THE Prepping thread - a new beginning :)

thriftwizard

I'm wryly amused at the preppers who think that when SHTF, then they'll start gardening, as if any random piece of ground can be transformed, instanter, into a productive veggie patch and as if there is no skill to managing plants (and perserving the surpluses for later use).

I'm still fielding laughter from friends about my allotment - "Surely by the time you've paid the rent, bought the seeds & put the work in, it's much cheaper & easier just to buy the veg?" - but have a feeling that the last laugh might be on those of us who are getting the practice in already. I'm also intrigued to find that since eating almost exclusively organic veg, my "age-related" aches & pains have abated massively, down to the odd twinge when I do something daft. That could also be the nettle-sting effect, but I just feel loads better all over. Apart from a whiplashed shoulder from an emergency stop on a country road last weekend, that is!

I suspect fruit & veg prices will be higher than we'd like this winter, between our damp, cold summer and the searing heat in the Med. I'm now trying to work out whether we can give up a little patch of garden for a "proper" greenhouse, to try to keep some winter salad crops going & get an early start next spring. There will be fierce resistance, but if it's do-able, it's going to be done...

fuddle

Re giving back to the soil. I've been told that my plot has the best soil on the gardens as it was shipped in from a river bed. It seems my silty soil is naturally fertile. The advice from the old guys is to leave it alone and I am causing myself a little attention by not doing as I'm told. In my eyes (and I admit I am punching above my knowledge weight here) it's been gardened for years and has most probably 'been left alone' and when it rains it behaves like clay and even though once dried it doesn't keep that structure I want to do everything I can to avoid waterlogging, erosion, nutrient run off, poor soil biology, weeds, cat mess, compacting and probably more that I don't yet know about. I have wood ash and rabbit litter practically on tap so I'd be a fool not to add it to the garden for more than just plant feed.

The fact I'm sowing green manure over winter is attracting so much attention and, well actually, a bit of ridicule from these guys who make no bones about how they know it all about gardening... in polytunnels. I have been told quite a few times 'you can't open ground garden here' my reply is now with a smile and a wink and in their same bantering manner 'ah you can't but I can' and hope that by putting hours of research into getting to know my soil will help me produce enough to get them off my back.

Yeah GQ, knowledge, lots of it and that knowledge can't be stagnant. What I do in my ground isn't what the guys do next door. Our soils/climate/temperatures/drainage/experience/knowledge so on and so on are different just as DH uses his knowledge and experience to change his tactics when fishing in different areas with different light levels, river levels, temperatures etc

PS Wyevale Garden Centres have all their seeds on at 50p - online too

DigForVictory

Son, to ease waiting for results pressure, has double dug a 8' by 6' patch of garden - what to get into that before bindweed etc get a hold?

If I'd only known this is how he responds to stress I could have got more of the back garden dug! Ah well. What do you suggest? Green manure or what can you plant in late August to crop & eat? (Teenage boys being mortal strange critters I want something in there before they decide to plant a sibling.)

AnimalTribe

elona wrote: »

animal tribe

If you use the forum search it was posted in 2007 by the optimist and renamed dandelion honey.

Thanks Elona that found it. I'm also now addicted to the 'preserves thread' that Nargleblast mentioned.

chirpychick

Hi :hello:

Would it be ok if I joined you?

I'm prepping for my husband being made redundant and basically looking for all ideas as he is the sole earner and I'm a career for my son.

So far I've been foraging blackberries and have about 1kg frozen (we don't have a big freezer so don't want to overdo it) I've made jam, cordial, blackberry vodka (gifts as we don't drink).
Ive made cakes as well.
Excited for the apples to come in.

I'm putting money aside monthly for his wages whilst working notice and putting £2.50 away a week from my money just so we have 2 emergency "pots"

I'm not filling up my cupboards etc because when he gets a new job it will mean relocation - on the plus side, away from the south east which will mean bigger house and garden for chickens and veg growing but it's the time in between I'm really worried about!!

My son starts school in September and I've got everything he needs and have gone through all our winter stuff hubby needs socks and a fleece but has a birthday coming up and his mum always buys him clothes. I need a coat. Everything else is fine.

I don't really know what else to do so I've started reading the threads for ideas and will keep reading to catch up as and when I can.

You all seem so lovely and knowledgeable

GreyQueen

Welcome, chirpychick. If the extended OS family doesn't know it, it probably isn't worth knowing.............:rotfl:

Grinning at fuddle's experiences. I go my own way, within the limitations of the soil type and the windiness of my site, also gardening on what was, in geologic time at least, a riverbed.

Presupposing the line of chickenwire dividing my plot from Her Next Door isn't somehow also demarking a complete change in soil type and climate, what you do with the soil counts - a lot.

My lottie neighbour looked from her chard plants (resolutely refusing to grow taller than 18 inches and sickly and sullen with it), across the fence at mine, which were monsters over 5 ft tall and yielding oodles of lovely salad leaves and sighed sadly and moped. Ditto for any other variety of veg grown on both plots.

She-does-not-culitvate-her-soil. She just scratches around on the surface. I dig with a fork (we both have horsetails to cope with) and the soil on my plot is loose and fluffy. Plants like it and grow like billy-o. Plus the grains, the kitchen scraps, the ground-up eggshells, the coffee shop coffee grounds and anything else I can get my hands on to improve the soil.

herbily

This is going to sound really random, but does anyone know how long an unopened can of paint would last? The cost seems to be going up and up - I've been offered some paint that I can't use right away, but would use next time I repaint a room, and it seems like a potential prepping item, but not if it's just going to go solid in the tin.

[Deleted User]

elona wrote: »

The machine is about seven years old and has started to get a bit unreliable and has done this before a couple of times so rather than have the aggravation I bit the bullet and ordered a new Bosch machine which arrives on Monday

Mine was about 12 years old, and started rattling loudly, when in spin mode. On investigation, I discovered the bearing on the back of the drum was cream crackered, so I got shut and bought a 6kg one instead.

6kg is adequate for me, living alone, and means it fits fully under the counter, giving me back about 4" of width, in my ships galley type kitchen.

jk0

herbily wrote: »

This is going to sound really random, but does anyone know how long an unopened can of paint would last? The cost seems to be going up and up - I've been offered some paint that I can't use right away, but would use next time I repaint a room, and it seems like a potential prepping item, but not if it's just going to go solid in the tin.

Oh, unopened it should last for years. However, have you enough for two coats on one room?

[Deleted User]

Increasingly concerned at the state of the USA since January and the unrestrained presidential style of the rhetoric on social media by their leader, also slightly worrying is that N.Koreas equally idiosyncratic leader is now threatening the UK should they agree with or act on any actions that the USA may take in S.Korea. We will all die a painful and horrible death apparently.....some days it's enough to exist to find the ire of parts of the world descending from on high I just hope no one of them has enough 'ire' to make a functional warhead!!!!!