THE Prepping thread - a new beginning :)

Cappella

Well, that's hopefully sorted it out. Thank you maryb you've really cheered me up. Shouldn't have to edit everything now - must sharpen my IT skills though!

Cappella

Woo hoo! Apostrophe success

Jazee

Thanks for the tablet tip. Just done mine too.


Had no problem with using either of my cards yesterday. Radio says everything should now be back to normal.

jk0

Isn't it odd that some people's Visa cards worked yesterday and some didn't? You'd have thought it would be everyone if the problem truly was Visa's.

Couldn't be the payday gorgon which seems to raise its head more & more frequently?

FTA: My bPay device would not top up from my Barclaycard for some reason on Wednesday.

Karmacat

ivyleaf wrote: »

Karmacat Oops, my mistake about the books I misunderstood.

I take it kindly, ivyleaf, that you made that mistake, because the ambition is *exactly* what you said, to write about it myself from a UK angle and not a lottery winner either

kittie wrote: »

karmacat you need layers of different types of natural stuff to make good compost. The other day I put in a shallow layer of grass, then paper shreds then full to the top with comfrey leaves. 2 days later the bin had gone down to half so it was a handful of composted bark then house peelings and chopped dying flowers then more shreds and honestly there were stacks of thin red worms all over, I had to push them down before I shut the lid. It steams in there and worms love it. I can keep on top of it by feeding shreds, catalogues through the door are good and thin card. At the moment it is about 80% shreds, will be different in autumn. Oh yes comfrey keeps it heated. I don`t put house food in or egg shells or tea bags and I cut stuff to make it smaller and compost faster

Thanks kittie. I just have a cheap compost bin from the council, and its a cylinder of plastic, basically. No compost out of it yet, and I've had it for 5 years. I've also placed it very badly, its not easy to get to.

herbily wrote: »

Karmacat, I was told that weeds that were likely to run to seed were best put in a bucket of water and kept covered for a couple of weeks to rot down, and then added to the compost heap - supposedly it stops them seeding. I haven't tested this out, though, because I was dealing with dandelions and apparently they can regenerate from a tiny piece of root. I'm now pretending the dandelions are part of a herbal tea project.

I've heard that too, herbily, ta muchly - I'm still in crisis management mode with the garden, but once I'm not, little initiatives like this will definitely come to the fore. Between my improving health, and the catchup gardening I've been doing, next year is going to be brilliant

Karmacat

As far as the visa glitches are concerned - I didn't *need* it yesterday, but I also have mastercard specifically for glitches - I don't spend any more, and I pay both off every month. I didn't know about payday starting to affect the cards though - that doesn't sound good, like they're at maximum capacity.

jk0

Well, I have a theory that payday is a problem due to banks teetering on the edge of insolvency...

This used not to be a problem when the Bank of England only totted up the banks' balances once a day. As long as every employer's bank paid out, and every employee's bank received the money at some point on the last Thursday of the month, overall bank balance sheets were much the same on Friday morning as they were on Thursday morning.

This also relied on no one bank taking on more business accounts than a relevant number of personal accounts, and vice versa.

They now have a 'Real Time Gross Settlement' system, so wage payments are nearly instant. Problems arise for the first bank to make wage payments on a Thursday, if others are delaying until they have enough cash to make theirs.

ancientofdays

I think the visa thing is mostly sorted now. Apparently most ATMs were working unless they ran out of money. My OH decided to go grocery shopping anyway, it isn't very far to the supermarket, and no problems there. We would have had food enough anyway but he wanted to see for himself.

Karmacat

Paragraph on hot composting from 21st Century Smallholder, by Paul Waddington (eversion, this is just a cut and paste!):
Hot composting is more labour-intensive and it also requires that you start with a cubic metre or so of fresh, mixed greens and browns, which is a lot. But it will provide finished compost much more quickly (in just a couple of months in summer) and the heat !!!8211; generated by intense bacterial action !!!8211; will kill weed seeds and disease organisms. So hot composting suits those who are doing a lot of growing or have generated a great deal of waste organic matter. The trick is to mix everything together !!!8211; browns, greens, activators !!!8211; cover the heap and then turn it after two weeks or so (or when it has cooled down). This makes sure that everything gets treated to the hot composting process and it also re-supplies the aerobic bacteria with air. The heap will need to be turned every two weeks or so; and care must be taken to make sure it!!!8217;s neither too dry nor too wet. Commercially available compost tumblers can make it easier to turn and manage a hot heap

The tumbler is what I've seen on Amazon - I'll definitely need it to make this compost, no way do I do as much gardening as kittie (or have the energy, with the aftereffects of Chronic Fatigue) or have anything like a cubic metre of mixed greens and browns, as mentioned above.

carlislelass

No problems using mine today