The Prepping Thread - A Newer Beginning ;)

euronorris

The local farm shop advertised on their facebook page yesterday, to say that they now had stock in of compost to sell also. 70L bags for £6.50, which I didn't think was too bad in the current climate.

In other news, we got our DD's school placements yesterday. We got our first choice, which is literally around the corner and her nursery is attached to it, so we are thrilled. A lot of her friends will be attending also, so makes us feel better. Provided they are all back to school by then of course!! It seems so soon, as she is still only 3 (turns 4 in July), but she is ready for it and excited, bless her.

jk0

I could never understand why people used paper lids on homemade jam instead of just washing the existing lid and re-using it. Can anyone enlighten me?

Si_Clist

C_J said:

... I was originally put off by all the WARNING DANGER BOTULISM things I read on the internet ...

dandy-candy said:

C_J the botulism thing is what always put me off preserving

Ref botulism and the risk thereof, that only applies to canning/bottling vegetabbles, and then only if you don't do them properly using the proper tackle i.e. use a pressure canner and follow the instructions to the letter.  We've been doing beans (various) and peas in Kilner jars in our pressure canner for years now and are still alive to tell the tale. 

Incidentally, I had to chuckle last year to note that the FSA sent out a warning about some disgusting-sounding paté or whatever it was that was only available from Waitrose being recalled on account of the presence of ... toxin botulinum!

Ref Porosan thinbgs for jamjars, I don't know anything about those.  What I was on about was, as I said, the Porosan that used to be sold in sheets for preserving.  You use that by cutting a 6" square of it for each jar of preserves, popping them in a pan of boiling water for a minute until you take your jars out the waterbath, then placing a sheet on top of the jar.  Being by now nice and hot, the Porosan flops around the jar, you take a length of the polypropylene string that comes with the sheets and tie down securely under the lip of the jar.  Then you stretch the Porosan over the jar by pulling the edges down (it slides under your string), and Bob's the brother of your mother.  As it cool it sinks into the top of the jar by quite a surprising amount, and forms a cracking good seal ... once you get the hang of it.

Been making jam must be 35 year now and we've never used anything other than secondhand jamjars and lids.  Never felt the need for wax discs, or for that matter, putting butter in strawberry jam, as we were once told you had to do or it would all be a total failure ...

Si_Clist

Thriftygifty said:

... last night looked out the window with a torch and there was a badger, ive had my suspicion for a while buy yep they are there which may be an issue with veg beds?! 

You bet it might!  Horrible evil things, badgers.  Love digging up anything you've just planted, running along under newly-laid turf like big moles, rampaging through the cloches or mesh over your young crops and generally being four-legged hooligans.  They make a fearful racket with their grunting and their chasing each other (they can run at 20mph over short distances, btw), and on top of all that they eat hedgehogs.  Or at least kill them.

When I come to power they're going to be one of the first things to go.

Thriftygifty

You bet it might!  Horrible evil things, badgers.  Love digging up anything you've just planted, running along under newly-laid turf like big moles, rampaging through the cloches or mesh over your young crops and generally being four-legged hooligans.  They make a fearful racket with their grunting and their chasing each other (they can run at 20mph over short distances, btw), and on top of all that they eat hedgehogs.  Or at least kill them.

When I come to power they're going to be one of the first things to go.

They kill hedgehogs eeek...I did a quick google last night and noted that they take chickens, we don't actually have chickens however were considering it, we also have foxes.
Fortunately the greenhouse base is now solid concrete and has an actual door that latches rather than rickety sliding door like our previous greenhouse so things should be safe in there.  I've no idea what I am going to do about the veg though to make it badger proof, there is my homework for the evening.  Last year we grew runner beans and they were all ok and not touched, and I know they were here last year as it explains the weird noises.   The previous year however was a disaster, the ants ate all of our runner bean seeds we planted directly in the ground and the slugs took ALL of our french bean plants over 2 days and nothing else I half heartlessly planted grew or the badger could have got to them?!   At the moment our porch and kitchen windowsills are rammed with seedlings so I best find a solution sooner rather than later.  

mothernerd

A honey question - How local does local honey have to be? My favourite (recently opened) zero waste shop has organized itself a website and is doing home deliveries. As this is somewhere I want to support and stay open, I am going to start doing a monthly order for bulk dry goods (to start next winter's stock -up).

I have some hayfever meds (always buy extra at the end of summer as I seem to react to everything from February onwards) but I still have that sore throat that comes from pollen lodged there (and the sudden onset depression that I always forget about) so thought a teaspoon of honey in the mornings might help. The shop has 'local honey' but not sure where in the borough it is from. As we live in a very large borough and the accent changes every couple of miles I wondered how territorial bees are. I have diabetes so honey was one of many things I stopped buying.

thriftwizard

Hmm - I don't know, but here in the shops of East Dorset "local" honey seems to come from anywhere between Exeter in the West to Southampton in the east! But there's a care-home down the road that sells home-produced honey and a trader at the market who sells honey, beeswax, & face & hand creams from hives in & around Hurn airport. Check out your little local shops & roadside signs.

dandy-candy

Mothernerd if you get on to your local beekeeping group they will have a list of members selling their home produced honey and they will tell you where they have there hives so you can pick the one nearest to you.

skogar

jk0 - I use those cellophane lids sometimes. The problem is that making m own jam I don't buy it so my supplies of jars are what I get given by people. Sometimes they lids have been lost or they aren't in very good condition. Also as I reuse the jars over time the lids may deteriorate. One year I was saved from a serious lack of jam jars by 30 honey jars from a neighbour. Most had lids and were in excellent condition but about 7 were missing lids but there was lots of fruit to be used and I couldn't waste it. I remember someoone at work telling me "you can buy jamjars for making jam you know" assuming I didn' know they were available. The original lids are a lot easier though.

Si_Clist

skogar said:

... someone at work telling me  "you can buy jamjars for making jam you know" ...

I've had this.  Some folk just seem to think that jam has to go in jam jars.  If any of ours does, it's only because some of the jars I've wombled out the recycling bins happened to be jam jars! 

Ref the metal quarter-turn lids, don't forget that if a lid fits your jam jar, it's a jam jar lid - whatever the printing on the top says.  Quite a few of our jam jars are sitting there with Hellmans mayo lids on

PS  I have no idea why, but we got given a jar of Waitrose strawberry "jam" last year and we were appalled!  All it tasted of was glucose-fructose syrup and red ...