Burra Maluca

Thom Bri wrote:Trying to figure out how to get the grass under control given the rules.

I'm hopelessly behind updating my thread, and I'm not doing 'proper' GAMCOD because I'm not in the right climate zone, but we smothered the grass in our bed using grass cut from other areas around the place. If it's laid on thick enough, the grass underneath dies off enough that other stuff can be planted through it, which then gets a good head start.

A shovel will cost more than what anyone spent, above

Why buy a shovel?

My gamcod type bed was no-dig. The only time I used a shovel-type tool was to set the tiles around the edge, which was just because I happened to have some surplus old roof tiles and a suitable tool for putting them in. It wasn't strictly necessary to make a pretty raised edge for the bed. Putting those tiles in was also by far the most time consuming part of the whole experiment, and I only did it because I wanted the bed to become a permanent feature.

Vermelha, my fiery little red dragoness, heartily approves!

Deane Adams wrote:OK, for those of you who may not know, during one of Paul's presentations if he says "someone check my math on this" Don't, the guy is an engineer.  The concept or approach may be proven to be wrong (at some point), but the MATH will be correct!!

I was brave, or maybe foolish, enough to do this once. Sometimes the maths itself is correct while some of the inputs or assumptions are a bit off - calories per acre confusion

I have no affiliation with Leroy Merlin by the way. They are just a place that sells in both Portugal and Spain with a reasonably usable website. There are likely other, better builder's merchants near you.

LeroyMerlin sell sheets of acoustic and thermal insulation made of recycled cotton textiles for 8 euros per square metre - leroy merlin acoustic insulation

I have no idea how effective it is...

I seem to remember buying a big box of surplus groceries a few years ago, including a classic English Christmas pudding in a plastic bowl.

The instructions were something like 'steam for two hours, or pierce the lid and microwave for two minutes'

Tereza Okava wrote:I also (gasp) LOVE TANGLED YARN. I have seriously thought about being that person you can send yarn to for untangling.

Hehehehe - this is bringing back ancient memories of being a young child. My parents would go out to the local woollen mills taking used fchicken-feed sacks with them and pay a few pence to fill them up with the sweepings from around the looms. They would come home and tip out a great tangled mess of brightly coloured bits of woollen yarn and we'd all sit around it and tease out individual strands and wind them up into mini balls. When we'd done it all, the next job would be to sort the balls into different bags of different lengths, using the edge of the dining table as a measuring stick. The bags would be labelled one to around seven if my memory serves me right. Then mum would crochet granny squares using a teeny ball from bag one for the middle bit, and so on using a ball from each bag till the square was complete. Sometimes we'd help 'design' squares by choosing a colour from each bag and sliding them in turn, biggest first, onto a knitting needle.

Oh, and I use the old definition of hanks and skeins too.  

If I was in your situation, I would save seed from the best (strong healthy plants, good fruit) two of my four plants and then grow two plants from each of them next year. That might involve growing a few 'extras' to make sure you have enough, but giving them to friends is always a good way to ensure that some seed will work its way back to you if yours fail.

It's just possible that your plants will have crossed with a neighbour's pumpkins, but even so they will by definition be ones that grow well in your climate.

In short, go for it!  

Some are babies, some are mine but on my son's property, he has some of his own, and some I'm not sure count as trees whilst some I'm not sure count as fruit.

But, having said that, I have over twenty, probably thirty or forty depending on what counts and what doesn't.

Types include fig, persimmon, orange, lemon, lime, peach, apricot, plum, cherry, apple, pear, mulberry, paw paw, pomegranate, avocado, quince.

If nuts count, I also have almonds and hazelnuts.

Not sure if prickly pear count as trees, but some are now big enough to have a pretty woody looking trunk. Also apple cactus. And kiwi, which aren't really trees.

Do elder, olive and pepper count as fruit?

And I have some seeds of strawberry guava, which I'm hoping will count in a few years...

Oh, and strawberry tree - I knew I'd forget something important!