THE Prepping thread - a new beginning :)

[Deleted User]

GreyQueen wrote: »

Our allotments are advertised in square meters not square feet, and the price is per square meter.

America seems an awful long way to travel, just to tend an allotment.

greenbee

thriftwizard wrote: »

no children;

so how on earth are they going to encourage the next generation of allotmenteers? surely they should be encouraging children to be involved in growing their own food?

ivyleaf

greenbee wrote: »

so how on earth are they going to encourage the next generation of allotmenteers? surely they should be encouraging children to be involved in growing their own food?

And as for not allowing sheds, or polycarbonate greenhouses, that's plain stupid :mad:

Good luck with it though thriftwizard! And well I never, they're just talking about allotments on Saturday Kitchen!

maryb

Dogs I can understand Had a 'present' right in front of the shed door this week. It's one person who doesn't keep his dog within eyeshot while he's down there, the rest are fine, but unfortunately, our allotment is next to his. He denies it of course - but, yes, I can tell the difference between that and foxes

Karmacat

Just making notes on foraging from some library books I have, one of them being The Forager Handbook, by Miles Irving. A *very* interesting online review of it is here: https://www.eatweeds.co.uk/the-forager-handbook-a-review It couldn't be better! But the review is also important for what it says about Richard Mabey's book, that it recommends some plants now thought poisonous? Anybody know anything about that?

fuddle

Ah thriftwizard we have to beg to differ there. The secretary of that very same committee you talk about help me as a complete newbie to allotmeneering. I wrote a very strongly worded letter that the committee asked if they could submit to the council to help get permission for the site you talk about on the other side of town. My letter was about newcomers into the town with families who wanted the opportunity to not only provide for their families but to pass allotmenteering skills and ethos onto children. My DH was not part of the committee, just a clueless 30something from the North and with that they saw the value in what I had to say for the good of everyone.

Give 'em a chance. There's women involved and they're good bunch who want fresh people. I have to admit I'm sad to hear them spoken of like that. You should join the committee, have your voice heard and know what it's like for real.

I do know the committee's hands have been tied in all of this. It hasn't just been them, it's been the Land Owners and the developers as well as planning. I do know that it was a fight on one site to get sheds allowed through planning. Don't forget the committee are allotmenteers. They have had their sites taken from them and struggled for years to get a new plot as promised by the developers who took the land. They were promised seemless transition to their new plot when I left, nearly two years on and they have just got in. It's been a dire situation.

thriftwizard

You're right there, Fuddle; I gather that secretary (or possibly site manager) has "retired" now and another taken over, who is a bit on the over-anxious side. They're "bending" on the polycarb/glass already; an email came through to say that we could have a shed OR a greenhouse, and some grandchildren have been spotted so that one must have been relaxed or challenged too, & I've been granted special permission to grow some dye plants. It's probable the "no kids" was specific to this site, which is mostly the survivors from the ones behind where you lived; when I look at the "rules" the title is quite specific to the new site & some of these rules clearly don't apply to the ones on our road, which are in the same ownership. There are no paths between the individual plots, which is possibly why they weren't encouraging children; it'd be very hard to keep them on one plot until clear boundaries are established. Hopefully the ones further East won't be quite so - micro-managed, but TPTB are clearly listening to feedback & queries, which is good.

[Deleted User]

I was in Home Bargains earlier, and came across a torch, hanging from the underside of a shelf.

It's the NEBO SLYDE Z flashlight.

It's a combined torch (with variable focus beam - 4750 lux), and work light (250 lumens), with a very powerful magnet in the base, hence how it came to be hanging under a shelf.

They're currently selling on ebay from ~ £17 and upwards (one ebay seller is flogging them for over 51 quid :eek: ), but Home Bargains are selling them for £8-99.

ETA: Just checked out the NEBO website, and, direct from NEBO, they cost £50. :eek:

DigForVictory

And on a related but substantially more vintage note, Himself picked up a couple of oil lamp chimneys on a car boot today, glass, still in box. That's one lamp now fully restored and the ingredients to bring another one back into full bloom to hand. (That he paid £2 a pop for rarities for sale from £50 didn't hurt.)

Not that when the lights go out we don't reach for torches, just we like to have choices - go Roman with pottery, oil & wick lamps, medieval with rush lights, or Victorian with oil lamps and so on... Me, I love a branch of candles but beeswax is challenging to source, although a godfather is beginning to learn beekeeping.

GreyQueen

I once had a passing acquaintance with a couple of potters from Essex way who were told (by archaeologists) to please be careful with their handmade replica Roman lamps as the experts couldn't tell them apart from the orginals.......:rotfl: