"Backyard Self Sufficiency" by Jackie French

Since a Bandicoot is an animal in Oz, is there a "furtle" animal in the UK? A furry turtle maybe??

I imagine the Bandicoot must rob the spuds by digging them up. The only thing that has dug my tatties up in the past is a Rowland.

A 'rat' hasn't got the same resonance as a Bandicoot though.

Since a Bandicoot is an animal in Oz, is there a "furtle" animal in the UK? A furry turtle maybe??

I imagine the Bandicoot must rob the spuds by digging them up. The only thing that has dug my tatties up in the past is a Rowland.

A 'rat' hasn't got the same resonance as a Bandicoot though.

Bandicoots look like long-nosed rats, and are named after a type of Indian rat - I had to look them up, as my knowledge of marsupials is a bit patchy (and I never played Crash Bandicoot). Not as cute as quokkas, but probably a lot more common!

I can't say "bandicoot" without picturing a bald, bandy legged old man and the thought of him having a furtle in my spuds is a little unpleasant!!

Modern Greek, of course! I'm not as old as Spec.
It was a bedraggled mother cat and her 2 kittens. They were sitting on a wall at the roadside and a group of local children had given them some water but couldn't get near to them. Of course, the cats came straight to me and I could see they needed worming and flea treatment so I wanted to ask whether there was a Vet in the village!! Just as well i woke up or I'd still be lost in Greece!!

Hoi, leave me out of this, when you are talking of French, Australia and wherever its all Greek to me:

I was thinking of you with my image of a bandicoot.

Yes and thinking of having a furtle around your spuds is frightening to me

Moving on, I've read a few more chapters. Some I've dismissed as irrelevant - like all the different livestock you could keep - apart from the earthworms "which aren't cuddly". That amused me!!
One tip I may take up - basically, not to have bare soil. "When you pull something up, put something back in its place. If you've nothing ready to plant, put in quick growing radish seeds, then pull them up for mulch. This will not only save space, it will stop the bare soil from being damaged by wind and water, and it will stop weeds, which love to colonise bare soil. ".........and forget neat crop rotation and don't plant in neat rows (but I do these anyway).

I always have lots of self-seeded lettuce in the GH so they would be a good source of fill-in plants and can always feed the chooks if I don't want them. I thinking of the times when I pull a couple of leeks, leaving a gap that would be empty until all the leeks are finished.

Pulling of a couple of the outside leaves of a leek and leaving it where it came from would cover the soil for a while, probably more than when the leek was upright.

I dig them up, eat most of it and replant the roots and bottom inch in a "permanent" leek area.