The Prepping Thread - A Newer Beginning ;)

[Deleted User]

We didn't know until today that there were vacant plots D for V, it got flagged up in conversation with HWK and he came home and said 'there are some vacant plots!' so I said 'do we want one?' and he said 'YES!' so we rang the council lady who deals with letting the allotment plots and asked if we could have another half one and she said I'll ask the councillor who deals with it and rang us back half an hour later with a choice of two, she'd even looked to see where our existing plot was and found the two closest ones to it.  I guess we're an existing plot holder and they've just done inspections so we must have been OK for them. It's a really good thing for us, next but one row over from our first plot and in line with where we are right next to a water point and has a much better shed on it than the ramshackle little one we inherited so it's win-win as far as we're concerned. We can now clear it, plant it up with overwintering crops and we're not close to the entrance gate so hopefully pilfering will be low.  I'm just really pleased we've got room to put in maincrop seed potatoes in quantity that ought to give us enough to last the whole of next winter when things might just be a bit tricky if we're still shut in because of this virus as they're beginning to suggest. We're also going to plant some big pots of overwintering greens for salads like mustard, mizuna and land cress and some seed potatoes in pots to hopefully get small golf ball sized new potatoes for Christmas day and put them in the greenhouse beside the house.  When this is all over with a second plot we're going to get a decent sized poly-tunnel, I so miss the big one from Hampshire and the early crops it gave, fabuloso!

daz378

If  i order my fridge freezer    say sunday night.....will i have a  chance having it delivered  in the same week...probably order from   one the big companies  like  Argos, AO..etc....or is demand so high  may have to wait a few weeks.?

thriftwizard

I'm green with envy MrsLW! As usual I have no idea how I'm going to fit everything onto our plot; the one next to us did come up early this year but someone else got in first. But even if it's really too small for us and the site is run with very strict & not terribly practical rules, I've felt very lucky to have it for these last few weeks; it's been smashing to be out & doing something active & useful in this glorious weather! And if I'm strolling across town to it, I can stop off at the little local shops & pick anything we need up, which saves queueing for the supermarket too.

The flipside is, though, that I've decided that we really, really need a greenhouse... the mini-polytunnel cover is falling apart quite fast now. It's done the job that was needed for this spring, & new covers are available if I ever have the space or the need to put it up again, but a small greenhouse (which is all that would fit into the only sunny-ish spot left in the garden) would allow us to grow quite a lot more stuff for quite a lot longer. We can't have one, or the polytunnel, at the allotment, so I shall have to sacrifice my "pottery corner" (i.e. corner full of pots) underneath the big old apple tree. (Before anyone points out that gravity might just cause a bit of a Newtonian headache there, I'm looking at polycarbonate models...)

cornishchick

I'm due a Tesco delivery - they have an offer on at the mo - 3 tins for £1.85. But Asda doing a 6 pack of Heinz for £3.50 and a 4 pack for £2.50.

thank you for that, I'll message my daughters and ask if they can pick me up a tenners worth in the next few trips they do...

cornishchick

OMG thought Id check to see if I could finally get an ASd order like I have done at least monthly for ages until all this, and bam I got one, not till 7th may but I was actually dumb founded to start with lol 

DawnW

-taff said:

Sieve like this

Yes, I have one of those, some are Mouli brand or some such, from France I think. Mine is Italian, obtained from a car boot sale, with 2 different discs for the base, one coarser than the other. I make roasted tomato sauce from home grown tomatoes and garlic (you can add chilli too, if you like), but freeze it rather than bottle it. In fact that is what we are having for dinner tonight.

mothernerd

I don't know if it's any help but someone said farm foods had lots of stock (when toilet paper was in demand). They still had 2 six packs of beans for £5 offer last time I saw a leaflet (and 57 tomato soup as well) but don't know what your store is like. Ours has a simple U shape with a back to back freezers in the middle and along the first long wall and various grocery type items on shelves above the freezers - it was bad enough going round in 'normal' times, one person trying to overtake could squash other customers against the freezers, so I wouldn't risk it if you or anyone in your household is vulnerable.

euronorris

There's a pay wall. Anyway, I know I won't be self sufficient with food, but the aim is simply to reduce my reliance on the shops. To give us a buffer. I don't have the space to grow enough food to be self sufficient.

Si_Clist

DigForVictory said:

 ... the American Canning thing. He plans to grow veggies - I plan to learn good old American Canning... So glad you reckon there isn't a UK equivalent or wasn't then.

"Wasn't then" is the key phrase.  No idea what's available now, but I've seen folks on the internets saying you'd have to be daft to buy the All-American when you can buy a Presto for less money, but if that's right we're happy being daft.  All I know for sure is that the All-American is the kitchen equivalent of the Harley-Davidson motorbike, and 10 years on we don't regret the purchase one bit.  Even though we really couldn't afford it at the time ...

BTW, keep him away from anything to do with vintage Singers lest the bug get him.  We had no intention at all of collecting them but they kept following me home so we ended up with far too many.  Now we're down to three different treadles, one hand portable and one electric portable - none of which we're ever parting with

[Deleted User]

Morning preppers united! we walked early today so as not to be too hot, we're predicted to be mid 20s here this afternoon and got the best of the morning, more folks out and about today and more traffic on the roads (but in actuality less by far than 'normal').  HWK has just got us the pub box and it had in it pears, grapes, bananas, cherry tomatoes, a cucumber, a green pepper, a big bag of carrots, a big bag of onions, 5 x baking potatoes, 2 litres of s/s milk, a large sliced loaf, 6 free range eggs, 500g pack of pasta and 20 tea bags, pretty good for £20 I feel and no profit being made, just a service to the village, good bloke that landlord.  I've processed most of the carrot mountain from the fridge and got it into the dehydrator this morning, I kept some back in case there were no new ones this morning in the box and I shall process them in a minute and get them into the machine too.  I shall make pear and apple jam this afternoon too as we got more fresh this morning so nothing is going to waste and the peelings are being composted on the allotment.

Looking ahead is slightly less daunting now we've got the capacity to grow more crops aimed at winter use but I shall still add in a few dry goods/tins with every slot at the supermarkets that we're able to get and 'Operation Winter 2020/21' is officially launched here as of this morning and 'operation Squirrel' which is the home made stuff is launched today too.  It might seem very early to be thinking that far ahead BUT.....