The Prepping Thread - A Newer Beginning ;)

Si_Clist

DigForVictory said:

...Time to go commune with my tomato & courgette plants. I don't know if a gentle murmur of "grow, you blighter" helps them ...

I don't know either, but didn't Jug Ears used to be into talking to the plants at Highgrove?  Don't know if it worked though, and now I come to think of it I don't know if that's actually a recommendation ...

srn

I decided last year to have a go with brewing because I couldn't bear to see all the apples and pears go to waste, we aren't great fruit eaters, nor do we have many puddings but we do like a glass of wine or beer or cider, as do our family and visitors. After making the cider I noticed the vast amount of plums, bullace, sloes and damsons in the trees and bushes at a caravan site we were visiting, so I asked permission to pick and I got so many!!  Hopefully it will be a good bramble year so that will be my next attempt.
My neighbours keep me supplied with bottles so they are free and so many are screw top now I don't even need corks or caps.
It's a great hobby and one we started when we lived in the middle east 30 years ago and couldn't get alcohol, we used to brew up alcohol free beer with sugar and yeast!  Desperate times indeed!  Not done it since then but thoroughly enjoying myself at present.

srn

Missychrissy, I don't suppose you have a link to the jennyjelly recipe do you?

daz378

Was going to LA  in august....so I  will need to send a present to  my sister instead.... can anyone recommend a  reliable US  gift website    that you can order and pay here but posted from US ?     Or buy something here and just post it     thanks

missychrissy

sm sorry don’t have a link but I have just trawled through the Homebrewland thread and found an old post of mine saying the jennyjelly recipe is on pg 363 on the ‘if things get tougher‘thread. I don’t know if it still exists.

elaine241

Well tests arrived with about 3/4 hour before last collection at nearest priority post box. I think we broke the national record for reading, registering, administrating and packaging four Covid tests! Made it to the post box with three minutes to spare and a very wary postman holding out a basket for the boxes. Just a case of waiting now for the results which may come though by Monday morning.
On a lighter note I managed to walk up to the yard to feed the hens and pick a huge bowl of peas. On the way back I noticed the white currants had suddenly ripened so I picked over a kilo of lovely berries. The black currants are ready too but I was feeling wobbly by then. I managed yesterday to top and tail gooseberries, open freeze them so they stay individual then pack about 3 kilo of fruit into bags for the freezer. At the moment I am not feeling up to actually doing anything with the fruit so stashing it away for a later date. 
Home brew!! Well there I can tell a few tales! My grandfather made copious amounts of every type of home brew and wine you could imagine plus some slightly illegal production! He was very good at it and often judged home made wine , cider and beer at local shows and clubs. I have managed to make my own wine etc over the years and currently have a rhubarb vodka on the go with strawberries added for colour otherwise it looks a bit like wee! I usually manage to make sloe vodka, various fruit brandies and anything else that takes my fancy. I refuse to make doubly fermented elder flower champagne again as a three day hangover and failing even to smell elder flower still haunts me to this day!! I was wondering what sort of wine white currants would make? Never heard of white currant wine, has anyone else?? 
It looks like it is going to be an excellent year for blackberries if our hedges are anything to go by, absolutely loads flowers even more than last year which was a v good one.
I am keeping a diary of what my veg patch , fruit, hedgerows contribute to my larder. Initially I didn't weigh things but now I am trying to keep a record of the type and amount of produce. It has only been a couple of weeks but already it is quite eye opening.

Si_Clist

elaine241 said:

It looks like it is going to be an excellent year for blackberries if our hedges are anything to go by, absolutely loads flowers even more than last year which was a v good one.

Same in this neck of the woods, so we're hoping that the local Council's so strapped for cash at present that they put off the hedge-cutting that they traditionally do the very day before I've planned to set off down the lane for the first picking of the year.

greenbee

@elaine241 - I got my Friday-posted test results on Sunday, so you might get them earlier than expected. In the meantime, please rest - I know to my cost what not resting while dealing with this bug does to you. 

I've finally had an OK day - managed work (not hugely taxing thankfully!), laundry (the backlog was getting me down) and to run the robot hoover round upstairs, mop the bathroom floors and run it round again. I am HUGELY pleased that I bought it (and it's friend downstairs) as it has enabled me to keep the house fairly clean without exhausting myself. Downstairs I'm slowly moving things back into the kitchen (and when I say slowly, I mean as I need to use them - so the coffee maker is back but not the kettle!), and have made some green soup from all the bits left after processing yesterday's veg delivery. Radish leaves, broccoli stalk, spring cabbage ribs, celery ends, carrot tops, pea pods etc. Sweated in oil, stock added and simmered, blended with hand blended and put through a conical sieve. The pulp will go into the compost heap along with the contents of the hoover (mostly my hair TBH...). I have also managed to cook (big salad for lunch, roasted veg with a lamb chop on top for supper) for the first time in ages due to prepping the veg as it arrived yesterday. So toast diet is now a thing of the past, and hopefully having had enough energy to sort out proper nutrition will mean I now have the energy to get a bit better and do a bit more... 

When prepping for illness it's worth thinking about having lots of ready-made food in the freezer that can be easily reheated, and thinking about how the cleaning will be done. It's so depressing when things get grubby. 

missychrissy

eliane241 I’ve never made white currant wine but I would give it a go. My grandmother used to make wine out of all sorts eg carrot, potato, rice, parsnip, blackberry, and she used to do them in buckets with a cloth over the top.

littlemoney

GreyQueen said:

Just saw a passing reference in the Indy to launch of a major new study into ME. Hope it gets somewhere, I've had this wretched condition for 30+ years now, developed out of glandular fever. Had it long enough to have run the whole gamut of medical idiocy from 'yuppie flu' onwards.

Did you also get the one "women of a certain age seeking attention". From work I got "we all get tried from time to time and you just have to push through it"   It steals your life and just leaves you exisitng, not living.