THE Prepping thread - a new beginning :)

maryb wrote: »

Spuds and onions are less nickable by two legged or feathered thieving types and can be stored. After the Channel Islands were invaded in 1940 you couldn't get hold of an onion in late 1940 for love nor money because they were nearly all imported. Even next year onions were in short supply because there was very little seed to sow in January 1941. If you had home grown onions in store back then, they were extremely valuable barter commodities

I read an anecdote from a lady who had a child then and one of the baptismal gifts was a bunch of onions, which was incredible, given how hard they were to get. She was utterly thrilled. Imagine giving a new mum the same today - her face would be a picture!

The folks are now on the last sack of the spuds which I grew on my allotment, which we harvested on 14th August. The total tally from 7.5 kg of seeds spuds was 134 kg, excluding any strays which may still come to light. I have about 10 kg left at the flat, they will be good for spuds into mid-late January. Excellent ROI for labour; bit of exercise planting them and a bit of exercise digging them up (we also dug up two toads, but they were unhurt and sloped off safely).

Once upon a time in WW2, in an occupied northern European city where a branch of my family have lived as ex-pats since before WW1, there was a certain suburb right beside the countryside. And in this countryside was a field of onions.

The people in the suburb were desperate to buy these onions but the farmer was holding out, aiming to drive the price higher and higher. The suspense went on and on, the people were getting angry.

One night, by arrangement, the entire suburb acted. The older children ringed the field, facing outwards, keeping watch. The adults dug. By morning, the field was bare and every single onion was secreted in the deepest cupboards of the residents. As told to me by a close relative who was one of the teen children ringing that field.

They also used to sneak out at night to cut branches off street trees for badly needed firewood. Grim times.

Dig top of my christmas list is a new ash bucket - on being told "xmas is for wants not needs" I explained that I ***want**** a new ash bucket!!!!

A few years ago, Aunt and Uncle asked me what I wanted for Christmas. I told them - manure.

I got toiletries. I did get a socket set several years ago but it is on semi-permanant loan to Kid Bruv to keep in his car, since I not longer run one. I have made it clear that it's a loan, not a gift, however.

:j I'm getting slippers this year (needed) and some cash (always useful) and I can have some manure (paying for it from the gift cash), once I can find whomever on the allotments has got Farmer John's number, which I don't have any more.

Bring me 5 tonnes of the brown stuff and you can keep the fan.......:rotfl:

I still don't know how the large wheelbarrow got under and half behind the Christmas tree while we were all at church 20 years ago.....

I got hideously lucky - having watched a block of flats grow from a brownfield site on my walk to the office, I could see when the chaps had all gone leaving an unattended skip. With a Haemmerlin barrow with a thin concrete lining abandoned on it.

That came *straight* home with me, and has been used both as wheelbarrow & lounging opportunity by the offspring.