The Prepping Thread - A Newer Beginning ;)

Karmacat

Sounds good, GQ I've been doing a lot of sorting and stacking throughout the house, things feel a lot more under control, though there's still a way to go - a lot of this should have been done in the 18 months after I retired, but there were other priorities.

State of play now: bramble roots continue to be dug up to die in the square yard or so of space that's created, a chuck a bit of bagged topsoil, then bark chippings then dead stems - to protect the worms that are exposed, then to protect the soil from cats weeing on it A neighbour of mine has been such a force for good in all this, lending me his green bin for weeks on end, so all the stuff I'm sawing down or digging up can go straight to the big central composting pile attached to our recycling centre.

Online shops have gone well, I buy enough each time to trigger the 10% off vouchers they keep sending me and delivered at a £1 delivery slot.

My next prep tasks:
- carry on de-brambling the garden
- check retirement money is in the right spaces.
- electrical preps: sort charging of small devices, windup, solar, whatever. I have the kit, but being familiar with using it is a very different thing.
- haybox! This has been on the list for approximately a million years. It's been half made for approximately five hundred thousand years. Get it done!

In two weeks time, I need to be available for catsitting duties from then till the end of March (Yes! March! Bleep!) not the whole time, but some of the time. And there are normal admin things I need to do before that time too.
Got to get busy :eek:

GreyQueen

Wow, that is one seriously fit DS you have there, thriftwizard! Good for him. And clever to take a pic at the gate to prove he was there.


Nice work on the garden prep, Karmakat. I am a tad behind where I would like to be with allotment prep, due to doing nothing in January but making flying visits with rotables on a couple of Sundays. Due to dislocated shoulder with a dessert helping of flu, the month was a write off.


Howsomever, it isn't an irredemiable mess. The onions can go in shortly in a prepped area and the tater patch which I'll be sowing about 21st March is also ready. I only have til end March to do any bonfiring - site rules - and may not be able to get anything dry enough by then, but you can only do what you can do, hey?


If I need to go to the edge-of-town garden centre, I won't go to the allotment today, it's an either/or with my energy levels.

singlestep

I work about twenty miles away from where I live, a journey that takes 90 minutes there by train with a change on the way and 50 minutes back.

The winter of 2010, I was stranded at work overnight, along with a lot of colleagues and people we work with with varying needs. Hundreds of people in other workplaces had been too. Since then, I've kept overnight essentials at work - leisurewear I don't mind wearing in front of others, toiletries and medication along with a selection of lunches and drinks I normally have.

Last winter when we had a red weather warning, I waited to be told we were opening before I left. The evening before, neighbouring local authorities had confirmed they would be closed, and it was obvious on the morning that it would be a bad idea to try to get there. Sure enough, at 7:30, it was confirmed that they were closed and we were advised to stay at home.

Great - for staff like me. Cleaners who work in the same building had to report to their nearest premises, whether it was to be opened or not. I get that whoever is able to get in to work is required to deal with absolute emergencies in such situations but it felt more than a little unfair.

In the event, I spent my day working remotely, doing some planning and some CPD but it was a much shorter and more productive day without my commute and constant interruptions.

I am quite pleased with myself this weekend. I've done a long-postponed inventory of my cupboards and made some room for a little more. Only the freezer left but it can keep til next week

jamanda

Greyqueen,


With regard to Kestrel potatoes and bearing in mind the recent warnings that commercial growers would be priorities, I have ordered some from Thompson & Morgan.


We can only grow Kestrel. Any others we have tried are full of wibble holes and are more hole than potato. You obviously have to pay postage, but I'd rather pay than not have any. They have them in 1kg and 4kg bags (I think).

mardatha

I have garden envy, mine is deep frozen and so would we be if we ventured out there. Not going to be able to plant my tatties until May so am not that worried.
Re snow and being stranded innit, I think I get more snow than most of you doon sooth lol - and lemme tell you, it is not possible to walk any distance in deep snow. Not at all, without getting seriously in danger of dehydration and exhaustion and disorientation.
I have been in my back garden in a blizzard and not known which way the house was even though I had just come out of it. Quite scary. Two brothers up here, shepherds in their 60s, were lost in a blizzard a few years ago - and both died. They were on land they knew like the back of their hands.
We once got stopped in a blizzard on the moor because the car in front was a classic Mini -and going uphill, the snow blew under the bonnet and smothered the engine. Result was a long tailback of cars stuck in heavy blowing snow. When a bus full of special needs kids got stuck as well, the police landrovers and the snow plough came out and cleared the road to a wee pub high on the moor. Later that night, the plough got stuck and they had to be lifted out by helicopter lol.
Our car was stuck up there for 4 days before we got it back - and that was only 2 miles away.

GreyQueen

jamanda wrote: »

Greyqueen,


With regard to Kestrel potatoes and bearing in mind the recent warnings that commercial growers would be priorities, I have ordered some from Thompson & Morgan.


We can only grow Kestrel. Any others we have tried are full of wibble holes and are more hole than potato. You obviously have to pay postage, but I'd rather pay than not have any. They have them in 1kg and 4kg bags (I think).

:j I have them! 4 x 2 kg bags of Kestrel and with change from £10 the lot. Hurrah!



Kestrel is reckoned to be resistant to eelworm, I wonder if that's what's chewing on your tatties? I just really like the variety and they seem to enjoy the circumstances up at my lottie.


:eek: Bike ride was 27 mins outgoing which included about 10 minutes walking up the nosebleed hill and 22 minutes back, which involved freewheeling down said hill with 6 kg tatties on the back basket and 2 kg in the front basket worrying about faceplanting into the heavy traffic on the big road at the bottom. Made it home in one piece.


It would normally be another two weeks before I bought my seed spuds but I made early manoevers. Think I will make this particular place my first port of call in 2020. Here's hoping all gardeners get the varieties and quantities they're after.


Mar, blizzard conditions in the US MidWest have been so bad that farmers run a rope from the house to the barn so you can feel your way along it to get back indoors when having had to go out to tend livestock. Otherwise, you'd be sure to get turned around in the blizzard and die just outside your home.

DigForVictory

Yeay, Kestrels for GQ! (I know, spud variant, but I quite like the idea of trying to plant the birds...What would you harvest? Something bad-tempered & turkey sized? Resistant to worm I'd have thought. Protect the plot from would-be vegetable thieves, too - imagine pulling one of those up unexpected.)

The resupply run went reasonably OK, but just after I'd clicked on post, the power went out. Sudden test of neighbourliness - we were the first in our postcode to call it in, and amongst the first out to disturb assorted elderly & infirm folk around our street. (I even got to ask the neighbour going to comment on sport for the radio if he had extra layers, food & drink in his car - and there was a double-blink & he reappeared with an extra bag! Another got-to-be-there job?)

I am all for strategic location photos. I use phone snaps emailed direct from the phone to explain to my boss why I will be in late, if not working from home.

My chaps approach was very direct - in the event of a power cut, they preferred to stay under their duvets. Then hitch with my resupply ride & eat at McDonalds. Still, to get the ride they did wipe my car clear of all snow, ice & (I suspect) some of the paint so it was an admirably clean clear vehicle, on the outside.

I got a steady feed of texts from the power folk as it was sorted & switched back on, at which point the chaps got tired of shopping & wanted to go home. (Next Event, I will leave them under their duvets for the quieter life & clear the car myself.)

Karmacat

Karmacat wrote: »

My next prep tasks:
- carry on de-brambling the garden

Mega pleased with what I've done: I went out twice, about 40 minutes each time, and one half of the big old blackcurrant bush is cleared of looooong grass, little perennial weeds, brambles and, ahem, very old hardboard originally put down when I moved here as a weed deterrent. It surrounds the blackcurrant, which got weeded anyway so now I can keep it clear *and* feed the soil. Topsoil and bark chippings laid down in that area, in a sort of hill, as it edges on places that need lots of digging.[/QUOTE]

mardatha wrote: »

I have garden envy, mine is deep frozen and so would we be if we ventured out there. Not going to be able to plant my tatties until May so am not that worried.
Re snow and being stranded innit, I think I get more snow than most of you doon sooth lol - and lemme tell you, it is not possible to walk any distance in deep snow. Not at all, without getting seriously in danger of dehydration and exhaustion and disorientation.
I have been in my back garden in a blizzard and not known which way the house was even though I had just come out of it. Quite scary. Two brothers up here, shepherds in their 60s, were lost in a blizzard a few years ago - and both died. They were on land they knew like the back of their hands.
We once got stopped in a blizzard on the moor because the car in front was a classic Mini -and going uphill, the snow blew under the bonnet and smothered the engine. Result was a long tailback of cars stuck in heavy blowing snow. When a bus full of special needs kids got stuck as well, the police landrovers and the snow plough came out and cleared the road to a wee pub high on the moor. Later that night, the plough got stuck and they had to be lifted out by helicopter lol.
Our car was stuck up there for 4 days before we got it back - and that was only 2 miles away.

That's a really powerful post, Mar - the even-on-land-you-know events in particular, and the layering of accidents and clashes of needs ending up in bad situations.

GreyQueen wrote: »

:j I have them! 4 x 2 kg bags of Kestrel and with change from £10 the lot. Hurrah!
:eek: Bike ride was 27 mins outgoing which included about 10 minutes walking up the nosebleed hill and 22 minutes back, which involved freewheeling down said hill with 6 kg tatties on the back basket and 2 kg in the front basket worrying about faceplanting into the heavy traffic on the big road at the bottom. Made it home in one piece.

Wow ... that's a really big deal when you're really still not recovered, GQ. Congratulations!

Mar, blizzard conditions in the US MidWest have been so bad that farmers run a rope from the house to the barn so you can feel your way along it to get back indoors when having had to go out to tend livestock. Otherwise, you'd be sure to get turned around in the blizzard and die just outside your home.

And that's another one! It sounds so alien, but I get it.

Siebrie

The rope between the farm and the barn reminds me of the stories in Little House on the Prairie! (The books, NOT the tv series.)

DigForVictory

Might have been The Long Winter, but her recorded childhood had a healthy share of snow.

The Welsh farmer we know runs a line from the farmhouse to the lambing shed and his wife chuckles he can migrate along that mostly asleep, which means during lambing he does still sleep in his own bed for a few minutes a day.

8 kilos of seed spuds is a formidable amount. Best wishes for a good crop! Nosebleed hill sounds unpleasant, but sailing back down may have been the trickiest bit?
Are we really supposed to be getting seeds to consider germination already?