THE Prepping thread - a new beginning :)

overlyconcerend

Karmacat wrote: »

does anyone else collect soft shells (like oyster shells, that flake and dismember)?

you're supposed to boil them before you crush them to get the salt out of them. add a drop of acid like lemon juice or vinegar to weaken them then just put them in a rubble sack in the path and walk over them :cool:

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

thriftwizard wrote: »

Chickens peck them to bits quite fast, KC... but yes, I do collect them & add them to the beds, although OH will keep nicking them for the edge of the wildlife pond. It's the bigger, older shells that fall apart fastest.

On another note, I went to the farm shop yesterday to stock up on poultry supplies and spuds. But they didn't have any sacks of spuds in, and haven't done since spring. The assistant didn't know why not. Thinking about it, I realised that I haven't seen any at the market either, which is definitely unusual; I don't often buy them there as the quality's a tad variable, but they are just about always there. I suspect the wholesale price is high due to the slow, cold spring followed by the heatwave - anyone else wondering about this?

Well, taking into account that Himself left the sack slightly open, it only took a fortnight for the spuds I'd bought, thinking there would be enough for most of September, to become soft and sprouting (even though they're perfectly dry), so I don't think they are as good a quality as in other years. They were also all rather small - if the quality is lower as well as the yields, I would expect that most are going to the supermarkets to be sold in their sweaty plastic bags to keep them happy, rather than going to the likes of us who expect potatoes to last more than a month.

Karmacat

Brilliant on the shells, thank you both. The sizing, yes, I can visualise that, it makes sense. And I have lots of spare vinegar from having all those pickled onions :rotfl:

thriftwizard

I've never boiled our oyster shells up, I have to say, so that's definitely something to try! They do fall apart eventually all by themselves. And I've never worried overly about salt, although I do wait for the rain to wash most of it out of the seaweed.

I was reading somewhere that it's been a fantastic potato crop, apparently. Now I'm confused!

Karmacat

I got so interested in the shell thing, I started googling turns out that if people have eaten the oyster, then the shell it came in can be tossed back into an oyster bed, for juvenile oysters to crawl into I found an article from the Washington Post dated 2011 or something, followed up in Maryland, the state it mentioned, and discovered that the bylaw or whatever that made it a requirement to safeguard the marine environment was repealed in 2015

Popping out today to be instructed in the fine art of rabbit sitting, while my niece is on holiday. I'll be taking the opportunity to refine my knowledge of emergency routes back to my house, if I ever needed it. There's a hobby element to that as I'm hoping to find a few foraging spots, but also she lives in a local shopping town that has some problems, and its one that I have to pass through regularly. I'd quite like a bit more local knowledge, for all sorts of reasons. And rabbits. Rabbits are good too :beer:

ivyleaf

Potatoes - there are certainly lots in the supermarkets atm. But I did see a farmer being interviewed on Countryfile Summer Diaries last week or the week before, and he showed the interviewer a potato which was part of a crop supposed to be going to be used by fish-and-chip shops, which use very big spuds, and he said they were much smaller than usual and I think he said there were fewer of them than usual too.
I think Jojo is right about most of them going to the supermarkets!

They do seem to be lasting a much shorter time than usual too, even though I make sure they're dry before putting them in my dark cloth potato bag.

thriftwizard

I might try the other farm shop today - a bit more mainstream - and see whether they have any. We go through spuds pretty fast, even when there are only 4 of us, and repeated trips to the supermarket are costing me dear! We've eaten nearly all the ones at the allotment, and I'm seriously thinking of taking on a second allotment just for spuds, though at last year's spud prices (£8 per sack, not knowing what this year's are, yet) and £50 per plot per year, it's a toss-up whether that'd be cost-effective. If the blight hit early, or it just wasn't a good year, it wouldn't be, especially as we have just the one hand-pump for 126 plots and have to barrow water everywhere.

GreyQueen

Been on the allotments and socialising with a lottie pal whose plot is close to mine with an untenanted, derelict plot between. Short version of a long tale - I have clipped a sheep track thru the tussocks from mine to hers and we're giving thought to seeing if she can take on the derelict one (I'd help out).

Pal is approaching her retirement years and is planning to have the maximum amount of food production from her lottie to supplement what will be a low income (is in a low-paid job now). I think this is a very sensible approach and one I shall be emulating.

Interesting to read about the potato issue. I had a so-so crop from the 6 kg seed spuds, about one third of the monstrous tater crop of 2016. Frankly, given the drought and that I do not water them, I was expecting worse. I attribute the soil being very heavily fertilised with spent barley grains to greatly adding the water retention on what is naturally a very light, free-draining soil.

I'm enacting plans for the 2019 growing season (£land have seeds on offer 4 pkts for 50p, I'm told) and am adding many barrowfuls of grains to Plot2 with the intention of having the largest part of it down to spuds. I really must get a book or folder of garden plans to keep up with what is going where each year, to help with the crop rotation.

Hope everyone is keeping well. GQ xx

thriftwizard

GQ, how did you initially get hold of the spent barley grains? Did you just roll up to the brewery & ask? We have a micro-brewery just down the road from the emporium I rent a stall in, and if it's as simple as - just asking - I'll be down there tomorrow!

Our spud crop wasn't too bad, especially as we didn't actually plant half of them; I can only think we weren't very efficient when we lifted them last year, as we have a beautiful neat row of spuds following on from the broad beans that came as a complete surprise to us! Including some lovely ones that had me very puzzled; I though I'd only ever planted Wiljas and Desirees, and these are large, absolutely ruby red and quite floury. Delicious, too. As this is only the second year the site's been open, they aren't someone else's leavings, either. But a fellow-allotmenteer swears they are Roosters, and I can only think that one must have found its way from the kitchen sink onto the windowsill, one Sunday lunchtime in spring, where I was chitting the others, rather than into the roasting tray!

GreyQueen

thriftwizard wrote: »

GQ, how did you initially get hold of the spent barley grains? Did you just roll up to the brewery & ask? We have a micro-brewery just down the road from the emporium I rent a stall in, and if it's as simple as - just asking - I'll be down there tomorrow!

A fellow archer who works for a craft brewer (not the one where my grains come from) insists on referring to the spent grains as a 'co-product' not a waste product. His brewery is out in the countryside and they give their grains to a local farmer who feeds them to cows.


Our brewery is in the city itself and is a nationally-known brewery supplying its own famous pub; any CAMRA-members reading would know the name well, but I shan't mention it, RL identifier etc.



The brewery themselves bring the grains to the site. They have several black plastic dustbins in a transit size van., and shoot them out onto the communal heap, which is a bay prepared from corrugated iron on one of our trackways. They're very neat.


This has been going on for donkey's years, since at least when an employee of theirs had an allotment. They're deposited in a communal pile and its first come, first served.


Grains are awfully heavy because they're wet so it's best if you can persuade your site to let a local brewery deliver them, rather than try to collect them yourself. The small brewery is organic, so I feel confident about using the stuff to grow my veggies.


As freshly-mashed grains are HOT, what we do with them is put them in heaps on our soil and let them cool off for at least a week before turning them underground (so's not to upset the ecology). They eventually rot down; the potato patch I grained very heavily in March is now bare soil which I've dug and there are only a few traces of the grains to be seen.


You need to use about 1 wheelbarrow load per sq meter, btw.


HTH.:)