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Post by houpla on Jan 18, 2023 19:31:31 GMT 1
If your theory is true, it would explain why we always have such poor results using it for planting up various things. We have a couple of large woven grow bag things in the polytunnel. Filled with shop bought compost and planted four tomato plants (bought as plants) and a full packet of carrott seeds. The toms were a poor crop considering the great summer we had and the carrotts are still lucky to average 2 to 3 inches long and stunted looking after over six months in the bags. We thought it was worth the expense since the ground here is very poor growing and we stopped planting outside because of the backbreaking effort of digging, etc. and poor result. We planted three fruit trees a few years ago and haven't had a bowl full of fruit off any of them so far. Tomatoes don't need compost , they need muck .We always have a great tomato crop and are still eating them fresh now. I have never used " grow bags " too expensive!
Poor soil needs muck! Or soil improver + engrais. Plus a lot of hard work to incorporate them and fluff up the soil. Not everyone is fit enough to do that or handle a rotovator! Suppose that's why the no-dig business is so popular. Big drawback with that though is having an ongoing supply of organic material to keep piling on. We haven't all got a flock of sheep handy.....
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Post by pcpa on Jan 18, 2023 19:32:07 GMT 1
A standard French retirement would be a Kings ransom compared to what I will recieve, especially if HMRC continue to make it impossible for me to make voluntary NIC contributions.
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Post by houpla on Jan 18, 2023 19:36:45 GMT 1
Bear in mind the differences in pensions, cernunnos. The average French pensioner is rich compared to his or her Brit counterpart €800 per month for farmers in France . I would expect that the French pay more for their pensions too!
I know (my best friends were farmers) but they spend very little on food, already have a lot of useful equipment, an endless supply of chickens and other poultry, eggs, pork, manure, straw etc etc. And €800 per month is at least €100 more than a Brit gets. And that's an agricultural pension...would you like to compare, say, a nurse's pension of €3k a month?
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Post by houpla on Jan 18, 2023 19:38:44 GMT 1
Hi pcpa...welcome to the discussion about Freesat
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Post by cernunnos on Jan 18, 2023 19:40:30 GMT 1
€800 per month for farmers in France . I would expect that the French pay more for their pensions too!
I know (my best friends were farmers) but they spend very little on food, already have a lot of useful equipment, an endless supply of chickens and other poultry, eggs, pork, manure, straw etc etc. And €800 per month is at least €100 more than a Brit gets. And that's an agricultural pension...would you like to compare, say, a nurse's pension of €3k a month? Nope Good in France , innit? British pension is at the moment €817 , so not a big difference .
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Post by pcpa on Jan 18, 2023 19:52:31 GMT 1
What do your neighbours do, pcpa? In our commune (which incidentally has frequent bonfires on the part of the municipal maintenance chap ) most folks just quietly carry on as they've always done. We respect the weather conditions and the crops in the fields around and any useable-size wood is cut and stacked for kindling, but the rest is burned or composted. It's tacitly tolerated. In rural France, there are two entirely different worlds....one for the politicos and one for real people the majority of the neighbours are from a minority community and they doastheylike(y) if you get my drift, I see bonfires burning over the fields all the time, there is a huge dump mascarading as a recycling site, the subject of numerous court actions by the commune to no avail, they just set fire to the lot every now and then so they can pull the metal out of the embers, last summer there were fire appliances from 5 different casernes in attendance of one fire that got out of control (not that any are in control) and they were on station all afternoon, all night and the following morning. The rest of us are expected to follow the rules and as I am the new kid on the block I am not going to rock the boat. I finally got to have a formal meeting with the Maire last week (a superb guy) we had both cancelled previouse RDV's due to Covid and one I forgot completely, he said that I should apply for permission to have my caravan on site to regularise the situation "in case one of the voisins complains" and that he would do so for the duration of the building works, every one of the properties owned by the travellers has 3 or more €60K + Fendt Caravanes parked up visibly at the front of their properties, they like to flaunt them and they are all new and spotless but the villas that they live in are worth 10 or 20 times more. None of them have permission to site their vans there, they have not and will not seek it and it would not be granted except perhaps in a situation like mine for a limited time. It's clear that I am expected to play the game so no bonfires for me, the last thing I want is to end up being prevented from working with power tools from 12-14.30 and after 19.30, 9-12 and 15-1900 Saturdays and for only 2 hours on Sunday mornings.
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Post by houpla on Jan 18, 2023 20:05:42 GMT 1
Ye Gods! I hope your power tools are secured when not in use, as well as anything else that isn't concreted into the ground Even then....
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Aardvark
Non-gamer
Living in soggy 22 and still wondering what's going on.
Posts: 2,172
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Post by Aardvark on Jan 18, 2023 20:10:18 GMT 1
Twice now I've fallen for the 'bargain' stuff. Our local Intermarché do a couple of weekends a year selling 70l bags in quantity. Good price, rubbish compost. As for the pallet of 50l bags of 'geranium compost' from a local factory....everything it touched started to look sickly within a few days. The thing is, A, any compost, even the good ones, only contain enough nutrient to sustain a plant for max. 6 weeks. It's usually a lot less, especially if they're greedy plants like tomatoes. The same goes for fruit trees. Could you give them a bit of a boost from a handful or two of the widely-available engrais bleu (the balanced, cheap option) or organic feed like blood, fish and bone, in early spring? Or have you any neighbours with a stack of well-rotted horse or cow manure (it's better than nothing ) that you could raid for free? If you have Leclercs up there, I've found their engrais bleu to be the cheapest available. Check out cooperatives agricoles too, although they're dearer than the supermarkets round here. Another option....Amazon.de or whatever the spanish suffix is. Both cheaper than Amazon.fr and at least it would be delivered, saving your back Thanks for the tip about LeClercs. No near neighbours here that do any potager planting.
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Post by houpla on Jan 18, 2023 20:15:25 GMT 1
Twice now I've fallen for the 'bargain' stuff. Our local Intermarché do a couple of weekends a year selling 70l bags in quantity. Good price, rubbish compost. As for the pallet of 50l bags of 'geranium compost' from a local factory....everything it touched started to look sickly within a few days. The thing is, A, any compost, even the good ones, only contain enough nutrient to sustain a plant for max. 6 weeks. It's usually a lot less, especially if they're greedy plants like tomatoes. The same goes for fruit trees. Could you give them a bit of a boost from a handful or two of the widely-available engrais bleu (the balanced, cheap option) or organic feed like blood, fish and bone, in early spring? Or have you any neighbours with a stack of well-rotted horse or cow manure (it's better than nothing ) that you could raid for free? If you have Leclercs up there, I've found their engrais bleu to be the cheapest available. Check out cooperatives agricoles too, although they're dearer than the supermarkets round here. Another option....Amazon.de or whatever the spanish suffix is. Both cheaper than Amazon.fr and at least it would be delivered, saving your back Thanks for the tip about LeClercs. No near neighbours here that do any potager planting. You don't want rivals, you want someone with a great big heap that they need to get rid of ...dairy farmer, equestrian centre...something like that
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exile
Member
Massif Central
Posts: 2,682
Member is Online
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Post by exile on Jan 18, 2023 22:25:13 GMT 1
"Commercial" composting units have sufficient material in them that they should easily reach 70C, which is enough to kill off weed seeds and even many pernicious roots - couch, dandelion - but not Japanese Knotweed. Your compost heap (well mine at least) is maybe 1.5m x 1.5m x 1.5m and will be lucky to get to 50C. Many weed seeds will survive even thrive in this temperature and pernicious roots are likewise likely to survive.
Cheap composts - I use them for clamping root veg for over-wintering and then as a ground mulch. As has been noted, things tend not to grow well in the material so it is an ideal weed supressant.
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Post by pcpa on Jan 18, 2023 22:34:24 GMT 1
Ye Gods! I hope your power tools are secured when not in use, as well as anything else that isn't concreted into the ground Even then.... I would rather live amongst them than in a remote rural property within their terrain de chasse, I'm hoping the old "dont crap on your own doorstep" will protect me, who knows, I feel comfortable & I don't even lock the doors when I go out.
The reason for my village being the epicentre is not the resources available but the market for their activities, we have the second biggest metal recycling centre in the département, they are super sympa people!
I have met a few who have been walking past and have stopped for a chat, all very decent folk, I had one pull up in a fourgon who showed an unhealthy interest, were I elderly and vulnerable it might have been something to be concerned about but they have much richer very low risk pickings elsewhere, here I am very visible to neighbours on both sides of the road.
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Post by pcpa on Jan 18, 2023 22:37:37 GMT 1
I have never had an interest in gardening, here initially its a battle against a jungle having grown on previously cultivated land over the last 20 years, when that is done I probably will get into growing for cooking because even in my complete ignorance it's very clear to me that the soil here is very very special.
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Post by cernunnos on Jan 19, 2023 8:42:01 GMT 1
Tomatoes don't need compost , they need muck .We always have a great tomato crop and are still eating them fresh now. I have never used " grow bags " too expensive!
Poor soil needs muck! Or soil improver + engrais. Plus a lot of hard work to incorporate them and fluff up the soil. Not everyone is fit enough to do that or handle a rotovator! Suppose that's why the no-dig business is so popular. Big drawback with that though is having an ongoing supply of organic material to keep piling on. We haven't all got a flock of sheep handy..... If you don't have the tools then you can't do the work. To grow your own veg, succesfully takes years of experience and dedication . We use very little muck , ( to have muck , you have to keep animals inside) and have not dug our garden in 25 years .( don't have a rotovator, just loads of earthworms )
A thick layer of leaves/grass cuttings and the ash from our wood burner does the trick . But , better take the discussion to gardening !
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Post by gigi on Jan 20, 2023 9:25:54 GMT 1
I didn’t dig my garden after the first year we lived here here as it had been lying fallow for years for the most part, apart from where the previous owners had bonfires - I think the woman must have been an Avon rep or something going by the remains amongst the ash, scores of little glass bottles. Right at the end of the garden we discovered we had about an 2 extra metres of garden between the fence and the concrete posts at the edge of the woodland - a bonus, except that under a layer of soil and weeds there was a metre high rubbish dump, which all had to be loaded into skips to go to the tip. You name it, we probably unearthed it! So our garden hasn’t been dug for 40 years and is extremely fertile, such a pity I no longer grow vegetables. exile - Interesting point about temperatures reached in compost heaps and weed seeds surviving. I once had hundreds of tomato plants all around the vegetable garden which came from my own compost - after a watering ban one summer, my tomato plants had been dumped in the compost heaps.
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Nifty
Member
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Post by Nifty on Jan 20, 2023 9:30:10 GMT 1
Same here, take your green waste in, then fill a couple of sacks and leave with the ready made compost. Grrr...I wrote to the Prés of our agglomeration suggesting that as there are numerous keen gardeners round here, it would be sensible to implement a scheme like that. Even if it was sold back to folks, to help cover the costs, there'd be plenty of takers. The green waste skips at the dechetteries are piled high every day, but whatever they do with it, it's not shredded and composted. Never even had the courtesy of a reply The next agglo bulletin did contain a load of guff about it being too expensive to 'process', though, even discounting the cost of personnel and transport. Transport?? They pile it up right next to the dechetteries! Their feeble suggestion was that we all shred and compost our own garden waste. Stupid people! Anyone with a big garden would tell them that you struggle to keep on top of it anyway, without spending hours on shredding waste, even if you could afford a decent shredder. A localish chap runs a business along these lines, selling soil improver. He had to close the gates in May last year because there was such high demand he'd sold out! www.fumeco.frOne of the keys to the whole caboodle follows en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_use_statistics_by_countryTry and remember, one size does not fit all. Location, locatioon, locaation, elocution ad procrastination in finitum
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