THE Prepping thread - a new beginning :)

Karmacat

mardatha wrote: »

Karmacat, I have a great system for gardening... If there's a space then I plant something innit.

Very wise

I confess, I don't seem to often take that final step the areas that I'm digging are finally big enough, though, that I *can* and *will* plant something. In the ground, not a container! Sage can go in one bit. Scabious in the other.

Doh. Without planting up the soil that you've just cleared, it will just get weeded up again. In relation to *my* soil, because of the ease with which the weeds come through from next door, even using a black plastic mulch doesn't help, there's just lots of roots and no plants Horsetail roots are drying out overnight, I'll chuck them tomorrow - I'd love to keep things and burn them, like GQ does, and I can do that for the branches etc, but there's just too much of this stuff to wait for it to dry

Absolutely shattered now - digging and grass cutting and whatnot. Good feeling though!

dND

Karmacat wrote: »

dND, so sorry to hear that this is your current situation. Hope it gets resolved soon. A couple of times in my life, I've had no one to speak English to, just for a few months at a time, and I found it incredibly stressful by the end.

Thinking of you.

Thanks Karmacat. I'm lucky as I have some very good friends in France, but I miss my children and I now miss the vibrancy of life here. As I explain to people who ask me why I want to leave; I don't want to be old and alone there in old peoples home or in a hospital and it wouldn't be fair to expect my children to be there.
I've loved my time but I now want to move on; the only real problem is finding a buyer and having enough money to be able to return. It will happen, in the meantime, I will keep preparing for it and evolve

dibblersan

GreyQueen wrote: »

I was deploying my new 4 wheeled garden barrow (:heart2:)

so how does that work when it's at home? I'd think it'd be the devil to tip out...

GreyQueen

dibblersan wrote: »

so how does that work when it's at home? I'd think it'd be the devil to tip out...

You can get garden barrows with a tip-tilt function but that's not the style I chose as I wanted a strong all-metal option.


I had a tarp in the barrow, so that it functioned as a liner for the grains. Pick the corners up, haul mightily, and drop tarp's contents from the barrow on the allotment path to the soil. Where it was later distrubuted about by rake.


Karmakat, if you have bare soil and the intended planting can't be done just then because of the season (tell me, this is the status of my allotments for part of the year) you can resolve it quite quickly by scratching a rake over the surface.


There is even a term called 'stale seedbed' where you deliberately prepare a seedbed in the spring a few weeks before you intend to use it. Then, all the dormant weed seeds germinate, you hoe them out and plant the proper seeds which should have time to germinate before the next batch of weedlings germinate. It's easier than hand-weeding around seedlings.


Some folk successfully use old carpet/ tarps to cover soil waiting to be planted but my experiences is that the underneath area becomes a slug-i-tat, and thus this method isn't for me.


Mes amies, it is only days until the allotment agreement allows bonfires (from 1st Oct, why could that have not been a Sunday?!) and I am a-tremble with eagerness to have the first bonfire. Unfortunately, despite some cunning efforts, things aren't as dry as they were in July, but I am in process of drying thngs out. My goal, as always, is a fast, hot and mostly smoke-free bonfire.

Karmacat

Stale seedbed! That's very good, thanks GQ And actually, my soil conditioning over the years, amateur as it has been, has got to the point where this kind of thing is possible, in a few areas - at the moment, its all about digging things up, going deep, to get bramble roots, those white horsetail roots, that sort of thing. It's still mostly clods, not soil ...

DigForVictory

Some allotments do not allow carpeting/weed membrane/black plastic. Apparently they advocate green manure

Green manures are fast-growing plants sown to cover bare soil. Often used in the vegetable garden, their foliage smothers weeds and their roots prevent soil erosion. When dug into the ground while still green, they return valuable nutrients to the soil and improve soil structure.

(RHS)
Clovers, ryes and the like. Which seems reasonable until I think of these seeds up against hungry birds, bindweed & a certain amount of seasonally induced cba.
Plus the "and how to you get these little survivors to Stop" when you want to get Spring stuff in?

My Scouts are having a fire tonight, so long as it isn't raining at the time. Given last weeks downpour I'm moderately uncertain as to how much burning will happen but lots of fire-lighting...

GreyQueen

My lottie site is no carpets/ membrane but this isn't strictly enforced. I've investigated green manures but, since my plot is infested with horsetail and that regenerates 24/7/365 I like to fork thru the ground every few weeks.


And as for green manures smothering weeds, I think that's a load of hogwash, at least given the kind of weeds I have in quantity; curled dock, horsetail, common mallow, fat hen, knapweed, scarlet pimpernet, heartsease, shepherds purse etc etc. Plus various other bits and bobs whose botanical designations I am unsure of.


All these things are perfectly happy growing with and thru couch grass, and anything capable of that ain't gonna be 'smothered' by clover or other green manures.


I have to show 'em cold steel, frequently, they don't like it up 'em.

Karmacat

Just looking at the pictures on the RHS website - I have couch grass, not horsetail I've been using those names interchangeably, sorry folks!


I've planted the sage, in a currently couch-grass-free site, potted on the fennel, and found a few bulbs buried deep in the process. Put them in a pot too, hopefully they'll survive, I'll relocate when I know where they need to go. New stuff that comes in will be almost entirely edible, but any decorative flower bulbs that have survived till now can stay

GreyQueen

On a plot I shared before I had this one, there were several panel doors which had been left lying flat on the ground, as kind of duck boards over the mud.


Couch grass was grwoing through the panel doors, literally forcing its way through the gaps in panel where they fit into the frame, or creating spaces where there were no gaps. I also dig up potatoes which are threaded on couch grass roots like beads on a string. The runners for this are incredibly tough and it shrinks at nothing......

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Himself is home briefly, taking advantage of FIL's discharge into the care of his sister, and will return on Monday.

He's lost a lot of weight. And I mean a lot - he'd put on a fair old bit over the last couple of years, but I think he's probably gone down two or three waist sizes (as in actually round his waist, rather than underneath the now absent paunch). I'm now feeling like my own weight loss over the time has been rather less impressive, what with having to work and not exercise. But then again, I suppose I started from a much larger reference point [shrug]. It's definitely easier moving around all day at work, even if I seem to be more tired.


Provisions duly delivered, despite the online ordering system going to pot on Monday evening, so I couldn't get anything delivered until 11pm last night. We just have to be in the same place at the same time in order to cook some of them, but at least I can canvass suggestions for meals from others at work.

I'm hoping that he only goes back for a 10-14 days at most (everybody else has prebooked holidays, so he needs to be there whilst they're all away - partly to make sure that FIL doesn't take advantage of the situation and decides to make a break for his midden/refuses entry to the carers :cool: or doesn't cope well on his own and falls/doesn't eat because he can't shop or manage to cook and clean).