Preparedness for when

[Deleted User]

Phew, back home after leaving at 7.25 this morning and mighty relieved to be here too!!! I can't leave you lot for five minutes can I? MAR is back on the TABLET again and GQ has a severe case of PARSNIPS!!!! whatever was Nursie thinking about letting you wrangle parsnips barehanded???

DOVELING the best way to wash big items like duvet covers and sheets if you haven't got a machine to do it is to put them in the bathtub and use your feet to pound them into cleanliness (or Mr Dovelings feet and you supervise) that way you don't have to buy in special containers to do so. A smaller solution that will not cost you much is one of the two handed feed buckets they use for feeding horses/on building sites to transport rubble/in gardens, they are not expensive, big enough to hold enough water and tough as old boots.

Doveling

Don't possess a bathtub

We do have one of those big red gardening tubs from H*m*base which holds logs in the utility room. Think I might invest in another one of those, they are very useful for all sorts.

Thanks for the idea Mrs LW! :T

Are Bilderbergers tied into this TTIP business?

moneyistooshorttomention

I wouldn't put it past the coming spending cuts including cuts of up to 25%-40% to benefits income (ie unemployment benefit/child benefit/disability benefit/Working Tax Credit) - so its as well for people who have part or all of their income coming from those sources to be particularly aware of prepping as much as is possible in their circumstances. Being a benefit claimant isn't the best of circumstances to be in at any time - so any prepping anyone can possibly do is as well done sooner rather than later.

Even just a few months headstart to start working on a garden (or some guerrilla gardening?) or the like to get a bit of food growing and ensuring that you've got the cheapest possible suppliers for household utilities is well worth doing.

Butterfly_Brain

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

Phew, back home after leaving at 7.25 this morning and mighty relieved to be here too!!! I can't leave you lot for five minutes can I? MAR is back on the TABLET again and GQ has a severe case of PARSNIPS!!!! whatever was Nursie thinking about letting you wrangle parsnips barehanded???

DOVELING the best way to wash big items like duvet covers and sheets if you haven't got a machine to do it is to put them in the bathtub and use your feet to pound them into cleanliness (or Mr Dovelings feet and you supervise) that way you don't have to buy in special containers to do so. A smaller solution that will not cost you much is one of the two handed feed buckets they use for feeding horses/on building sites to transport rubble/in gardens, they are not expensive, big enough to hold enough water and tough as old boots.

I remember when my two were littlies and the washing machine broke down, I put them in the bath with the washing and told them to walk up and down they thought this was a great game and they even made washing machine noises:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl: Don't worry........... I was with them all the time.

Pollyjuice

De-lurking. Hello everyone. Still reading and learning.

During the last week or so I have been so hot at night and unable to sleep I started listening to the BBC world service. I came across this http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05ntj7p broadcast (originally broadcast back in March this year). It has given me a better understanding of part of the TTIP and concerns me greatly. Everything seems to have gone quiet on this trade agreement. Have we missed the boat in protesting on this? I did sign a petition about a year ago protesting about this, but like I said nothing else has been mentioned. Does anyone know what is happening with this?

Good news - after 6 years of being on the waiting list I have now got an alotment (well 1/4 allotment). As so many were waiting they decided to split the plots. It is so overgrown with nettles, brambles and things I don't recognise. I have started digging, but having to have a few days off as I am discovering muscles I didn't know I had, and they are complaining. I have filled three carrier bags of broken glass and rusty nails and am only half way through my plot :eek: . I also have 4 red ants nests, and they bite :mad: I have started keeping a tube of antisan in my pocket. I am so looking forward to planning what to plant for next year. Any suggestions as to what I could get in now, or am I too late for this year?

School holidays have started, its only been a week, but I'm down to 3 toilet rolls. Need to pop out immediately to top up.

Keep safe everyone.

ivyleaf

Welcome home Lyn :j

Pollyjuice Red ants? Ouch

Butterfly Brain :rotfl: at your littlies pretending to be a washing machine

[Deleted User]

POLLYJUICE buy in some leek plants and some purple sprouting broccoli plants to harvest through the winter (leeks) and in the spring (PSB), you will probably have to protect the PSB from butterfly attack with some netting and it's not too late still to put up a bamboo wigwam and plant yourself a dozen runner bean plants, buy them in and they should flower and still be giving you beans at the end of September. If you get any big hoary pods don't pick them, leave them on the plant and they will develop bigger beans that you can leave to dry in their pods on the plants and harvest to use the way you do haricot or kidney beans in casseroles/chillis in the winter. I've done this in the past and so has GQ they're good fillers!

moneyistooshorttomention

Re those brambles to get up from the allotment - I was told the best protection for hands to deal with anything prickly like that is to buy a pair of those decent-quality fairly thick gardening gloves (eg the ones with coloured plastic palm of hand bits and ribbed fingers - don't know what the brand is). But they are pretty thick and close-fitting.

Then, on top of them, wear a pair of those thick black rubber gloves (eg like you can buy for washing up).

Apparently the brambles cant get at you through those two thick layers.

Duh! Wishes I'd known that before buying a pair of welders gloves (which do the trick protection-wise) but my hands positively swim in them, because they don't seem to make them in womens sizes yet.

Frugalsod

Thick gloves can be used for many things so are not a complete waste of time and money. You can use them while barbecuing or have additional pairs when you have extra people to help. In a real SHTF situation you could always trade them.

GreyQueen

:T Congratulations on your allotment, Pollyjuice!

Re bramble-wrangling, I have considerable expertise with these and have cleared some horrors. Although your will get lots of sympathy for having a bramble patch to clear, and mega kudos for doing it, there are far worse things (couch grass and horsetails spring to mind).

Firstly, old jeans, heavy boots, a ratty shirt or jacket, 2 two litre water bottles and a pair of leather gardening gauntlets, the kind which go up your forearm. If you aren't a speccy, you might want to wear a pair of safety glasses in case a bramble cane springs back at you and hits your eye.

Prep your bottles by cutting off the top and bottom, then slide them over your sleeves, and don your gauntlets. With a pair of secateurs or an old kitchen knife, cut the bramble cane about 8 inches above ground. Grasp in both hands, walk backwards, tugging steadily.

Brambles arch and strike roots, so you may have more than one point where a cane is anchored. Don't be surprised if its many meters long. I dragged them out, and away from the patch, walked them in a circle to make a heap, and returned for the next one.

Repeat, until you have a snarl about waist-height and 3-4 ft across at the base, then start another. Eventually, you have a stubble field of bramble stalks and several snarls of bramble cane.

Leave the snarls for several weeks to dry out before burning them in situ. With the stubble field, remove all the dry debris and separate out all the inorganic stuff (I found an air rifle stock among other things). :eek:

You can now do one of two things:

1. Beg or buy a mattock to dig up the roots.

2. Try digging them up with a fork. Fail. Probably bend or break a fork tine. Cry. Give in and beg or buy a mattock.

I'd go with the first option. No bramble will defeat me with a mattock, and I have gone down into the subsoil after the s0ds, but a fork is impossible.

Once you have the big old bramble rootstocks out, pile them up to dry for a few weeks (I parked mine on the bramble snarls) and burn.

Fork through the ground, removing anything which looks like a bit of wood/ root, no matter how small. You now have a superbly fertile bit of ground, the respect of your lottie neighbours, an appreciation for the bramble as a species and possibly a sore back. You will also have a truimphant grin.:rotfl:

In the first growing season, bramblings will come up like cress. Just tug them out whenever you see them, it's a one-season phenomenon.

:mad: Unlike horsetail, which is the gift which just keeps on giving. I've been pulling some up this evening. Plenty more where that came from.