The Prepping Thread - A Newer Beginning ;)

MingVase

Are we talking about sewage here???  I can't grow anything yet Polly, not enough light. Maybe another month.

C_J

mothernerd said:
...... and have watched the Death of Stalin 3 times (love it but then I have a very dark sense of humour

Have you also watched "In the Loop"? It's another of Armando Iannucci's darkly satirical films, and possibly even funnier than the Death of Stalin (which I loved).

VJsmum

My growings weren't that successful this year - apart from green tomatoes.  Tell a lie, we got some nice carrots, beetroot and radishes.  My runners were clearly in the wrong place but i know you aren't supposed to keep putting them in the same spot year after year.  For now, i'm on a mission to improve the soil in my little 'potager'.

thriftwizard

This week I've spotted celandines, daisies, marigolds & elephant's ears all blooming in sheltered spots. My mother's care home, who post a lot on social media so that we can all see what they're up to, have just posted pics of a couple residents admiring daffodils on one of the country lanes; they're a little further west & south than we are, and a bit closer to the sea. And I noticed that not only are the croci/crocuses (both correct, apparently) well up, but the bluebells have about 10cm of stalk showing, and the tall daffs about 15cm, in the garden; spring is definitely not far away! 

So I'll be getting some tomatoes, chillis & aubergines away in my big propagator (donated by a neighbour, works but doesn't have a lid any more) and probably onions in the greenhouse. Onions, chillis and tomatoes did really well last year, and the courgettes weren't so much a crop as an inundation, but I didn't do so well with the brassicas or carrots, mainly thanks to continued incursions from rabbits from the neighbouring pasture field. They also ate my first two plantings of runner beans, and the late frost got the third! But fourth time lucky; they did all right in the end and didn't stop producing edible beans until the end of October; my neighbours had ripped theirs out at the start of September. Carrots and parsnips vanished as soon as I'd spotted the seedlings, sadly, but I'm still harvesting leeks, chard & the dreaded green stuff, which we love. I'm hoping to do better with my peppers this year, too, in the little greenhouse rather than on the plot where the chillies seem to like to be. Hoping for a much better year from the apples - after a spectacular crop in 2019, we had about 10 fruits last year - but the old tree, threatened with a TPO by the council, is believed to be over 100 years old and may have Gone Beyond; we won't know for some months. Luckily we have 3 younger trees and a couple of crab apples and two quinces too. It's not a big garden but we make it work hard!

MingVase

Meanwhile back at the coalface

Brexit: Fears of food shortages grow as EU truckers avoid UK ports in record numbers

Deliveries from France and Germany are at around 50 per cent of pre-Brexit levels as hauliers avoid red tape and queues

Updated January 14, 2021 5:35 pm

Fears over food shortages on supermarket shelves are growing as figures show French and German delivery companies are avoiding post-Brexit red tape at UK ports in record numbers.
Data from logistics software company Transporean show the number of haulage companies from Germany that are rejecting delivery contracts to the UK have more than doubled since the end of the Brexit transition period on 31 December. French trucking firms are rejecting three times as many UK deliveries.
This has led to around half the usual deliveries coming into the UK since the turn of the year, and is increasing fears of food and other product shortages in the coming weeks.

[Deleted User]

If the apple tree is as venerable as 100 years he might like a little loosening round his base and a top dressing of an all purpose fertilizer just lightly forked in and let the rain do the rest,  I think apple trees like plum trees have good years and bad years but the most likely thing is a colder than average spring keeping the bees in their hives not flying at blossom time, bees don't fly under 16 degrees as they can't collect enough to cover the energy put out at under 16C.  Canny beings are bees! We did well with beans lastyear although the runners were the devil to germinate and then we got a hard frost which took our the first wigwam on the allotment and badly burned the haulms of the first early potatoes, we had a very much reduced crop but the maincrops did well, we grew Desiree and they're keeping well too.  We grew 'Ferrari' in the back garden, a fine bean and they cropped for weeks, every other day I could pick enough for a generous portion for both of us, definitely one to grow again.  Courgettes we grew from seed from Wallis Seeds 'Tuscany' from and boy did they crop and over a long period too.  This coming year we've got an extra 1/2 plot and much more room so we've put in new autumn fruiting raspberry canes, new thornless Blackberries and a couple of Loganberries too.  We kept the plum which is generous with it's fruit but took down the Damson (with permission from the council) as it had some sort of canker and had virtually stopped producing. Tomatoes in the greenhouse cropped for months and kept us going until October, they just kept ripening.  Got to love a plot eh?

GreyQueen

My beloved bumblebees can fly at 10c or even below, although they will need to shiver their flight muscles to 30c to get aloft and then will have to maintain their thorax at 30-40c, regardless of the ambient temperature, to keep flying. I usually go the whole year without seeing honey bees at all on my allotment, all the bees are the various species of bumblebees. I often see 5-6 species at any one time, and have had tree bumblebees nest in the cold frame, and red and buff tailed nest in mouse holes. I have seen the red-tailed bumblebee on flying up there in the third week of January and the buff-tailed bumblebee has been recorded as having winter active colonies: https://www.bumblebeeconservation.org/winter-active-bumblebees/

I allow the white dead nettle, which has flowers in all 12 months of the year to flower, it's flowering up there now, as are pot marigolds. Soon there will be celandines and the red dead nettle, which will attract early bumblebees and the early butterflies. And when the broad beans come into flower the bees will be mad for them.

It's also worth remembering that other insects are also pollinators, as are some moths. The much-maligned wasps are constantly in the fuschias in the homestead's back garden.

ivyleaf

I'd always wondered what the point of wasps was - now i know 

daz378

Just took one of them caveman Turkey legs out of the freezer   for tomorrow...took a  couple of liu days   so not in till thursday....still getting free taxis   to and from work....  must be costing them a right packet....so how long   will the  Brexit  supply problems be likely to last?  ....stay safe

MrsCD

Well our Asd@ order arrived at 6.30 pm, instead of 12.30! The poor chap was almost on his knees. He said he'd been stuck in the snow in the back streets twice and had to give up on a couple as he couldn't get anywhere near for cars parked in the way. I went out and cleared a track along past the next 3 houses so he didn't have to trudge through the 5 inches of snow to ours.