Preparedness for when

sb44

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

How neat is this? :cool:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSjCY2kGyfI

I know that my eye test is due, I just read that as Self Cooking!

Muh!

Butterfly_Brain

Mar my DH has built me lots of raised beds so that I can carry on gardening, I can just sit in a chair and dig away merrily with a trowel.
You can borrow him if you like

Perplexed_Pineapple

Mar, if you want to try raised beds it might be worth thinking about the sort that come a foot or more off the ground, it would be really helpful with a bad back I would think having seen a friend's. The more usual sort are 6-8" high and are good for soil warmth and improving drainage.
I'm a bit less cynical about GM crops - I think TPTB see GM as a way of maximising yield, by increasing disease resistance, increasing the size of fruit and grain and increasing drought resistance. Which is just what farmers have been trying to do by cross-breeding since biblical times, certainly well before Gregor Mendel looked twice at his peas and thought "that's interesting". GM is just a powerful new tool in the age old struggle to make crops more productive and I don't have any major objections to it in principle although I'm worried about the loss of diversity ultimately making us more vulnerable. What I do object to, very strongly, is the monopolisation of the new technology by companies like Mons%nto, the way it can be abused to take control of agriculural land in the third world, and the attempts to suppress traditional methods to enforce their monopoly.

Perplexed_Pineapple

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

How neat is this? :cool:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSjCY2kGyfI

I like it but it looks pretty bulky and heavy. Also the noise from the motor would give your presence away - one of the main advantages of a bow in interesting times would be how quiet it is to use I expect.

[Deleted User]

sb44 wrote: »

Whenever I have lit a match I always run it under the tap before I discard it, just to make sure it is def out.

Same principle as breaking it, but of course, my method works where there isn't a tap.

[Deleted User]

If I'm thinking right the GM crops aren't fertile and the seed can't be used the following year which means that the suppliers will tie poor farmers into a never ending cycle of having to purchase new seed stock from them every year. It will mean that the farmers stay poor and the companies supplying the seed will get richer every year and perhaps put up prices at will. Not a fair system I feel let alone the implications of cross pollination with native plants here, who knows what super weed will emerge, think of a Japanese Knotweed that couldn't be controlled, how much of a disaster would that be?

mardatha

Nobody who will build raised beds for us, but I can do bags and tubs and let the grass grow around them. Or try to get some bl**dy energy back and go for it again next year. ty xxx

herbily

I'm glad you're back, 2T, I was missing the regular dispatches from Greece, because it was a fascinating insight into major austerity measures, and please let us know how things are doing now (once you're settled back in).


GQ, very sorry to hear about your Nan, but great that the family are rallying round. Hope the cold shifts itself, it's been so wet recently it's not surprising that there are nasty lurgies waiting to leap out at people.


On the subject of peas, I've just read in this month's Kitchen Garden mag that you can sprout dried peas, and have terribly fashionable pea sprouts grown indoors to eat as a vegetable, thus foiling scheming pigeons.

daz378

GC hope your Nan is soon on the mend.......faarrmyfoods in salford at least are doing 3 tins of steak and kidney for a fiver...... book recommendation sci fi prepping .. the martian by andrew weir about a guy stranded on Mars.... really enjoyed it.....

sb44

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

Same principle as breaking it, but of course, my method works where there isn't a tap.

I only use matches in the house so I am ok.