Thread: Getting back to living off the land.....

Greetings All,
I was walking through Mitre 10 the other day. I had gone in to get a few odds and ends including some climbing sugar snap pea seeds, a favourite in this house. I walked past the table full of seed potatoes and decided I should grow some this year so a bag was added to the cart. This morning I was planting them where could shoehorn them in to my garden. I was looking for something to put the sprouted spuds in and remembered that we used to use a dipper for this. I also realised that I had followed my late father's planting system. So for the three of you that may be interested here it is.
First the seed potatoes were placed in a seed tray, rose end up, to sprout and put in a dim part of the shed. The rose end of the spud is the end where the eyes are and where the sprouts will develop. It takes a couple of weeks for this to happen so this gives you time to finish preparing the ground for them. The sprouted spuds are easy to damage so enough for each row were transferred from the seed tray into the dipper for their trip to the garden. What is a dipper you ask? A dipper was an implement like a wok but about half the size. They were used for emptying the copper. What is a copper? A copper was used for heating water for washing clothes up until about 1950. It was a copper bowl with a fire box below heated with wood or if you were flash gas. Most had no outlet so they had to be emptied with the dipper. By the mid to late 1950's when I was "helping" my father planting the spuds most of the coppers had been replaced with agitator washing machines but you still saw the from time to time. The dippers survived. I found an ice cream container almost as good.
Well we got a bit of track there but hopefully there are a few old fudd's that have their memory jogged.
Regards Grandpamac.

Heh. Well I certainly know what a 'copper' is, but I have never been aware of a 'dipper'. Thanks for that.

Coppers were a common thing when I was a kid. I seem to recall one in the family home... and I saw them at other people's places. The copper bowl, removed from the refractory body, was a very handy thing. Before plastic containers we used to use one as a water reservoir when mixing concrete, and another was used for stock to drink out of. I have an idea that my elders used to boil freshly caught crayfish in a copper. The outer refractory housing was useful as an outdoor incinerator when the copper bowl was removed. We aren't allowed incinerators now.

I don't ever remember my parents using a copper for cleaning laundry. I guess by the time I was aware of 'doing the washing' they had a washing machine.

Here is an early colour photo showing my young sister cooling off in the copper bowl we had in the paddock for the horse to drink from.

i built the mrs 3 vege gardens and a greenhouse. got 1/2 of one garden full of spuds and the rest is for what she wants to plant and eat as i believe vege is evil !!

Greetings Moa Hunter, Coote and Gone Tropo,
The first house I bought still had the original gas copper and kauri tubs installed. My father had a enormous vegetable garden with heaps of spuds. It was meat, spuds and 3 veg in our house, plus heaps of eggs from our chooks. I used to grow heaps of spuds while the kids were at home but these days I am the only regular spud eater. I was pleased to see that the two spud varieties that my father grew in the 1950's, Ilam Hardy and Rua are still available but I chose another favourite Desiree to plant.
Regards Grandpamac.

I still have a copper, set up with an outside bathtub

2 years ago we renovated my family home built in 1960. Part of the reno was to remove the old copper stand from the laundry so have lived with one in the house for most of 60yrs. Don't remember it being use though except to dip fruit for drying

Originally Posted by gonetropo

i built the mrs 3 vege gardens and a greenhouse. got 1/2 of one garden full of spuds and the rest is for what she wants to plant and eat as i believe vege is evil !!

Do you eat spuds gt ?

Originally Posted by Moa Hunter

Do you eat spuds gt ?

spuds, kumara, onions, garlic and really hot chillis.ok ketchup
no fruit or salad, dont ever even put a strand of greenery in my burger!!! or mixed vege in my meat pies!!!

Originally Posted by gonetropo

spuds, kumara, onions, garlic and really hot chillis.ok ketchup
no fruit or salad, dont ever even put a strand of greenery in my burger!!! or mixed vege in my meat pies!!!

Well give me strength, what would Carl Linnaeus say to that ?? Spuds, Kumera, onions, Garlic, tomatoes are actually VEGE !!

I would probably be vegetarian if they were more fun to hunt...

Originally Posted by Moa Hunter

Well give me strength, what would Carl Linnaeus say to that ?? Spuds, Kumera, onions, Garlic, tomatoes are actually VEGE !!

tomatoes are actually a fruit of the nightshade family

Originally Posted by Ftx325

I would probably be vegetarian if they were more fun to hunt...

Originally Posted by gonetropo

tomatoes are actually a fruit of the nightshade family

Vege denier / denialist

hey if i could afford to eat a full meat diet i would do, well that and massive amounts of dairy. hell i must drink/use 6-8 litres of moo juice a week