Orphiel

Thought I'd add a little bit of an update on the boat garden. Here's a good picture of my first attempts, planted around last September. http://www.flickr.com/photos/74619946@N00/1396583647/ The spring onions worked amazingly well and grew huge, tasted lovely. The spinach beet also came up well, and we ate that for ages. Planted a lot of beetroot, but misjudged the amount of depth required, so whilst they grew, they were only really tiny. I ended up digging them all out, including roots, and passing them on to a mate of mine who has an allotment, so they can be planted out with enough space to grow. Failed on the lettuce and pak choi, as I tried to thin them out but then the rest of them just died! All a learning curve though, and this was pretty much my first attempt at growing anything. I bought a big green trough to plant things out in earlier this year, and have some carrots and broccoli in there. Carrots are doing really well, and I get excited every time I take a peek under the soil. Sad, innit? Broccoli maybe doesn't have enough space as it's looking a bid bodged in, and the leaves are going a bit brown. Any ideas? Lettuce failed again, probably because I didn't water it enough. Also tried one of those 'living salads' from Sainsbury's, but it grew amazingly well for a little while, then bolted into flowers and died real quick. I am now actually reading some gardening books, as suspect it may be more difficult than first thought! Spinach and parsley also bolted, but will try again soon with something else in the space. Anyone who's really interested in gardening might like to check out the Myfolia site, which my mum really likes. I can't be arsed to fill it all in myself, but I can see it would be useful. http://myfolia.com/ Meg

Both peat-free and organic I done me hippy research.

I love my proper hippy garden. I am growing a bunch of veg in growbags, which is pretty simple and also keeps the height down. I filled them up with new soil to reuse them after the winter crop. As someone pointed out, some of the drainage does go ont he boat roof, but I just wash it off every once in a while.

Relatedly, do the extinguishers have to be the right brand? Also looming BSC worries...

Yeah, I must say I do feel quite virtuous, and I even eat less because instead of looking at a plate of leftovers and going 'arg I'd better eat that otherwise it's waste' I just go 'worms will like this, nomnom'.

Mine get through that amount no problem, but they get through a bit less when they start up and less when it is colder. I just plan to either give the compost to people or use it on flowers etc. The real bonus is that months and months of kitchen waste makes a pretty small amount of compost, as all the water is drained off. There's a tap at the bottom that gives you liquid worm juice, which is non-smelly and like super-good plant feed, so I use that quite a lot. The bin itself doesn't smell at all when not open, and I had it indoors all winter. The rotting stuff inside whiffs a bit, but this stops when it composts down, I understand. I've only had it for a few months, so not collected the compost out yet. Meg

Hi Gary, link does not seem to be working for me. I am in the market for a new cooker and wisely looking at domestic style also.

As an alternative to throwing stuff in, why not get a small wormery? I feed my worms and they eat all the food waste I can produce to the extent that I'm going to have to start collecting it off neighbours soon. You can get a tiny one that fits on the boat, and it gives you good compost and plant feed as well. Also is p1ss easy to use, but we did have to add extra sealing tape round the inside when we got it first. Something like this is good, second one down, the junior wormery. http://www.originalorganics.co.uk/wormeries.htm Meg

Tell us where you are Mav, I'll gladly pay £250 for a job lot of blacking and hauling I have no leet boat skills.

Hammers as in they are full of lovely charge when I plug it in, then about a day or two later everything is flashing red and stopping working, even with the couple of hours running the engine. I don't really have longer than that to run it as am at work all day. I also keep meaning to get some kind of idiot's guide to batteries and electric, as I do find your handy calculations really difficult to understand, appreciated though they are. Hmm. I will check what kind of fridge it is, I do suspect it's an older one, which might be the problem. You say it should only be on 50% of the time, well mine is definitely on all the time, to the point of freezing things inside to the back and making ice, so I suspect it stays on all the time as well. Might that be the problem? I must confess I am not as rigorous with my charging regime as I could be, but then I just stopped using the fridge and have barely noticed all winter, as I don't use many foods that need fridging. Would be handy in the summer though. Cheers everyone for ideas on how much gas they use also, I might look into that. Meg

I've been thinking about a 3-way also, as my 12v fridge hammers the batteries. Do they use a lot of gas, any idea how quickly, etc? Meg

Cheers all, will have a search for the inlet filter tonight to see if that's what it is. Have not cleaned it since arriving on the boat last year, so that may well be it...

Hi all, thanks for queries and advice. To answer some questions: the cold water pressure is as fine as ever. Have spotted no puddles, and the paloma does go on and stay on. Have not fiddled with the temp. knob, which is turned right up to the top as for winter. I doubt it is the water pump, as this was replaced only a couple of months ago for a brand new one, and does not sound or look odd. Not sure how I would check for frost damage on the Paloma, any suggestions? Also, I am not sure where the cold water enters the unit to have a look here, is this in a standard place for all of them? Similar with the diaphragm. Sorry, am a bit clueless as nothing gone wrong with it before so left well alone! Meg

I used to get hot water no problem out of my Paloma, which is a pretty nifty thing, but lately all I can get is lukewarm. Occasionally if I turn the pilot on and leave it for a couple of hours first I get hot water for a few seconds, then cold water again. This has been happening for a couple of months now so I am all smelly*. Ideas? The hot water is really low pressure as well, I do not know if this is the same thing or separate. Meg *Actually mainly wash elsewhere** due to the above but it is a bugger for washing up. ** Honest.

When I next see some canoe-ers round here I'll ask them, as it's up my way, and I have been thinking about doing some myself