Preparedness for when

daz378

CC so sorry to hear of your loss

I am presently reading "Global warning survival kit" by brian clegg and may dig out my copy of One second after..

stayed in all day today dicky tummy good old liver salts... got until sunday to recover.......stay safe

GreyQueen

I hope he hasn't made a big mistake. A lot of American family farms have run into trouble getting into hock over these huge machines.

I know the kind of thing you mean. I nearly ended up wrapped around the front end of one on a country road. My little van was dwarfed by this monster which was virtually filling a two-lane B road. To let me squeeze past, it had to go into the field. And yes, the wheels were taller than a tall man.

To this day, I wonder what the heck they were thinking, buying something designed for a prairie in Canada or somewhere in the Corn Belt of the USA. Think of the weight of it on the soil.

I had to do a lot of work on the end of the allotment when I first took it on because in the years of its dereliction, it had been used as an occasional parking space by the plotholder next door. And I dunno what the kerb weight of a Fiesta is, but that soil was like concrete and took a lot of effort to get into its present light'n'fluffy condition.

Compacted soil is poor soil, water runs off, you get floods, poor root growth, lots of bad things. Grandad would have had forty-fits to see it.

DD&D, I think they'll be OK. The purpose of fleecing (or grassing in my case) is to stop the frost settling on the leaves. If you have a mesh already, it should serve the same purpose. I'm going to be scoping out old net curtains cheaply at bootsales etc with a view to adding them to the gardening preps for just such a purpose.

greenbee

GQ - if you ever fancy a holiday in this part of the world I'm happy to offer board and lodging in return for some help in turning my compacted-never-worked-since-the-house-was-built builders' rubble masquerading as a garden into something I can grow things in

I have an amazing amount of space to work with, but until the house is finished I don't have time to spend on it and it is driving me nuts. I really want to get a veg patch established, but haven't even managed to clear the rocks, let alone level it and build the raised beds I need to put the vast amount of compost I've inherited into!

D&DD

Thanks GQ I was hoping that was the case will be keeping my fingers crossed for everyones greenery to make it safely through the weekend!!


Greenbee I don't envy you hun,we moved here 14 years ago(new build) and the garden was a tip! It had a slope that was downright dangerous and when one of the boys cut their foot on the grass we decided to dig it all out and terrace it.The thing he cut his foot on was a chunk of concrete it took three men to lift and remove!


It took us about 4 years digging by hand,pickaxes and bucketing it out to a skip out front as we could afford to get one here and there,a wheelbarrow wont fit down the side either so it was morrisons flower buckets one by one...clay and chalk and concrete,no wonder the lawn never grew. I was a lot fitter then lol

greenbee

That's cheered me up D&DD

The house was built 30 years ago, and they obviously planted the garden up and then basically ignored it. It was mostly overgrown (not anymore and I have found some lovely stuff while hacking back the horrors), and the soil hasn't been worked at all. I keep finding bits of brick and slate as well as stones, and I haven't even stuck a fork or spade in yet.

What I need, and don't have, is time. What time (and money) I do have needs to be spent on doing the basics in the house. At any one time I seem to have two rooms out of action, and I need to spend my money on new windows and insulation before next winter!

D&DD

I have an idea Greenbee you say you have stacks of compost?? If you are time poor I'd lather the compost over it where you are wanting to improve the soil and let the worms do some work for you while you're concentrating on the house. We made our raised beds and half filled them with the rubble etc for drainage (plus we couldn't afford yet another skip!) and then just topped them up every year from the compost bin,took a few yers but our soil is beautiful now,might be worth a try??
Sounds lovely I'm sure it'll all be worth it in the end

greenbee

That's a good idea D&DD. I think I need to build the raised beds to put the compost in as there's a stream on one side of the space I've earmarked (actually, I also need to remove a couple of stumps, I keep forgetting about them!) and I need to make sure the compost doesn't just fall into the water... but with the compost heap gone I could start building the log store.

Next time I have a child-free weekend (I don't have my own kids, they belong to my brother & SIL) I'll have to get myself outside and doing some digging. Much healthier than stripping paint off walls and removing zillions of wall plugs which is what I've been doing lately in between working!

D&DD

ooh but the bonus is you have free child labour available once the beds are done lol wheelbarrows come in all sizes you know *insert wicked smilie here*


My DS3 was only little when we moved here and he insisted on helping fill our first raised bed..I have a pic somewhere of him sound asleep laying bum in the air on the dirt bless him.


Daz hope you feel better soon


Right need to get my smoked ham hock in the slow oven for tomorrows tea before I go to bed night all sleep tight XX

Frugalsod

I do not know if anyone has posted this:-

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-01/when-nations-go-broke-mob-justice

Showing the problems that could happen here.

thriftwizard

*** Phew! ***

No frost! It's a bright clear cool morning, but no sparkly bits in evidence here. I've had a lucky escape; once I've done my market I'll be trotting round with the old net curtains to protect them all tonight.

Scary reading, Frugalsod. I am under no illusions; it really could happen here, and some placid little backwater like this is exactly where it really will happen, rather than in an inner-city run-down estate where everyone's watching out for it. I watch the great & the good of our little town go puce & shake with indignation over some imagined slight from Westminster, and it's clear to me that the forces of darkness are not far below the surface...