THE Prepping thread - a new beginning :)

Cappella

Kittie said

Does anyone else put washed pebbles on the surface of their pots? They do seem to help keep the soil moist. I was looking around the garden and none of my plants are directly in the ground, yet it looks lush, green and healthy

We've had such wet summers here I haven't really need to conserve moisture in pots as the soil has been very moist indeed. However this summer is supposed to be much drier so I may need to try it. I do like the look of pots with the washed pebbles though, so may try it anyway.

We jarred 2 supers of honey today, 60lbs which is a good yield for a smallish colony. We sell it in the allotment shop, and so the bees are self financing but we barter it as well. Swarm time is already upon us. MrC has already collected two swarms this year. He is registered as a swarm collector on the Manchester bee keepers website, but says that he will only collect three more this year as we have no more hive space (only allowed 6 hives on the allotment.)

maryb

GQ I've managed to get my runner beans to germinate but had no success with courgettes. Do you soak those seeds as well?

GreyQueen

maryb wrote: »

GQ I've managed to get my runner beans to germinate but had no success with courgettes. Do you soak those seeds as well?

No. I haven't had a problem with them germinating, I don't soak the beans to guarantee germination, I do them to speed matters up as they have to re-hydrate (and they're BIG) before they can geminate and it's been rather dry lately and I'm a bit late in the season.

If you soak broad beans for 48 hrs, for example, they will have produced a little 'beak' which is the tip of the root emerging from the seed. My record, planting 48 hr soaked broad beans is to have them hooking up thru the soil on the 4th day after planting. But it was raining when I planted them and the soil was pretty wet, too.

You can help courgettes along by very slightly abrading the surface with something like sandpaper. I have to stress the very slightly because the husk isn't that thick and you don't want to damage the seed itself. The abrasion is to speed water seeping in to the seed.

I presently have a mixture of cold-frame and open ground sown courgettes. Some have germinated in both places (the open ones are in the triangle bed, which is a suntrap, and which is very heavily grained). But not all in the cold frame have grown but some of those were very expired seed and I was taking a chance with them. If every coffee cup in there with two seeds in it produces, I shall be inundated with plants.....

My experience with courgettes is that they are pretty reliable germinators (All Green Bush especially, Gold Rush less so) but that they really need a bit of heat to get going, whcih makes sense as they're a frost tender thing. HTH.

maryb

Thanks for that. I'll try again (again)

[Deleted User]

We all keep looking on the bright side, we try our best, we help each other, we grow flowers to cheer us but last night wiped it all away. Reality hit home and I for one, cannot bear any news at all today, all that talking, when what has happened is utter devastation for many, not just people directly affected but all of us. I doubt there is one decent person who is not feeling low today

I can`t concentrate on anything, the best I can do is be on a quiet cycle ride, to see that nature carries on. Now I am watching a film from last night called `brassed off` and maybe it is appropriate to the way I feel today. A group of miners and their families, the old fashioned community, I remember it well, when life was simple, hard but simple

maryb

I'm sitting here remembering how thrilled beyond belief DD2 was to get tickets to a concert at the O2 that she yearned to go to when she was 16. So many children at that concert doing everything the terrorists hate - being young and going out having fun and dancing, listening to their favourite music. Innocence confronted by pure evil

Cappella

Last nights attack was evil beyond belief. I feel heartsick too Kittie, in what is an awful time for my city. But we will surely carry on growing our flowers and helping others in this increasingly insane world. Help and flowers are just as real as what has happened, and the world needs them even more now than ever before.

I am very proud of my lovely daughter who works in the city centre here in Manchester: and who has gone calmly into work as if it's just another day. And I am very proud of the way ordinary people here genuinely tried, in so many different ways, to help.

Karmacat

Shock and dismay, absolutely. I can't get my head around it ..... Those poor children, those poor families.

Just remembering the age I was when I went to a pop concert on my own for the first time: I was 13, with my schoolfriend and my 3-years-older brother, which meant coming back home on the Mersey ferry. Its unimaginable to me how I'd remember that if it had been attacked in this way.

I've been checking the updates thread on The Guardian website, but actually, after Kittie's comments (and a rellie in New Jersey) I'm not going to "follow" the news today. Just get into the garden and do what I can, while sending love and light to all those in distress.

[Deleted User]

I'm really, really cross that anyone could let alone DID set off a bomb amidst children, barbaric and utterly unacceptable anywhere in this poor benighted world. I'm starting to be sickened and very angry every time terror rears its slimy contaminating presence in an act of devastation and for what? something that's never going to happen, that can't be allowed to happen, that has to be stopped! I haven't had the news on at all today I won't accept the ever flowing loop of words and images that don't change anything but magnify the horror of the atrocity being broadcast on a never ending loop 24 hours long. The media should show some restraint, it's bad enough that it's happened, rubbing our noses in it isn't going to make it better is it? those poor, poor people!!!

mardatha

I agree with that MrsL. I think the media should be made to play it all down and stop giving terrorists air time - that's what they want, publicity and mass shock. Stop giving them it.