THE Prepping thread - a new beginning :)

maryb

I find Stardrops is one of the worst for making me cough, sadly. Bicarbonate of soda on a damp cloth is brilliant for cleaning sinks, gets rid of tea stains in a second. And doesn't scratch at all. I think Astonish paste is basically bicarbonate, it seems to work the same way

mardatha

I'm the same - can't go near Stardrops or my lungs scream lol

GreyQueen

Morning all.

Fuddle, snails are every bit as destructive as slugs and even more widespread as, by carrying their own shelter as they do, they can lurk in more places. Giving them to chickens is excellent advice, chickens are designed to eat insects, it makes them happy (and who doesn't love the burble of a happy chicken flock?!) and it improves the nutrition of the egg, so win-win-win for humans and birdies alike.

If you want to encourage bees onto your new plot, I can recommend nothing more excellent than English Lavender (angustifolia). It's around as small bushes for sale about now, I got mine from Liddly, 3 small bushes for £2.79). Don't plant them too close to anything else because, even though they're wee now, next summer they will have grown their flowering stems and be three times the size.

I have a row of lavenders planted in summer 2015 across my plot, and a second row planted a few weeks ago which won't flower until 2018. The bees are going mad for them, there are several dozen bumblebees on them every time you look, literally a bee every few inches, and of several different bumble species. There are honeybees, too, but they seem to be concentrating on the nearby runner bean flowers.

If planting bee fodder, remember native flowers and old cottage-garden style flowers are much better for bees than big showy F1 hybrids - often you'll see flower packets with bee friendly logos. If all else fails, calendula (English marigolds, the ones with the daisy-like flowers) will flower every month of the year and are very popular with bees and other insects.

If you have white dead nettle (all seasons) or red dead nettle (early spring only) and they're not too much in the way, please leave them for the bees, especially the red dead nettles as they're flowering when there's not much else about and are also important for early butterflies like the red admiral.

As you may tell, I am mad-keen on bees, could watch them for hours.

Jazee

I also encourage the bees for pollination but can't bear the smell of lavender. It gives me a headache so am trying calendulas here this year.

ancientofdays

Bees also really like oregano but beware the invasiveness of the plant.
If you have a beekeeper friend, they may be able to give you some lovely beeswax.
Vim makes me sneeze, I suppose we are all sensitive to different things.

DigForVictory

Amongst the joys of chives are the bubbles of purple - which had most of the bumblebees & other species happily engrossed for several days. So much so, they didn't mind me sneaking up on them with a phonecamera.

"Welsh onion" has a lumpier head but again, amidst the garlicy niff, the bees are industrious.

culpepper

If you want a lot of bees then russian comfrey(non invasive) is very popular with them. Its also an excellent compost. There is another plant we sometimes sow, I think its called phaccelia (not sure about the spelling ) that is a great bee magnet and the colour is lovely when they bloom.

moneyistooshorttomention

Russian comfrey grows at a rate of knots - but does indeed attract a lot of bees - and comes in handy for plant food purposes.

Its large leaves also come in handy for placing at the bottom of plantpots - to help keep the soil in.

[Deleted User]

Runner beans are a bee magnet too, I've just had to play 'dodgems' with a multitude of different sized bees all buzzing industriously about among the flowers on mine as I picked, now that the beans have decided to come into flower that is, they're really late this year and until now we've had very few actual beans set on the plants.

[Deleted User]

I wish to God that world leaders from very large, medium sized and tiny little countries would grow up and STOP playing poker with devastating weapons! how totally childish the actions of a few are, one man upmanship with missiles and fighter jets and all the bristling and puffing up of egos, the flexing of military muscles and the rhetoric . We have problems enough on this poor benighted planet with overpopulation, pollution, climate change etc. we surely don't need all the threat, counter threat that is being enacted today do we?