The Prepping Thread - A Newer Beginning ;)

GreyQueen

Floss said:

@boazu, @GreyQueen et al, do your allotment plots have good security in the event of fresh food shortage, to disrupt the plans of any looters? I know the Blackpool sites all have 2.5m steel fencing around them & double locking bolts on their entrance gates but we still had "visitors" now & then.

I guess anyone who really wanted to get in would do so if there was free food to be acquired to feed families / sell.

  Hi Pet, funny you should say that, but the very subject came up in one of those casual over-the-fence convos with a lottie neighbour about 4 years ago. She remarked that We'd Be All Right in the event of a crisis. I smiled and pointed out that we'd have to patrol up there with weapons to protect the veggies and the chickens from thieves. Her face fell.

Even in good times, some plotholders have been driven out of poultry-keeping by theft of birds and of the food (eg the thieves weren't intended the poultry for the pot asap, but to keep the birds alive, at least for a while). Useful materials after often stolen (scaffolding planks, nets, wheelbarrows). The site is well-fenced and gated with locked 8 ft tall gates and overlooked by housing but that doesn't stop the thefts and shed break-ins, thieves keep late hours it seems. They also come through in periodic waves, every few months, and rob/ attempt to rob everyone's plot.

Some folk may never have seen a potato plant in the ground but they'd quickly learn. Less common veggies like spinach and chard might not immediately be identified but you don't have to be a genius to ID carrots or beetroots, or other tubers, which is where the calorific density lies, rather than with the saladings.

I do like the idea of sowing veggies among ornamentals and believe I would do this myself if I had a garden as opposed to an allotment. Never mind the apocalypse, it would be a fun project. I did read online about a prepper who lived in an area with what's called an HOA which forbade the growing of veggies. They did this covert style of gardening and even had fruit bushes in their front yard with faux flowers attached so they looked like ornamentals.

Of course, being the interwebs, that story might have been a tissue of lies, who can tell?

I do lean more towards the pov of the long (as in several generations-long) decline of industrial civilisation so think that keeping your family up with gardening skills, and a piece of land in good heart, is prudence.

GreyQueen

VJsmum said:

Is there an issue with broccoli?  I haven't been able to get any for a couple of weeks (though haven't tried that hard, just haven't seen it when i've looked).

  British broccoli has finished now, it may be an issue with imports. I spoke to the greengrocer years ago and a farmer he knew has been under contract to provide X amount of broccoli to a supermarket chain for Y amount of weeks. The season finished early, they held him to his contract, and the only way he could fulfil it was to get Californian broccoli air-freighted in. Doing so wiped out all his profits for the whole contract.

maryb

I could only get Spanish broccoli (calabrese as opposed to tenderstem/sprouting) for ages until this week when Aldi finally had British broccoli

GreyQueen

I shall have to have a good look at the country of origin when I'm next in the veggie aisle of the supermarket. I'm not buying much at the moment as the broad beans have come ready (autumn-sown). I don't think I've seen purple sprouting broccoli for sale for years. A kind lottie neighbour gave me some earlier this year, bless him.

maryb

I was only aware of it because I thought all those food miles for buying organic was not environmentally friendly.  Only to find that the non organic in Lidl also came from Spain, right up until a week ago.  Which surprised me a bit because the discount supermarkets generally have shorter supply lines and make a big thing of stocking British produce.  But fresh veg is the sort of thing that will be affected by logistical problems so it's as well to stay flexible about what veg to buy.  

Floss

GQ, my local Aldi, Lidl & Asda have all had British PSB this spring, and very nice it was too!

GreyQueen

Floss said:

GQ, my local Aldi, Lidl & Asda have all had British PSB this spring, and very nice it was too!

  Ooooh, envy-envy. The only place I have ever seen PSB is on street markets, never once in any SM of any brand. It is the best broccolo by a long shot, imo.

Floss

It was something I grew every year on my plot, 80% was under a big mesh frame, and the other 20% was for the pigeons!

greenbee

Floss said:

It was something I grew every year on my plot, 80% was under a big mesh frame, and the other 20% was for the pigeons!

My dad used to do the same - he loved PSB, hated calabrese! 

GreyQueen

Floss said:

It was something I grew every year on my plot, 80% was under a big mesh frame, and the other 20% was for the pigeons!

The wood pigeons on the allotments where I garden are a cunning breed. There is an arms race between them and us, with the target anything of the brassica family. They even work in gangs, to weigh down netting until they can reach the veg. You need very strong structures up there, to hold something like scaffolding netting clear of the veggies. I feel that the effort isn't worth it, between the pigeons and the white butterflies. The PSB I was gifted was extracted from a very strong brassica cage created from substantial planks and scaffold mesh. Allotmenteering sometimes involves a fair amount of carpentry.