Preparedness for when

Butterfly_Brain

Polyjuice, through a lot of dodgy dealing by lobbyists, TTIP has passed into the next stage
http://ttip2015.eu/blog-detail/blog/TTIP%20resolution%20July%202015.html

Karmacat

I've just been nattering on my thread about using my garden fork on brambles ... the root I was going for is only a year old, maybe two at the very most, though. I love the idea of mattocks and burning in situ sounds amazing!

GreyQueen

Karmacat wrote: »

I've just been nattering on my thread about using my garden fork on brambles ... the root I was going for is only a year old, maybe two at the very most, though. I love the idea of mattocks and burning in situ sounds amazing!

The best bramble patch I ever dug up had been over 10 years in the making. I got loads of quips about using a flamethrower when I started cutting it back. I was tempted but there was a 6 x 8 ft greenhouse buried in it, like Briar Rose's Castle. Actually, it was 2 m tall and big enough to have hidden a car and a touring caravan as well. It took up a big chunk of a 400 m sq plot.

Then, when I was going down after the huge rootstocks with the mattock, passing wits were quipping that I was digging my way to Australia. These were the group I call the Old Boys up the lotties, where 70 is considered a stripling lad, and they've gardened their own lotties for decades, and sometime their Dads were there before them.

Some of them were a bit iffy about lady gardeners, particularly those who wear floral wellies. I'm a steel-toed Doc Marten type of gardener, not terribly ladylike, but I earned my stripes wrestling that bramble patch into submission.

Got a lovely crop of spuds off there, the best I've every had.

thriftwizard

Before I lost my lottie in an admin mix-up, I had a patch where the brambles had romped over from the roadside. When I lifted them & rolled them back - they hadn't yet rooted, except at the edges - there was a magnificent crop of spuds just lying on the surface of the earth underneath them! I wonder if brambles are good for spuds?

ivyleaf

Fancy losing your allotment thriftwizard, that's awful I take it that by the time you knew what had happened, it was too late to do anything about it?

[Deleted User]

I have just come across a fairly newly published book called Off the Grid Gourmet by Danny Gansneger with (on the amazon read a bit of this book excerpt) some very useful ideas. He talks of a 'BAKING HOLE' to use when cooking in a dutch oven in an emergency situation, something I'd never heard of before, good ideas are worth pursuing so I'm going to order in a copy for myself. Amazon shows a kindle edition for £2, might be worth a look?

Cheapskate

Lyn, I've just had a gander at that book, might splurge on it, thanks for mentioning it!
We've not grown any veg this year - we were supposed to be having building work, but it went pear-shaped until next spring - DH was rather in the dog house over the whole thing - more so because I'm now very limited for growing edibles for the rest of the year. I've managed to get some herbs started, and am going to do some micro greens , so at least we'll have some green stuff over the winter.
Neither of the apple trees has any fruit, and the plum tree has only 2 on - am hoping it was only severe winds knocking off blossom that's to blame, and not anything more serious. Can I still do leeks, and harvest as baby ones in the autumn?
I've slowly upped my cash bank at home, paper and coins, which already comes in handy, today I'm doing a food stocktake, and as soon as the brambles etc are ready they'll get banged in the freezer and/or turned into jam (the only things that DID grow in our garden this year!).
We'd like an allotment, too, but they're scarcer than hen's teeth around here, I'd be lucky to get one by the time DH retires!
Happy prepping, good peeps of MSE! xx

Frugalsod

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

I have just come across a fairly newly published book called Off the Grid Gourmet by Danny Gansneger with (on the amazon read a bit of this book excerpt) some very useful ideas. He talks of a 'BAKING HOLE' to use when cooking in a dutch oven in an emergency situation, something I'd never heard of before, good ideas are worth pursuing so I'm going to order in a copy for myself. Amazon shows a kindle edition for £2, might be worth a look?

I would think a baking hole when used with a dutch oven would be like an underground hay box. I think I have seen fish cooked this way. Wrap it in foil cover with burning coals and then sand or earth. Though the version I saw did not go so well. It was demonstrated by Russell Coight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Coight and they lost where they buried it.

Frugalsod

GreyQueen wrote: »

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 did not know what a mattock was so looked online and think that they are truly multifunctional. Come the revolution you could find them just as useful as a pitchfork, plus very good for gardening and weeding. In a bug out situation they would also be very handy for clearing a route to safety through weeds or hedgerows or even zombies. They might even have a use splitting firewood, though probably as a last resort. Added to wishlist!

[Deleted User]

It's raining here today, lovely gentle persistent rain that is soaking in and not running off so our fruit trees will be very grateful. We've one old apple tree, two 3 year old saplings and a 1 year old crab apple whip that was He Who Knows Christmas present from the girls the year before last. It's been so very dry here in the south for the last couple of months that all of the trees were looking very distressed and the leaves were curling and going brown. I've been watering them all in the evening for the past few weeks and they have all sprouted new and very healthy looking leaves and still have some fruit on them. The big old tree has quite a good crop, I think I may just have caught it before it started shedding fruitlets but the crab apple looks healthiest by far and is covered with very deep red fruits. I think the wild harvest is going to be phenomenal this year if the hawthorn and elder locally are any indication but the crab apples, sloes and bullaces seem to be very sparsely fruited, maybe due to the hot and dry weather. I don't know what the yield will be like but coming across Salisbury Plain in the train yesterday the cereal fields look very heavily in ear and it looks like a very good crop, ripening very well too.