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Although it goes without saying, I'm saying it anyway -- due diligence and all:
Make sure any wild plant -- dandelions, nettles, mandrake picked by the light of a new moon -- comes from an area that has not been sprayed with pesticide for at least two years!
Check with your local agriculture department -- they may recommend longer depending on local weather conditions.

The best leaves for salads are the smallest ones towards the top of the plant. The ones towards the bottom are bitter.

You can also use the dandelion flowers to make dandelion wine.

 

One other very important thing to gather if you can are the leaves of the Hawthorn tree. It has been noted by mystics that these leaves would be the only cure for a coming plague. Ironically enough my family surname means Hawthorn.

From Marie Julie Jahenny:

THE MODE OF USING THE HAWTHORN AS GIVEN BY OUR BLESSED MOTHER on August 5, 1880:
"There will be a grave illness which human science will not be able to alleviate. This illness will attack firstly the heart, then the spirit, and at the same time, the tongue. It will be horrible. The heat accompanying it will be a devouring fire insupportable and so intense that the members of the body affected will be red -- an unendurable fiery red. At the end of seven days this disease, sown like a seed in the field (incubation period) will spread everywhere rapidly and make great progress."
"My children, here is the ONLY remedy which could save you. You are familiar with the Hawthorn which grows practically in all hedges. The leaves of the Hawthorn, not the wood, can arrest the progress of this disease."
"You will gather the leaves, not the wood. Even dry, they will keep their efficacy. You will put them into boiling water and leave them there for 14 minutes, covering the receptacle so that the steam remains therein. At the onset of this disease, one must use this remedy three times a day."
"This disease will produce a continual vomiting and nausea. If the remedy is taken too late, the part of the body affected will become black and in the black there will be seen a sort of pale, yellow streak.

http://ourlady3.tripod.com/marie_julie.htm

 

Whoever said that the survivors will envy the dead must have had me in mind. Since Roundup became my BFF, I killed off all the nettles. Had this Storm happened a couple of years ago, I could have kept the neighbourhood in iron and vitamins from all my nettles but it's too late now and I won't be bringing any back into my garden. Reading up on dandelions, I discovered that in folk medicine they were used as a diuretic, which probably explains why as children we call then p**s-the-beds. I couldn't imagine eating them and anyway the last application of Roundup seems to have finished them off. I absolutely draw the line at eating thistles.

Hawthorn (the Mayflower bush) grows in the hedgerows here. I don't know how to explain this without sounding ridiculously superstitious, but we would never bring Mayflower inside the house. It was always considered unlucky, possibly due to being linked with fairies in our folklore. The more rational reason could be its reputation for attracting flies. It was ok to eat the red berries so long as you didn't swallow the hard core, but it was an absolute no-no to bring the flower indoors. I suppose I could gather some leaves and store them in the shed.

I've been reading up on the square foot and lasagna gardening. It is really interesting and I love the prospect of having good soil without digging. Is it possible to use the lasagna method without adding food waste? Could I just add in some bought-in compost instead of vegetable and fruit peelings?

I was only planning to have enough supplies in stock to tide us over while the politicians argue about whether there should be a judicial enquiry to decide who should be blamed for the collapse, then draft in some bureaucrats to manage resources who in turn will need to find people who actually know what they're doing . Six months of supplies should keep us alive until the vegetable seeds start producing.

 

Dolours,

First of all, before I forget (again), just what are the arguments over water I keep reading about in Ireland?

Second, if you have a collapse where you still have politicians arguing, then Ireland is truly blessed. Now, when Americans think about disaster, we think about Hurricane Katrina hitting New Orleans in August of 2005 and (to a lesser extent) Hurricane Rita hitting southeast Texas in September of 2005. (For the record, Rita has only 6 deaths officially attributed to it; but 113 deaths reportedly occurred during the mass exodus from Houston.) Note that in events such as Katrina, all the attention was paid to New Orleans and vicinity, but very little coverage as to the damage and devastation that occurred in Mississippi, especially the northern parts of the state. Over 10 years later, that part of the state is still recovering.

So while it's good to be thinking of a possible 6-month outage of governmental services, you also need to think big. Imagine a category 5 hurricane riding the Gulf Stream to hit Western Ireland. With global warming, that is no longer outside the realm of possibility -- I refer you to the major blizzards that occurred in Britain last winter. You not only have people unable to withdraw money from the banks, you have refugees streaming out of Clonakilty, Sneem, and Tralee. Because of its location Cork might be mostly sheltered, but there's going to be hella bad tidal surges wiping out everything on the oceanside of the city. Oh, and say fare-the-well to Galway, Ennis, and Limerick. Ennis and Limerick may not be considered oceanside cities, but believe me: tidal surges WILL make their way up that bit of water, funnelled in there, and hit those cities. The airport at Ennis may be knocked out for quite a while, meaning you won't be able to fly in any disaster aid.

Of course, there will be a few hiccups getting those cities (and the entire west coast) evacuated. I won't go into details. Just picture what will happen when desperate people try to storm the Northern Ireland border trying to get as far away from the devastation as possible. Is it possible that the Isle of Manx will start turning away Irish refugees, and if so, how?

So while you're thinking of your garden layout and how to get water to drink and wash your clothes, start thinking about where you're going to put the outhouse. I imagine you can still bucket-flush your toilets for a while, but sooner or later, you have to consider what to do when ALL services -- electricity, sewage, AND water -- stop working. G_D willing, things won't get that bad, but better to have the candles laid in and never used than to sit in the darkness and listen to the ghoulies and ghosties and things that go bump in the night.

 

P.S. While I'm thinking of it, as a reminder to everyone here, don't forget to start laying in spiritual supplies, especially ones to hand out to any people who need them. I'm talking bibles, blessed candles, blessed and exorcised salt and blessed and exorcised water along with containers for the same, bibles, rosaries, pamphlets on how to pray the Rosary and the Divine Mercy Chaplet, blessed Miraculous Medals, blessed St. Benedict medals, bibles -- any and every spiritual assistant and sacramental G_D inspires you to stockpile. Oh, did I mention bibles? I mention that because while you can find KJV bibles everywhere at low cost to give out, finding Catholic bibles to give out takes a little more time.

 

Yes Dolours, I remember the dandelion warnings and the mayflower no no indoors.

Hopefully when it is all over, Ireland can kiss good bye to Europe, and people can start rearing chickens and pigs and tilling the land again. That is of course if anyone can remember how; after being nannied by the EU for so many years.

Do you remember the days of bog tea. Europe banned turf cutting I heard. There's another source of heat. I remember the old turf fires in an open hearth with all the means of cooking right there while you warm your shins at the same time.

 

You mention 'global warming'. I doubt there is any such thing, but the myth has been created as a tool in the globalist power-play. Temperatures world-wide have not risen for twenty years, hence the change of term to 'climate change'. As regards more frequent and powerful weather events, the scientific argument that global warming would entail, because of rather than in spite of higher global temperatures, a reduced equator-polar temperature gradient implying lesser atmospheric activity, seems, to me, more convincing.

My suspicion is that 'climate change' is merely an artificial crisis created to provide an opportunity to enforce political power under the guise of 'saving the planet'.

 

Looks like the LGBT lobby is after the United Methodist Church and they've agreed to have their own version of the synod on the family: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/201...-decision-in-bitter-battle-over-gay-marriage/

 

RE: lasagna garden

Dolours, my first lasagna garden is in its third year. It was successful the first year but the second year we had tremendous results. I started another this year in a sunny area of my back yard right over the existing grass. I began by overlapping generous amounts of wet newspapers on my chosen patch. This is the layer that kills grass and weeds. Since it's wet under layers of other things it stays wet and earthworms find it an attractive new residence. I used leaves from last Fall as a layer. Grass clippings provide repeat layers throughout the Summer. Purchased compost works great too. I throw a lot of different things on my garden but seldom vegetable and fruit waste because I have dogs who will eat anything like that and "reward" me inside later. A few days ago I clipped mint which is trying to take over and tossed it on the garden. Leaves from trees after a recent storm went on the garden. One thing which is stressed in lasagna garden ideas is that you should add a layer of peat moss between any sizeable addition of "green" matter. It helps get the composting action going. If you make a garden like this you will be amazed by how many things you find which will make a good contribution to your garden. I recently shredded documents instead of burning them and used all this shredded paper as a layer. It's already composted. I live in the USA in Nebraska. We have heavy clay soil but in my original lasagna garden I now have about 6 inches of rich black dirt above the clay. I don't have to weed or dig and while others are putting big bags of grass clippings out for the garbage collectors mine are going right from the lawnmower bag to my gardens. This has been a fun and materially rewarding project for me.

 

I'm actually on the East coast, a long way from all the places you mentioned and I reckon that whatever disaster hits us will also affect the Isle of Mann and mainland Britain, but I understand what you're saying. We will have little or no options other than self sufficiency. I actually think that we could be one of the annihilated nations per St. Patrick's prophesy that Ireland will be covered by the sea. My fallback plan is to head for the hills and throw myself on the mercy of relatives who have their own water supply and have learned how to cope without electricity, etc. when they have been snowed in. They live near a forest which should be good for heating fuel. I'm hoping my packets of seeds and bleach will help get my foot in the door. Some of us here are old enough to remember the days before indoor plumbling so I reckon we'll be able to figure out where to put the outhouses.

I actually visited New Orleans a year or so before Hurricane Katrina. The sight of the Mississippi took my breath away. You could put all our rivers and lakes together and they would be like a stream in comparison.

Neighbourliness hasn't been completely abandoned here, and emergencies can bring out the best in people as happened some years ago when we had blizzards. I know that desperate and also bad people will resort to desperate measures, but I trust that people's innate decency will come to the fore in the majority.

The row over the water here is that mains water supply which used to be controlled by each County Council has been privatised, and now we pay this new private company for our water usage which is metered by them. We didn't pay for water until it was privatised. Actually, we did pay for it out of general taxation which hasn't been reduced with privatisation. There's a lot of resentment about it because it came on top of the re-introduction of property taxes at a time when people's homes are in negative equity and they are either unemployed or have had drastic reductions in their income. There's supposed to be an allowance for each home depending on the number and ages of residents, but the allowance is a joke. I know of one elderly lady who was in a nursing home for the entire billing period and the only water used in her house was to clean it on one day, yet she received a bill. The bill was only for a tiny amount, yet it shows how inadequate the allowance is. Although some far left and anarchist type groups exploited the situation, it was the straw that broke the camels back for a lot of people. I'm not completely against water charges because I know that the rain doesn't fall from the sky into our taps and cisterns, but I am opposed to giving over control of a vital national resource to a private company.

The latest stealth tax to be imposed on us is paying for waste disposal by weight. We already pay for rubbish collection which was also privatised in recent years but now we will have a standard fee plus extra charges by weight. That's another reason I'm interested in the lasagna gardening. I'd much rather spread the grass clippings over prospective vegetable plots than pay to have them taken away. The only thing I don't fancy with the lasagna garden is the prospect of vegetable and fruit peels attracting rats.

Some of us here are old enough to remember the days before indoor plumbing so I reckon we'll know where to position the outhouse.

 

I'm so glad, Julia, that you remember it too. I was beginning to think that there was a strain of madness in our neck of the woods. I don't remember the bog tea because it was mostly farm land around us. The farmers grew wheat, barley, maize and vegetables. It's mostly vague memories for me, but older kids used to get work on the farms during school holidays thinning vegetables, etc.

My grandparents had an open hearth in their house. I remember the big iron kettle hanging from a hook over the fire. They also reared pigs and chickens (and a couple of turkeys for Christmas). I remember that when they stored apples, each apple had to be wrapped individually in newspaper. I don't know where they stored the apples but it was somewhere dark and cool. They managed to get a lot out of what wasn't really such a big garden.

I hope you're going to vote the right way next month. Although I'm very much in the minority here, I wouldn't be sorry to see the whole EU house of cards come tumbling down.

 

Thanks a million JAA. That's exactly what I wanted to know. I might give it a try starting in the autumn. My biggest worry was that the vegetables would attract rats but now that I know that the veggies aren't necessary there's no reason not to try it out.

 

Dolours, make you you check with your relatives with the water supply and the forest BEFORE you need to seek shelter, like, NOW, so they know you're coming ahead of time. They may have all of their available space promised to other friends and relatives.

Here is a link to a video showing you how to create an inexpensive tumbler composter:



This one lets you seal it up, and rolling it gets the compost aerated, so you get much healthier compost. As for the fruit peelings and veggie leaves, here's a link to a video by the same guy on how to make a worm composting bin (aka vermiculture) :



It's long (17 minutes) but he goes into a lot of detail for the beginner. The reason for composting your fruits and veggies is the philosophy of adding back to the soil what you have taken out of it. Maybe your apples didn't come from your tree, but you're still building up your own soil by composting the cores.

(I'll forego discussion on humanure composting systems. You can look it up for those times when the refugees start showing up and the sewage system won't flush.)

Around here they handle waste disposal by giving every household one bag of garbage for free. All others need to have a tag (that you can buy from grocery stores and such) attached to it, or it doesn't get picked up.

 

Most of their friends either live in the hills or have family living there, so there should be room for us especially with my seeds and disinfectant. If I told them in advance they would have me committed.

Some areas here have that tagging system - mostly rural areas. We pay annually in advance and the bins have some kind of bar code or numbering system that lets the collectors know who has paid. We separate our rubbish into three bins - one for landfill, one for recycling and one for food. Until now the recyclables have been collected free of charge but that is about to change.

I'll check out those videos, thanks.

 

I would be cautious on using newspapers in a garden mulch since the ink contains lead. Yes I heard of the old Irish legend about being covered with water, and I worry because the Island of Saints and scholars has become pagan. With gay marriage, abortion, and now euthanasia it's very serious.

 

It's more than a legend. I think it has been prophesied.

 

The newspapers are on the very bottom and prevent grass and weeds from coming up through the mulch. It is what makes it possible to plant a raised garden anywhere. I do believe that lead settles and does not rise. It is doubtful that if there is lead in the newsprint it would be significant considering it is in water and the earth. Maybe your newspapers are more toxic than mine.

 

I would like to ask a general question of all. I have watched this forum for years seldom making a comment. I have viewed the constant battles, sarcasms, nitpicking, et al and wonder why this is necessary from children of the King. Must every simple comment result in some negative response? Where is the hope? Where is the collaboration between those of like mind? Where is the joy in our salvation? For goodness sake put a smile on it already. I have seen better behavior from the protestants who disciplined me for returning to the Church than from devout Catholics who should know better and have no reason at all to be so dour. The negative attitudes, petty rivalries, moral superiority, snotty and caustic remarks do drive people away from this website and, most likely, these are people who could benefit from some truly lovely devotions, news we will not read anywhere else, and practical advice. These people may have very positive things to contribute and could dilute some of this insular behavior. The world is very hard. We should be counting our blessings and treasuring each other. Frankly it looks like we will really need each other in the near future and it would be a pity if during times of tribulation people we could help go it alone because we are so prickly to each other and to newcomers.

 

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I’m sure that Papa really didn’t mean his words to come out this way but this is just the latest of his “Off Teleprompter” comments that has/are causing confusion, consternation and division in the Christian World! It might not make a difference to you folks in Catholic majority regions but I’m here to tell you that all the goodwill that St JPII and Pope Benedict XVI garnered within the Protestant/Conservative Community is being rapidly undone … and will, No Doubt, make lives more difficult for us Bible Belt/Red State Catholics in The Storm

“Unbelievable! Pope Francis Compares Jesus’ Disciples to ISIS Killers”

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/05/good-lord-pope-francis-compares-jesus-disciples-isis/

GOD SAVE ALL HERE…. and find a “handler” for Pope Francis!!