THE Prepping thread - a new beginning :)

GreyQueen

In a few minutes' time, I will go out to archery class and will be popping into a shop to buy some more veg seeds on the way there. The gardening is an investment in my health and future prosperity and food security and the archery is because it's brilliant fun and might, in a completely bizarre set of circumstances, even be useful.

If some folks are thinking that they'll start growing veggies when the shop price reaches whatever point of ouch! they cannot sustain, they have a lot to learn in a hurry. Good gardens, like useful skills, take time to develop and repetition to master.

It's great if you enjoy the campfire cooking, the handcraft, the practise of obsolete weaponskills, as what others call prepping is just everyday life.

[Deleted User]

I wonder how many people are unaware of just how long it takes to get veg from seed to plate? that would be a real and VERY hungry gap!

fuddle

The problem will also be where to grow it! It's alright using the yard but grow it in what? Pots and compost will be expensive. Go on the allotment waiting list? Heck I've been on many and moved so many times I am still on one! Use the front garden? Yes but it's roadside and unprotected from pickers and fumes.

Then there's the knowledge. I know a teeny tiny amount about how to grow on the south coast but not a jot how to grow atop a hill in the north east!

Then there's the time needed. I have some time but I also use over 2 hours of my day walking the school run.

Then there's my health. Some days my lungs twinge after stretching and DIY work. I worry that when I get my plot I won't physically be able to keep up with it.

I am a long way off from producing anything other than Lyn's raspberries and even then I have to protect them from our rabbit!

Growing your own is a long and arduous journey before sowing a seed. I''m now where near ready and I've been trying for years!

[Deleted User]

Talk to your neighbours who do garden FUDS they'll have a wealth of knowledge that they will be only too glad to share with someone who really wants to learn and as for what to grow things in? I know from what you've said that DH has access to pallets and the skills to make them into practical and useful (even beautiful if you think of your arbour and table) items and get him to make you some deep troughs in which you can grow veg as well as you could in a deep bed, that way you'll only have to buy the compost to grow things in and if you have a small compost heap of your own peelings etc. in your yard you'll be able to feed the troughs every year and keep up their fertility levels. There's a way round everything love, you just have to find it!

fuddle

The yard is a no go for growing anything other than in movable pots. The only area is shaded next to the wall. We have a shed and a wood/coal/bin store along the other walls. The rabbit hutch is also in there. The space in the the middle is the walkway and where I hang my washing. It's tiny. I drag my raspberries into the sun and back again when the family comes in on an afternoon and that's when they aren't in the shed to try to stop the rabbit from eating them. It's a multifunctional space that doesn't really do anything very well.

DH makes a mean trough and has done in other gardens but this time it just won't work. I just have to wait for my plot. Thank you though. You know I'd make it work if it would work.:)

[Deleted User]

I used to grow runner beans in a large black bucket, I found a support in the garden, up a trellis but could use a few wires on a fence. I hope you get a plot soon fuddle, its a great way of getting the children started. I was a decent gardener when I was young as is my dgd. They could start with carrots in black buckets

Referring back to yesterday and living within means. I use m/s money, a very old programme that you can still buy on ebay. Used it for very many years and use it every single morning, particularly after someone took £2k from my credit card, got it back as luckily I was on the ball. Today I needed to know my outgoings through august, so just entered the bills and incomings and I have some left, provided I don`t spend too much on extras. I needed to do this as it is kind of belt and braces as my pension has gone down. Its also a reminder not to get gung ho with money. M/s money followed on from the notebook method and has kept me on the straight and narrow.

All outside prepping is done, working forward in hops for now, initially prepping for summer but cleaning as I go

maryb

You can download a 'sunset' version of Money for free. Nothing else is as useful to my mind. It keeps me with Windows rather than switching to a Mac

Cappella

Just delurking to thank everyone here for their posts. So much to think about. Im sorry I'm not posting much any more. Dog and man are both not well and time is limited.
Mind how you go y'all.

ivyleaf

Cappella wrote: »

Just delurking to thank everyone here for their posts. So much to think about. Im sorry I'm not posting much any more. Dog and man are both not well and time is limited.
Mind how you go y'all.

So sorry to hear that, Cappella. I hope things improve. Thinking of you. Just to add, I always enjoy your posts

Karmacat

Sorry to hear things aren't good, Cappella - I'm not posting much myself at the moment, catsitting means I'm not doing anything on my own stuff. But it *does* mean I had to think hard about what might be good to bring with me ... turned out to be a windup radio, water purification tablets, my handbag requirements of a torch, a compass, a box of matches, the stuff on my keychain, very little.

The thing about growing where there isn't much space to ... an online friend has put shelves across her window to triple the amount of herbs she can grow inside the house, particularly valuable as she had a stroke a few months ago.

And I was also thinking about sprouting, or microgreens? Or cut and come again *inside* the house? Not the same as growing in the garden, but could make a substantial contribution to health, if not in terms of calories then in terms of immune resistance.