Preparedness for when

GreyQueen

AnimalTribe, I'm so glad you've had success planting branches. Five of my six blackcurrant branches planted in Dec are alive and I have hopes the sixth may make it.

I was discussing this with my Dad, a good ole farm boy who's done trad hedging back in the 1950s. He told me hawthorn and lots of other things will root like this, and also that he's recently used sticks from buddleia as row markers on the veg patch and they're growing, plus I accidentally got willow from sticks gathered to support the pea crop one year.

He also reminded me of our willow linen post at a cottage we used to live rent in the 1960s (yours for only half a million these days) which rooted and turned into a tree. It's still there and going strong. We might take a ride out there at some point this summer and admire it.

Easy propagation of hedging and fruit bushes is brilliant, very MSE and a great way of maximising your preparedness.

Mama blackcurrant bush has set berries and I hope it'll be another great crop this year. Just throw manure under the blackcurrants and they're as happy as larry.

:o I pick up a fair few compliments at the allotments but folk haven't twigged that it's because I do a limited number of easy things well, rather than having wonderful skills in general. My fave crops are ones which basically mind their own business then produce heavily.

Karmacat

GreyQueen wrote: »

My fave crops are ones which basically mind their own business then produce heavily.

I am *so* with you on this :j

shtf for me today - dental ache became dental emergency - a 20 year old crown has got an infection underneath it, cue antibiotics and an appointment to review it and see when it should be taken out.... must do more research on herbal stuff if the NHS gets taken out.

Cheapskate

Afternoon all

GQ, thanks for the recommendation about Jim Crace books, had heard of him, vaguely, but not read any; have just finished Pesthouse and have Harvest to read, but our library doesn't have any of his earlier ones, which sound even better.

My internet seems quite slow all round today, despite having done the obvious things like re-booting everything, etc., so wonder if there's a lot more traffic than usual. I save all sorts of reading material as able-to-read-offline, just in case there are other brown-outs!

A xo

auntymabel

TiredTrophy wrote: »

That link got me to an article from 1997?

I was just testing:D Here's a more relevant one. I know nobody on this thread will be panicking!

http://www.returnloads.net/news/shortages-due-to-immigrants/p://

moneyistooshorttomention

That link doesn't work.

Try this one:

http://www.returnloads.net/news/illegal-immigrants-put-uk-food-supply-at-risk/

or putting it bluntly = if an illegal immigrant is on a lorry with fruit and vegetables on for some hours then they need to go to the loo somewhere and where do you think it will be?

Must admit that thought had never crossed my mind - but logic dictates they wont be hopping off those lorries for loo breaks..

****************

On a different tack - I glimpsed newspaper headlines yesterday saying Greece had defaulted and refused to pay yesterday's instalment of money over and was promising it would happen "sometime" (trans. = maybe never?). Didn't have the nerve to read full article at time - must go back and read it if its still up there online...

EDIT; Found that article on the Guardian website. Greece refused to pay yesterday's debt instalment to the IMF and says it will roll up 4 instalments due this month and pay at the end of the month. We'll see....

Karmacat

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

... or putting it bluntly = if an illegal immigrant is on a lorry with fruit and vegetables on for some hours then they need to go to the loo somewhere and where do you think it will be?

Must admit that thought had never crossed my mind - but logic dictates they wont be hopping off those lorries for loo breaks..

Oh! Never crossed my mind either :eek:

moneyistooshorttomention

On a positive note for the day and here is:

www.theoceancleanup.com/

:T:A

lillibet_dripping

Cheapskate wrote: »

Afternoon all

GQ, thanks for the recommendation about Jim Crace books, had heard of him, vaguely, but not read any; have just finished Pesthouse and have Harvest to read, but our library doesn't have any of his earlier ones, which sound even better.

My internet seems quite slow all round today, despite having done the obvious things like re-booting everything, etc., so wonder if there's a lot more traffic than usual. I save all sorts of reading material as able-to-read-offline, just in case there are other brown-outs!

A xo

A big thankyou from me too GQ - have just ordered The Harvest, All that follows and Quarantine from the library!

GreyQueen

You're all ahead of me as I've only read The Pesthouse. He was an author whom I can vaguely-recall hearing of, but I'd never picked up one of his books. Was very glad I did and that others have found him, too.

I'm trying to resist the sirenlike call of the Central Library due to having a few books on the premises which I need to read and either get back to those I've borrowed them from, or get them donated. We bookworms can acquire books faster than we can read them, I'm only on my 73rd book of 2015.

Have spent nearly 5 hours on the allotment, attending to matters of national importance. OK, I lied - I clipped the grass path on bended knee, all 30 m of it, and did some weeding. Blackfly have started in on the spring-sown broad beans but not the autumn-sown ones. They're the same beans, actually, just started different times.

:j Things are lookin' good up there. Strawbs have set fruit and will be ready in a couple of weeks, onions are shaping up nicely, autumn broad beans are starting their first pods, I have radishes, and am plucking random feral chardlings from inconvenient places to add to sandwiches.

I also have plenty of the following; fat hen, sow thistle, bindweed, greater bellbind, docks, nettles (two kinds), scarlet pimpernel, wild pansy, black medic, plantain, sunspurge, common mallow, birds eye speedwell, chickweed, dandelion, daisies, buttercups, more fat hen and something with a blue flower which I didn't recognise but pulled out of the potato baulks anyway. :rotfl:

GQ, a wumman who can weed and botanise at the same time. Better look up that blue-flowered thing or it'll niggle me not knowing what it was. Wasn't borage, I recognise that. Wasn't viper's bugloss either. There aren't that many blue-flowered native plants about 18 inches tall, come to think of it.....

Frugalsod

Here is a lighting solution for everyone. It is free to run portable and great for STHF but useful for camping trips which is the reason I bought three.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/gravitylight-2-made-in-africa#/story

Best of all it helps create jobs in Africa for the community and helps them reduce their need for kerosene.