What Preps are you doing this week

[bigpat]

Well this weekend I will be getting the push bike out and going to look for bug out locations/over night stopping points. If I find some good locations I'm going to preactise some skills (fire starting)

[jansman]

Not a "push bike", it is a bicycle. A very efficient form of transport. Enjoy it.

[nickdutch]

Ordering some activated charcoal (something we should all know about for its medical benefits)

[rickoshea]

I bought a basil plant. Cutting edge stuff.

[FEISTY]

I bought a basil plant. Cutting edge stuff.

Nothing wrong with that . It's an annual though, so will be short-lived. Have you tried sowing from seed?

[jansman]

This afternoon I planted 3 dozen tomato plants in the tunnel. I will get a crop out of that and it will clear that bed ready for Autumn planting. I like to put in new spuds for Christmas dinner and plenty of salad leaves to see us through Winter.
I have been asked if I can get down the North end of the village to shoot some pigeons this weekend. Fill- the- freezer-time!
Ain't a bad life.

[FEISTY]

Mylar bags and oxygen absorbers arrived today, but still no sign of the buckets. Anyone any idea how many kgs of rice fit comfortably in a one gallon Mylar bag? I am planning on filling one (for the moment) 20l bucket with rice and I'm flying blind .

Will be placing one of the 8' x 4' raised beds my hubby made for me if the weather holds this weekend. Instead of digging over the ground (lawn at present), I'm just going to dig the post areas. When the bed is in, I'm going to use a huge cardboard box flattened and cut it to size to cover the grass within the raised bed. I'm then going to fill it with some of the one to two inch diameter branches cut from the garden, then a mixture of composted sods (removed when last bed was placed), composter compost and well rotted horse manure (local supply). This will be piled up quite high (a la Hugelkultur) and covered over with weed suppressant membrane until I get some strawberries* in. Then the fight to keep the wildlife off them begins. Determined to actually get a crop this year, as most of our "produce" gets eaten before we can pick it. The semi-Hugelkultur mound is an experiment, but thought I would combine this with a no-dig approach. Everything will settle down over the next year or two. Hoping it works.

* My OH and my DD love strawberries and I have to buy the expensive, tasteless ones all year round. I'm hoping they'll realise just how rubbish they are and live without them out of season .

[FEISTY]

Ordered James Wong's book (saw the link on this site) and also some tomatillo and asparagus pea seeds. According to James, they both produce a prolific amount (as opposed to my asparagus, which has, yet again, just been cossetted with weeding, half a large bag of commercially composted manure and tomorrow will get another top up of compost (this raised bed just "eats" compost) and which only gives me enough to feed a small child each year, whilst taking up a whole 8' x 4' bed ). Looking forward to getting a sizeable harvest this year! I'm going to tack copper tape around the bed to deter the slugs and then start the night patrols with a bucket of iced water (the kindest way, I hope) and a pair of tongs (yes, I am a wimp). I've decided to "underplant" with salad leaves (I know you're supposed to grow asparagus alone, but it's just not pulling its weight), so the copper tape treatment, etc, will be invaluable for them too. Onwards and upwards. Tomorrow, weeding, more weeding, tidying up and care of the rhubarb patch and digging out redundant shrubs if there's time. There might be enough rhubarb for crumble! Onwards and upwards! What are other people harvesting right now? It's OK you can make me jealous .

[grenfell]

Watched "On the farm" recently and they tried the copper strips , cut from a hot water tank , and then sat back and filmed slugs and snails climbing all over it
I've not tried it myself although I save all my eggshells for around tomatoes and the like. If you don't fancy going out at night hunting slugs try laying plastic bags flat on the ground. The moist conditions underneath create a sort of slug "hotel" where they will spend the day allowing you to pick them up at ease.
I'm struggling to find the time to do the work I want to do in my own garden. The world and his wife have been asking me to work for them and being self employed I can't really turn it all down as much as I'd like to.

[preppingsu]

@feisty

Slugs! They are a pain in the bottom.... I use eggshells, a jam jar dug into the ground with beer in it and, I hate to admit it, slug pellets! That is when I hit my desperation point...

You can also buy nemotodes.

http://www.wigglywigglers.co.uk/nemaslug.html

We did try this one year but I'm not sure it was that successful.

Or wool pellets (I've not tried these)

http://www.sluggone.com/

Or buy this for ideas

http://www.amazon.co.uk/50-Ways-Kill-Sl ... 0600608581