What Preps are you doing this week? Part 4

[jansman]

Last week and this week I have been setting up a small inside garden growing herbs, hoping to expand and have a constant supply throughout the year for the kitchen. Managed to also make my first batch of homemade citrus soap from olive, coconut oil and lard

Set up a monitor with a raspberry Pi attached which displays RSS feeds of current news and weather along with the RSOE EDIS map so that I can have a 24 hour situation monitor that I can check for quick information.

Also, starting a compost bin on my balcony which I plan to add food waste into (old veg, salad, gone off foods). Do people have some info on the do's and dont's of a food waste compost bin?

Here you go;
http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/basics/t ... ost1.shtml

[criss71]

i like my gardening , I think the best advice I would give you for a compost bin is don't put potato peeling in there
or you will have potato plants every where lol
and if the potato's are from a supermarket they are sprayed and you could end up with loads of plant and no potato's

[Arzosah]

Phew, am back online in a way that means I can post things and read everything, rather than just what the very old copy of Mozilla on my very old kindle tells me I can Still, a little bit of interwebulator is better than nothing at all. And if I was really desperate, I could've tried to use the pitiful data allowance on my phone (so, 3 is 2, 2 is 1 in action ). I still like the laptop best of all, and now its had its fan replaced, it isn't yowling at me all the time.

I was in an out of my shopping centre constantly cos of the laptop repairs, and decided to upgrade cooking preps a bit.

- my little old gaz camping stove has been my go-to for easy backup for cooking, in a powercut etc. Had a chat at a few camping places, and realised that supplies for that type of cartridge, the C206, fluctuate wildly, even Milletts said they don't get them for months at a time. And they had a little Hexamine stove on offer for £4, which was irresistible, so I bought it and now I need to know where everyone buys their hexamine tabs from, please?

- still need a camping gaz stove, I'm thinking of this one http://www.argos.co.uk/product/3407497 and ditto for the cheapest website for the fuel?

- I bought the Miles Irving book about foraging - there's a *lot* of criticism about the illustrations and pictures, but I found it to be such a knowledgeable book that didn't simply regurgitate folklore, that really swung it for me.

- and I'm still working on clearing the garden of weeds and brambles from next door and one change I'm going to make is directly because of that. I've got a little foot wide trench of slate chips next to my house - and it borders on the wild garden from next door. Although I washed by hand each and every slate chip, it's become home to all sorts of crap - most notably, bindweed, ants and a summer home for cluster flies. Not acceptable to me! So I'm moving the slate chips, spreading out to aid drainage in various places, and get the thing concreted over. Less maintenance, more productive work when I *do* work.

[jansman]

Phew, am back online in a way that means I can post things and read everything, rather than just what the very old copy of Mozilla on my very old kindle tells me I can Still, a little bit of interwebulator is better than nothing at all. And if I was really desperate, I could've tried to use the pitiful data allowance on my phone (so, 3 is 2, 2 is 1 in action ). I still like the laptop best of all, and now its had its fan replaced, it isn't yowling at me all the time.

I was in an out of my shopping centre constantly cos of the laptop repairs, and decided to upgrade cooking preps a bit.

- my little old gaz camping stove has been my go-to for easy backup for cooking, in a powercut etc. Had a chat at a few camping places, and realised that supplies for that type of cartridge, the C206, fluctuate wildly, even Milletts said they don't get them for months at a time. And they had a little Hexamine stove on offer for £4, which was irresistible, so I bought it and now I need to know where everyone buys their hexamine tabs from, please?

- still need a camping gaz stove, I'm thinking of this one http://www.argos.co.uk/product/3407497 and ditto for the cheapest website for the fuel?

- I bought the Miles Irving book about foraging - there's a *lot* of criticism about the illustrations and pictures, but I found it to be such a knowledgeable book that didn't simply regurgitate folklore, that really swung it for me.

- and I'm still working on clearing the garden of weeds and brambles from next door and one change I'm going to make is directly because of that. I've got a little foot wide trench of slate chips next to my house - and it borders on the wild garden from next door. Although I washed by hand each and every slate chip, it's become home to all sorts of crap - most notably, bindweed, ants and a summer home for cluster flies. Not acceptable to me! So I'm moving the slate chips, spreading out to aid drainage in various places, and get the thing concreted over. Less maintenance, more productive work when I *do* work.

I am glad you said that about the c206 cartridges. I found the same trouble recently.Regarding hexamine,it is e bay for me.

[Britcit]

Today I realised I hadn't refreshed my water stocks in a while. So spent a wee while tipping out 8 20ltr containers and putting in fresh water. Have got hold of another 2 now so total 'bulk' water stock is 200 ltrs.
I will be numbering the containers and get into the habit of empty\refill 2 of them each week.

No water meter means this all only costs me time

[Deeps]

Today I realised I hadn't refreshed my water stocks in a while. So spent a wee while tipping out 8 20ltr containers and putting in fresh water. Have got hold of another 2 now so total 'bulk' water stock is 200 ltrs.
I will be numbering the containers and get into the habit of empty\refill 2 of them each week.

No water meter means this all only costs me time

This is something I need to keep on top off, like you, we're not metered so I have no reason other than laziness for not changing my bulk water storage more regularly. I've got 6 25L containers but they are stuck away in a corner. Needs doing and numbering (and dating) them might be a good idea. Cheers for the reminder.

[pseudonym]

Today I realised I hadn't refreshed my water stocks in a while. So spent a wee while tipping out 8 20ltr containers and putting in fresh water. Have got hold of another 2 now so total 'bulk' water stock is 200 ltrs.
I will be numbering the containers and get into the habit of empty\refill 2 of them each week.

No water meter means this all only costs me time

Cheers for the reminder.

+1 to that...

[Yorkshire Andy]

Phew, am back online in a way that means I can post things and read everything, rather than just what the very old copy of Mozilla on my very old kindle tells me I can Still, a little bit of interwebulator is better than nothing at all. And if I was really desperate, I could've tried to use the pitiful data allowance on my phone (so, 3 is 2, 2 is 1 in action ). I still like the laptop best of all, and now its had its fan replaced, it isn't yowling at me all the time.

I was in an out of my shopping centre constantly cos of the laptop repairs, and decided to upgrade cooking preps a bit.

- my little old gaz camping stove has been my go-to for easy backup for cooking, in a powercut etc. Had a chat at a few camping places, and realised that supplies for that type of cartridge, the C206, fluctuate wildly, even Milletts said they don't get them for months at a time. And they had a little Hexamine stove on offer for £4, which was irresistible, so I bought it and now I need to know where everyone buys their hexamine tabs from, please?

- still need a camping gaz stove, I'm thinking of this one http://www.argos.co.uk/product/3407497 and ditto for the cheapest website for the fuel?

- I bought the Miles Irving book about foraging - there's a *lot* of criticism about the illustrations and pictures, but I found it to be such a knowledgeable book that didn't simply regurgitate folklore, that really swung it for me.

- and I'm still working on clearing the garden of weeds and brambles from next door and one change I'm going to make is directly because of that. I've got a little foot wide trench of slate chips next to my house - and it borders on the wild garden from next door. Although I washed by hand each and every slate chip, it's become home to all sorts of crap - most notably, bindweed, ants and a summer home for cluster flies. Not acceptable to me! So I'm moving the slate chips, spreading out to aid drainage in various places, and get the thing concreted over. Less maintenance, more productive work when I *do* work.

Cost wise these are hard to beat!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B000QU ... ster+stove


Unleaded petrol for 3 fills then a full of this

https://www.ebay.co.uk/i/192192594008?c ... 7506550601

To clear the injection system of the crap petrol leaves behind (same stuff as Coleman sell as specific fuel (napthia)

Wouldn't use it inside but gives good heat and is fairly robust had mine about 10 years

[jansman]

Thanks for the stove links.I keep my little stove in the work shop for boiling up fishing bait.When the gas is gone I'll wing it! We have two of the bistro style stoves and a load of gas. If it all went- to- hell- in - a - handbasket tomorrow, and the gas ran out we have a big rocket stove in the yard.And the wood stoves.

[Le Mouse]

Had yet another tidy up of the food cupboards. I've been randomly topping up on stocks recently and I couldn't see the wood for the trees. I really must stop buying anything but fresh stuff for a bit!

I've started baking bread again so I bought a couple of large tupperware things with handles to decant flour into. They hold a 1.5kg bag with a bit of space extra, so I have one for white flour and another for wholemeal. Someone on here pointed out the website Mortgage Free in Three (http://mortgagefreeinthree.com) and there's an amazing recipe for bread which takes an hour from start to finish and makes lovely bread: http://mortgagefreeinthree.com/2015/04/ ... ontmartre/. I think having a go-to quick recipe for bread is quite important - bread's cheap and filling and if you can make it yourself then you get to control what goes into it.