The Home Front meets Covid-19

Pyxis

monnagran said:

Apropos my above post......I've just opened an e-mail from Tesco saying that they have no slots for online orders delivery or click/collect for several weeks and asking people to shop in person if they possibly can.

The devil and the deep blue sea then.

Do you have a greengrocers locally? If so, they are probably doing home deliveries now, as I have heard a lot are.
Worth a try, as at least you’d get some fresh stuff delivered.

thriftwizard

Here's a good wartime/home-front thing - nettles! I'm just polishing off a second bowl of nettle & squash soup (now renamed "squashed nettle soup") and it's delicious. Both from the allotment, although we also have a tiny, deliberate nettle patch in the garden for butterflies. Nettles are very high in nutrients (as their flaming roots go so very deep, ask me how I know!) and our plot is alongside a ditch & field boundary, so the nettles are always poking their noses in. Might as well put them to some good use!

i just sweated off an onion & a clove of garlic, rinsed the nettle tips (just the first four leaves or so) and added them, then some veg stock, then a bag of roasted squash from the freezer. Salt & pepper to taste & I can keep going til suppertime now, with very little damage to the grocery budget.

jinny

I was just reading an article on stinging nettles on the Versus arthritis website.  There are trials going on for the use of nettles for arthritis.  Early days though.  Nettles ingested like tea has side effects it can lower blood pressure in people with low blood pressure.  It makes a great hair rinse but im not sure how you make it. Good old professor you tube will tell us how.
talking nettles brings back memories of me as a child being flung off the back of my brothers bike into a huge patch of them 
ooooooh so painful.

-taff

A herbal book will give you lots of options for common weeds and plants you may have in your garden...I have Jekkas book of herbs, brilliant book.

skogar

Nettle cordial is nice and easy to make. This is the recipe use. I must remember to get some out my parent's garden tomorrow when I take them their shopping.

https://www.eatweeds.co.uk/nettle-cordial-recipe

jinny

Thank you Skogar this sounds and looks delicious 

Pyxis

jinny said:

I was just reading an article on stinging nettles on the Versus arthritis website.  There are trials going on for the use of nettles for arthritis.  Early days though.  Nettles ingested like tea has side effects it can lower blood pressure in people with low blood pressure.  It makes a great hair rinse but im not sure how you make it. Good old professor you tube will tell us how.
talking nettles brings back memories of me as a child being flung off the back of my brothers bike into a huge patch of them 
ooooooh so painful.

And of course butterflies just lurve the flowers! Leave some for a butterfly display!

jinny

I always think of the wee beasties.  I live in an urban place but we have some surrounding areas we can get brambles ect. They are usually stripped bare by people none left for anyone else or the birds.

thriftwizard

I'd have a slight problem with leaving the nettles to flower - which, by the way, they certainly will in the hedge & ditch next to us - which is that IF we had to stop going over there for any length of time, as is undoubtedly possible, the flowers will set seed, and the seeds will give us umpteen more nettles where they're not welcome! To be honest, the wee beasties will be happy enough with blackthorn (flowering now) hawthorn, nettles, dandelions, daisies, dead nettle, purple loosestrife, yellow rattle, brambles, & elder in the hedge, ditch & field margin. I have planted flowers for them too, but rather more sedate ones than nettles! We do have a resident wren , who's nesting in the composter surround, sparrows, blackbirds & robins in the hedge, plus a couple of stonechats (who I mistook for juvenile robins last year) not to mention all the waterbirds around the river that flows through the field. And we have a "bug hotel" on the end of the shed that's being well-used, with little black bees coming & going all this morning.
I do feel rather lucky to be able to walk over there & spend time surrounded by such abundant life, in this glorious weather. But I have to keep going, come what may, to water things, whilst it's this dry!

cornishchick

basketcase said:

needmoney said

basketcase said:

1.  Cut old cotton jumper into squares for more bleach 'wipes' - some temp, some to hem before use...

@basketcase , can I ask what solution you are using for your wipes please.

Hi - Sorry to take so long to get back.  I just get about 3/4 of a mug of water and add a squirt of thick bleach.  I read somewhere that it has to be thick bleach, rather than thin because it contains a surfectant which makes it more effective.  I was quite surprised to read that t doesn't have to be really strong to work.

I read on the CDC website it only needs to be a solution of 0.5 I think it was.. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/disinfecting-your-home.html