THE Prepping thread - a new beginning :)

thriftwizard

That's interesting, MrsLW; we've had quite a few non-starters as well. Luckily there are loads of spuds, and I think we'll be eating kale all winter, but some of the beans and some of the squashes just haven't shown their heads at all. I know it was pretty cold up until very recently, but mostly they were in a heated propagator to start with. And no, it's not overheating.

GreyQueen

My experience of gardening, and my Dad's also, is that something always fails to grow at all or fails to thrive.

You can be a gardener with 50 + years' experience, be using fresh seed of tried and true varieties, but something always goes wrong, I've never known a year when absolutely everything has done well.

Most of the variations are climatic, some of them may relate to the vigour of the seeds, some may be the heavens in the wrong conjunction, for all I know.

Am away from my allotment this weekend as am visiting the folks' across the region. I saturated my cold frame before I left and propped the lid open slightly and hope the tiny seedling courgettes in there won't fry as it'll now be Tuesday evening before I'm back up there.

I did transplant a couple of squash and pumpkins which had been there, along with six runner beans grown in the frame as they'd got too tall to stay inside. The vast bulk of the runners have been sown in open ground, I've sown about 4 times as many as I need (home-saved seed from Nan's old garden, I have plenty) so that I can lose the inevitable to pests and still have enough.

:j My gooseberry bushes, which came from £land in Feb 2016, have made nice little bushes and have started to fruit. Of the five tiny bushes, I may end up with a cupful of goosegogs, but you don't plant fruit bushes for instant gratification, do you?

Karmacat

A *lot* of prepping to be done today: weeding has assumed a new urgency, I had a pest control guy round today (he lives in the next road to me, bless) and he did mention that there's good cover pretty near the house for rats etc. Up close to the house is fine, but the weeding I'm *meaning* to do, say 10' from the house, is now more urgent. For the cluster flies too. Sigh ....

mardatha

We've got a weather warning for thunder & lightning plus torrential rain and flash flooding. The radar is looking very ominious right over me later on ... When we get thunder up here it's very very loud and it hangs around the hills for ages. I think this is an official :eek:

ivyleaf

mardatha We had that at about 8.30 here (no flash flooding though). The forecaster said it was a narrow band of storms moving north, and it didn't last long so I hope it won't be too horrible in your area.

[Deleted User]

Just picked up an Evaporative Air Cooler, from Homebase.

Typically, no sooner have I got it home, than the weather has cooled considerably. :wall:

Nargleblast

The Law of Sod, Bob!

manchestermargo

Delurking to ask for some advice if I may. Gooseberry bush planted in a large container produces really healthy leaves which are literally stripped overnight. I googled why and it appears to be some pest. I duly bought some pesticide which sorted the little blighters. My question is can I now eat any fruit that might grow. Thank you.

Nargleblast

I would assume the fruit would be fine to eat, provided you wash it first - after all, lots of fruit and veg in the shops will have been grown using pesticides and fertilisers. I have also heard of people washing their stuff in a mixture of water and white vinegar before eating/cooking. Does the pesticide packaging give any useful info? Maybe the gardening preppers can add some advice?

[Deleted User]

margo, read the packet. Pesticides could be used and fruit eaten after say, 14 days but the instructions will be on the packet. Personally I have 7 healthy gooseberry bushes, between 2 and 6 years old. Last year I stripped all the gooseberry bushes down to a standard shape ie a tall supported stem and a canopy of branches. Easy picking while sitting on a stool and no sawfly.

Sawfly pupate in the soil underneath the plants, so keeping the soil clear and crumbly will help. Spraying with soapy water and squishing also helps, also spraying with neem oil. They can also attack red and white currant bushes and a bush can be stripped overnight. In my experience from 40 years ago, when I had sawfly badly, I did no spraying and got loads of fruit every year

Sit tight time wrt the allotment and suddenly I have time to knit