We're at 600ft, veg are grown in raised beds with a significant "freeboard" to try and minimise the wind. Also means we can cover the beds with plastic sheet to create a sort of cloche to extend the growing season.
I grow garlic every year - nothing fancy, I just but supermarket bulbs and plant the separate cloves, always seems to work.
What Preps are you doing this week? Part 12
Re: What Preps are you doing this week? Part 12
We’re at about 550’ here, windmills are above us at about 650-700’. Prevailing winds are westerlies and come straight in off the Irish Sea. The Scottish gardening book looks spot on - downloaded a sample into kindle to check it out - the paperback copy is now sat in my Amazon basket! I can see already from the sample I’ve been trying to grow some of the wrong stuff for our conditions.
Arzosah - the grass is always greener … your location sounds great to me - I bet you get some beautiful summers down there - and only a hop across the channel for olives and red wine too!
GillyBee - thanks for the advice, slugs will be my main enemy then - I might trying growing the garlic from supermarket bulbs (hadn’t even thought of that - said I was a novice) a la Nurseandy!
Cheers for all the advice

Arzosah - the grass is always greener … your location sounds great to me - I bet you get some beautiful summers down there - and only a hop across the channel for olives and red wine too!
GillyBee - thanks for the advice, slugs will be my main enemy then - I might trying growing the garlic from supermarket bulbs (hadn’t even thought of that - said I was a novice) a la Nurseandy!
Cheers for all the advice

“Rotation, rotation, rotation”
You never get a disappointed pessimist.
You never get a disappointed pessimist.
Re: What Preps are you doing this week? Part 12
We do get amazing weather - we're very sheltered from the stuff that comes in from the west and the north, you can see S England is quite different from a lot else. Today ... freezing fog

As far as the garlic is concerned - I decided to buy from proper growers this year, from now on I'll use my own harvest to replant, and I'll report on how that goes, this is a new area for me.
Re: What Preps are you doing this week? Part 12
When I had an allotment, I used to grow garlic successfully. The soil was heavy clay. One issue with the allotments was onion white rot - this will attack garlic. The onion white rot stays in the ground for a very long time and can cause problems even with good rotation.
Re: What Preps are you doing this week? Part 12
I’m wondering if buying Euros in a few weeks is a good idea. I reckon the Euro is away to take a hit with the looming trade war, when it crashes, it will obviously be a good time to buy for holidays or when it bounces back which it will.
Thoughts?
Thoughts?
Re: What Preps are you doing this week? Part 12
You may be able to keep white rot under control by using a bit of clever trickery as part of your normal crop rotation. On the years that you do NOT have any garlic or onion family in the plot, you dig/rake/water in garlic powder from your local spices grocer during the growing season. This tricks the rot sclerotia into germinating but as there is no onions to infect they then die.
There used to be a Californian professor who was teaching this technique to the local organic farmers but I cant find any of his stuff on the web now he has retired. He was claiming that you could get good control with repeated applications over a season or two. He also suggested making a garlic and water slurry in a blender and using that.
This paper shows the impact of a single treatment but the chap was claiming that at least 3 treatments would be needed for control.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 4018367136
There used to be a Californian professor who was teaching this technique to the local organic farmers but I cant find any of his stuff on the web now he has retired. He was claiming that you could get good control with repeated applications over a season or two. He also suggested making a garlic and water slurry in a blender and using that.
This paper shows the impact of a single treatment but the chap was claiming that at least 3 treatments would be needed for control.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 4018367136
-
- Posts: 9248
- Joined: Thu Oct 03, 2013 4:06 pm
Re: What Preps are you doing this week? Part 12
Been a bit quiet on the prepping front lately ...
In the process of adding mains electric to my shed mates a spark so had if checked over ... just the lighting to finish
Picked up a travel kettle which my big power station battery bank will happily run the 3kw kitchen kettle tripped it out this runs at 1 kW ...
In the process of adding mains electric to my shed mates a spark so had if checked over ... just the lighting to finish
Picked up a travel kettle which my big power station battery bank will happily run the 3kw kitchen kettle tripped it out this runs at 1 kW ...
If your roughing it, Your doing it wrong 
Lack of planning on your part doesn't make it an emergency on mine

Lack of planning on your part doesn't make it an emergency on mine
Re: What Preps are you doing this week? Part 12
That's very interesting, thank you! I won't need it this year, as I've not grown any before, but I'll do some research over this time period.GillyBee wrote: ↑Mon Feb 03, 2025 7:27 pm You may be able to keep white rot under control by using a bit of clever trickery as part of your normal crop rotation. On the years that you do NOT have any garlic or onion family in the plot, you dig/rake/water in garlic powder from your local spices grocer during the growing season. This tricks the rot sclerotia into germinating but as there is no onions to infect they then die.
There used to be a Californian professor who was teaching this technique to the local organic farmers but I cant find any of his stuff on the web now he has retired. He was claiming that you could get good control with repeated applications over a season or two. He also suggested making a garlic and water slurry in a blender and using that.
This paper shows the impact of a single treatment but the chap was claiming that at least 3 treatments would be needed for control.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 4018367136
Re: What Preps are you doing this week? Part 12
Premium Bond release date today.
Woke up this morning to a "win" of £275.
Two days ago that would of got me a 1/2 Sovereign, today that is out of my range. I could purchase 1/10th of a Gold Britannia but I would be 9/10ths short of an ounce, that'd drive me bonkers.

Keep stacking peeps whether it's food, wood, coal, silver or gold...
Woke up this morning to a "win" of £275.
Two days ago that would of got me a 1/2 Sovereign, today that is out of my range. I could purchase 1/10th of a Gold Britannia but I would be 9/10ths short of an ounce, that'd drive me bonkers.


Keep stacking peeps whether it's food, wood, coal, silver or gold...
Two is one and one is none, but three is even better.