The Prepping Thread - A Newer Beginning ;)

jk0

Hmm. Currys & AO both install & take away your old appliance, though I normally have to wait a week for this. Horses for courses I guess.

I'm surprised to hear about GQ's spuds. This year is the first time I've not lost my geraniums that have been out in the garden all winter. They're all flowering now.

Greenglockenspiel

jk0 said:

Hmm. Currys & AO both install & take away your old appliance, though I normally have to wait a week for this. Horses for courses I guess.

I'm surprised to hear about GQ's spuds. This year is the first time I've not lost my geraniums that have been out in the garden all winter. They're all flowering now.

They probably just aren’t coming into customers’ homes during the pandemic. 

Maybe I am just terrible at gardening! I think we live near each other and none of my geraniums are flowering either! 😂
My potatoes did get hit by frost a couple of weeks ago but have come back with vigour... but OH is in charge of them 🤔

annieb64

After all the lifting DH informed  me that we could have had it installed if we were prepared  to wait until Tuesday. He didn't give me that option. We could have managed without it until then.There was a notice on the side of the machine saying two man. Not sure a 65 year old woman and a 68 year old man add up to two men but we managed.

GreyQueen

We had bad frosts here earlier this month and everyone got stuff frosted.  A nearby plotholder lost tomatoes INSIDE a polytunnel, which is such bad luck. They'll regrow, but we need some rain in the next few weeks or they'll not be much of a potato harvest.

Si_Clist

GreyQueen said:

... we need some rain in the next few weeks or they'll not be much of a potato harvest.

IIRC in the 26 years we've had our allotment, this is the first year I've had to water the spuds more than once.  And I'm fed up of getting to the plot by 5.30am so I can use the hosepipe before somebody else turns up, turns another tap on, and the pressure to "our" tap goes right down.

Watering the fruit and veg  in the back garden every other day too, and already in fear of the next water bill ...

euronorris

Yes, our potatoes (and all plants really) have required a lot of watering recently. It has been dry for weeks now, and the last couple of weeks very hot. Our garden is a sun trap, so everything gets a bit baked. But, on the flip side, we don't often get bad frosts, even in winter. So, horse for courses I guess.

I missed the post about the strawberry types. I have both types. Can't remember the varieties, but one set I bought as plants from garden centre last year. June bearing. The other type I grew from seed last year and is everbearing. Both fruiting now. Had my first ripe strawberry on 6th june last year. I'm expecting the first ripe ones to be around the same this year to be honest. I hope. Please strawberry gods, please!!

thriftwizard

We did get the sharp frosts earlier this month, despite being almost as far south as you can get without falling into the Channel. Our allotment site slopes almost imperceptibly down towards the river, and only the four plots at the "bottom" were badly hit, ours being one of them. The spuds & French beans lost their tops despite being fleece-wrapped, two of my four pumpkins lost their tops inside the (covered) cold frame, which had had manure dug in under the soil so should have kept quite warm, but my runner beans were wrecked; a few have sprouted back from the base, and I'd planted seeds in between the young plants which popped up a couple of days later, so it wasn't a total disaster, but the poor lad next to me was literally crying as he had nothing coming on to re-plant with & seeds aren't easy to come by at the moment. (Though I think the real reason was because his mother-in-law had told him there was frost expected, and he'd laughed & patiently explained that we hardly ever get frost down here!) The pumpkins bounced back & are flowering now, much to my surprise.

Another way I was lucky was that I'd thrown a handful of "reject" runner bean seeds - undersized & wrinkly - into a wide, shallow pot with some used compost at the bottom at home & ignored them. Needless to say, they all sprouted, frost notwithstanding. So I planted them in a cut-down leaky waterbutt full of half-baked compost, and they're now galloping up the poles; I'm frantically knotting some netting to "train" them over the end of the driveway, forming a sort of temporary archway over to where the clematis resides. Goes to show, it's not only the big smooth shiny seeds that want to grow!

We've had no rain for a couple of months now. I'm cycling over most days to water, but it's taking more & more strokes of the pump to fill my water-carriers, so the groundwater level is going down. Hopefully things have put down decent roots, and we'll get at least some decent showers before too long... though I'm not going to wish the sunshine away!

GreyQueen

I never water my potato patches, I consider the area too big and the quantity of water needed to do more than incentivise the weeds to be ridiculous. I do water seedlings and fresh transplants to get them going, atm am slinging about 5 cans of water around most evenings. The spuds thrive (or not) according to the rainfall. I do have two large water barrells on the allotment shed, taking water from the gutters. It's amazing how quickly these fill, given that they are draining a small shed roof, but they're getting low.

We did have an incident a couple of months ago, where a person with too much time on their hands (and not enough grey matter between their ears), went onto tens of allotments, inc mine, and opened spigots to drain down water butts. They couldn't see the spigot on the back water butt as it is turned around to make it inaccessible after an identical incident a couple of years ago. I did bale water from back to front butt, to equalise the levels somewhat. Somewhat annoying. Judging by some of the grumblings from some of the blokes, if this miscreant is ever caught red-handed, they will be given a pummelling.

jamanda

Our spuds got very badly frosted (East Midlands) but, after sulking for a week, have glorious tops again.  We have runner beans galloping up the poles, peas peaing, lots and lots of onions (winter, summer and spring) strawberries trying to make an effort, carrots, radishes etc.  Two sowings of lettuce failed to do anything.  
In the greenhouse we have lots of tomatoes and a couple of cucumbers.  We have cooking and eating apple trees, although the eaters don't have many on this year, cooking cherries, plums, a baby greengage and a black mulberry.  The mulberry only tarted fruiting last year.  DH, who doesn't eat fruit AT ALL, ate a couple every time he went past to his "down the garden man cave" and I didn't get to taste one.  I can't tell him off can I?
Oh, and an extremely unfortunate amount of blackberries in our mixed hedges which shouldn't be there.  We don't like blackberries, but sometimes other people have them.
We are constantly watering.  Full time job at the moment.
Wishing everybody luck with their growing.

GreyQueen

Gosh, I'm feeling such a slacker; my runner beans were only planted last week, my squash are indoor-raised and going out over the next few days and my tomato plants are 2 inch tall seedlings. In our defence, m'lud, it's the same for everybody on our plots, with the last frost here typically falling 3rd week in May, we don't tend to get the frost tender stuff out until beginning of June. Of course, spuds have to be started earlier and take their chances. Mine have regenerated frosted haulm a lot faster on years with more rain, such a shame they were killed on 5th May. Good reminder to do some second sowings, think I shall do soem more radishes and beetroots.