely peeps. GQ xx

nuatha

Possession wrote: »

That's very helpful thankyou Nuatha. :T

You're very welcome.

I definitely don't want to be fighting brambles. I need a rethink. The mini apples look very sweet, I'd like to try a couple of those as well as growing something up/across the fence. I have another fence to grow something up (spaces for 3 plantings) but other than that it's just containers I'm afraid.

On the less usual front, a friend grows figs - container is best because they need the roots restricted, she has a sheltered South facing wall, further along the same wall is a fan trained espalier peach.

Climbers would do well growing up your fences, FIL used to grow his beans in containers against a wall (concrete footings and path, no way you could put a bed in there.)
I have several deep raised beds, (deep because they are easier to work with back and hip problems) but they are just large containers. (Too large to move though )

Afterthought, I think it was Memory Girl who did a tutorial on milk bottle strawberry planters but I can't find it on her blog. This is as close as I can find showing the idea (third photo down). I'm thinking of moving my strawberry plants into something similar possibly along side some tumbler tomatoes.

HTH

nuatha

mardatha wrote: »

I've got wild strawbs growing mad all over the front border and on the path, but I leave them for the birds. I was wondering if I could do them in a planter type thing? They would be cleaner up off the ground. They do grew very well and have spread even into the mint, so they must be tough.

The wild strawbs will do well in a container - currently mine are actually in some guttering clipped onto the wall below my kitchen window. (As mentioned in another post, I'm considering transferring to a rack made of milk bottle containers).
Wild strawbs have a fantastic flavour, I only grow wild and alpine strawbs, the berries may be tiny but they really are worth it.

greenbee

nuatha wrote: »

Afterthought, I think it was Memory Girl who did a tutorial on milk bottle strawberry planters but I can't find it on her blog. This is as close as I can find showing the idea (third photo down). I'm thinking of moving my strawberry plants into something similar possibly along side some tumbler tomatoes.

HTH

found it for you :-) http://mortgagefreeinthree.com/2013/06/the-hanging-gardens-of-cupar/

I like the idea of a fig, so need to check whether my south-facing wall gets enough light...

thriftwizard

Greenbee, we're not that far from you & have a fig producing mightily against a south-facing fence along the side of our driveway. And I've lived, a little further north, with a fig tree that's been flourishing & fruiting in a reasonably sheltered spot for over 500 years; Brown Turkeys in both cases. In both cases they are overshadowed by buildings throughout the winter & only get full sun in summer, but don't get a lot of windchill. You will lose the second crop of every year - or maybe it's the first, the one where the fruits set too late and in warmer climes would overwinter before ripening next spring, but the main crop are to die for, juicy & finger-lickin' sweet.

GreyQueen

Now just stop it with the figs, you two, clearing the drool off the keyboard is getting tiresome.

I don't have a south-facing wall. I dream of a walled garden of mellow red bricks, a proper suntrap. Instead, I have a windswept allotment oriented NNE to SSW. You have to do some canny positioning with runner beans to avoid them catching the wind like a sail when in full-leaf and being blown over at 45 degrees. After several consecutive years of experimentation, I have worked out that wigwams of canes in a staggered formation allow the wind to go past not through. I also put a central bean cane right in the middle for extra strength.

My new-in-2013 lottie neighbours put their plastic polytunnel/ greenhouse broadside to the prevailing wind, despite my gentle hint that this Wasn't A Good Idea when I saw them trying it in various positions on their plot. They repaired it a couple of weeks later and repaired and re-inforced it several times over the next 4 months until it was reduced to shreddings. Every penny sunk into that was a penny wasted.:(

We really can't have plastic greenhouses up there, unless they're on the small minority of plots which are sheltered.

Lots of urban areas are going to have sheltered nooks and crannies where there may very well be a small area of microclimate which may create the perfect eco-niche for something a touch exotic, so don't dismiss what might seem an uncompromising prospect without some experimentation.

nuatha, I have eaten alpine strawberries whist sitting on the edge of an alpine meadow and they are tiny, exquiste taste explosions. Nothing like their bigger cousins at all. Gorgeous. I still grin at a pal in Aberdeenshire who returned to his isolated cottage after working away for a few weeks one summer and found that his alpine strawberries had died of heatstroke.:rotfl:

Heard something new from my Dad this past weekend; turning off the BBC TV news in disgust saying how it's all propaganda. This happened several times. Dad's a keen student of history and very widely-read. People who meet him out of context, such as out hillwalking, take him for a uni prof or a teacher (he was a labourer and a factory worker before retirement) so I'm guessing he's seeing the transparency of the Lie from a historical context.

Watch out Dad, it's one small step to looking at the bookmarks I have on your home PC and finding Zer0 Hedge.:p

Today's cunning plan involves some paid work then back to the homestead to await the Computer Wizard with the new power unit. Need to pimp this old PC up, it's only 12, haven't had my money's worth yet, by heck. Nothing bad has happened to the unsupported XP system, insofar as I know, anyway.

Well, unless you count the annoyance of the pop-ups every time I turn the pooter on. They're so very red and bossy.