Mabon

Excitement got to fever pitch last night in the Mabon household as dessert for two (x2 bowls) was Strawberries grown by my own fair hand (with a bit of involvement from Nature). My missis commented that they tasted 'just like the ones you used to get when you went strawberry picking as a kid' . Absolutely lovely and suddenly after a slow start, we have a load more coming. My corn has now started to grow very quickly. I'd say by 1/3 in the last week alone and there are beans sprouting from everywhere too. It's great to have access to a garden again, after living for years in a hermetically-sealed flat with no access to nuffink.

I'd love to use the entire garden for food and have chickens etc. Unfortunately my missis she say 'no' and the garden is hers. So until I get my own land proper....No can do. (Shame).

That's what I planted last year - Polestar. They seem very hardy and frumenty (fertile, luscious, effervescent) I'd love to keep chickens but the garden is a tad small and there are a lot of urban foxs about the place. When I get a bigger piece of land, will defintely have chickens as I eat loads of eggs and would prefer to consume ones from my own chicks.

Sub/ around 800 quid per ounce for gold was what I have been waiting for. So I will now begin averaging in from here. Have also boosted my Gold Miners Fund as they have a fair ways to catch up.

Excellent. You're having good success there. My beetroots have not shown, maybe I seeded them too deep? Only time will tell. They may start sprouting come the winter. Lol. I grew Courgettes last year and had the same problem - slugs. Eventually I put them in high pots and put rock salt and coffee grounds under the rim, that stopped them dead. Excitement in the Mabon household - the composter (free from the council) has finally arrived four months after we ordered it (better late than never). I'd not heard of English councils giving composters for free (I'm in Harrow borough). Back home in Wales you get one whether you want it or not and you're expected to use it as most councils don't collect veg etc waste, but they do do a good job of recycling almost everything else (particularly in the west of Wales).

I will keep you updated on beans consistency/ taste/ edibility of the beans from the older plant. I noticed yesterday evening that the beans are having an explosion of tendrils now. Firstly main (older) bean plant has so many tendrils coming off it that if they all sprout, i'll be able to feed a small army. Also new beans have emerged (various stages of development) from the ground and have sent runners up poles. Last week one was only about 1 foot high, since then it has latched onto a pole of its own volition and is now 4 foot up that pole already. These things grow fast when they get going. I thought I'd planted some of the new seeds too deep, as they didn't do anything for a few months (planted in mid-March). But this has worked out to my advantage, as they are emerging now, when the weather is warm to hot. Probably going to upscale my projection to 12 to 15 lbs of beans this year, at least. Last year they produced beans until mid-October time and we were having steamed beans with every meal for a couple of weeks (good job I like beans). Also the wood pigeons have scoffed the middle row of plants in the very large earthen pot (4 foot across) that I have by the back door (even though it was netted). Can't for the life of me remember what it was, but obviously it went down well. They don't like the other stuff though, which is American Cress and a type of Rocket. Wood Pigeon Pie I'm looking at (my Dad says they are quite tasty just don't eat the guts).

Get some ladybirds quick. In our front 'patio' garden, we have one mature bush that gets infected/ overrun with blackfly each year. Blue tits and other small birds will eat a lot of the aphids if you can encourage them to perch on the bush (hang a bit of food there), but the two ladybirds I found on there, decimated the plague of blackflys in about a week (they scoffed the lot and beat the crap out of the ants too by the looks of it). You just have to give the ladybirds a reason to stay. I believe you can buy ladybird larvae and mature adults on t'internet and they really are ferocious pest controllers. Good Luck.

My garden is 30 foot by 15 or so in north-west London. I am using approximately 10% of it to grow some food. Experiments so far: Beans from last year grew back. Instead of taking them up, I left a couple of the withered plants in the ground and they started to grow again. Last year I got approximately 8 lb (3.9 kgs) of beans from one plant. This year I reckon it'll be nearer 15 lbs of beans from one plant as I am encouraging the one plant to grow up as many poles as possible. Potatoes (in growbags) - have an absolute abundance of spuds, 2 full big grow bags. Gonna be at least 50lb of spuds (24.8kgs) Also I have enough chits (sprouted spud tops) to grow at least the same amount again, which I'll plant in August for some lates. Also I have area of weeds just behind my growing bed, and some of the spud tops I chucked on there have rooted and I have a couple of potato plants growing there too (probably another 5lbs of spuds). Peppers growing in pots. Single plants growing strong and now 2 foot tall. Pepper seedlings growing in one large pot, will need to thin them out and put them in to individual pots within a week or so. Hopefuly I'll get a couple of lbs of peppers this year (I love grilled peppers). Growing bed approximately 10 foot long by 2.5 across. I dug up some of the lawn at the bottom of the garden, watered it and then laid about 4x50 litre topsoil bags to form a better growing base. So far I have 10 sweetcorn plants, now 2 ft high - made the mistake of seeding some of these too close together, so large areas of my bed have nothing growing in it. And about 150 carrot plants - seeded these too close together as I had heavily watered the soil and was gently sprinkling seeds onto the mush, when a fox jumped over the back fence and the alarm of it meant the seeds went everywhere. The Beetroot has not made an appearance yet (Bolthardy), whether it will or not - who knows? Strawberries - a couple of plants are bearing fruit, usually no more than 10 strawbs per plant, which I am looking forward to eating about 2 to 3 lbs of strawberries. Also my Nasturstions (sp?) are going great and I will eat these in a nice salad. Herbs - one simple large patio pot is now overflowing with chives, mint, basil etc. Didn't realise it was still thriving, as hadn't given it any attention. Have a 30 foot high Bay Tree (saplings everywere too - this thing is the dominant lifeform in that area of the garden and over into the track behind our flat) in the bottom right hand corner, so any time I fancy it I can pop down the garden and get some of that or some rosemary, and the bees love the lavender, which I managed to revive. Tomatoes - didn't grow this year after last years bumper 20 to 30 lbs of toms from three plants. Bloody squirrels and homicidal blackbird have probably done for them, as the squirrels can never remember where they put their nuts, so will dig up everything in a quest to find their stash. Conclusion. Even with the small amount of space I am using. I could easily double my yield next season. Next experiment will be to grow some peas, more sweetcorn and more fruit. I'm gonna plant an Apricot tree against the south-facing heat-retaining wall of my neighbour's extention, that should grow well in such a good spot. All my missis's flowers are looking lovely too. I only use wastewater from the washing up, which I either tip straight onto the plants, or decant into another bowl, just outside the backdoor. Also I have a mini-wormery and I sometimes use the wormpee (super fertiliser in itself) and pour onto plants and then add a bit of water. Still waiting for the wormscat, might be ready as fertiliser by the end of August. Mistakes: I would definitely cover some plants next time round (cloches on the sweetcorn etc). I would probably buy in a load of ladybirds just to get rid of ants and their aphid colonies (blackfly particularly). And I would defintely shoot those squirrels....

Can anybody tell me their opinions as to whether these have been oversold? I mean their charts are like the down ramp of a large multi-storey car park. So if you were to buy a few of these funds now, what other risks do they entail? Surely they will continue to produce yields (high yields in some cases) for a few years to come? If they continue to produce those yields, is there a significant risk to the actual capital invested (much beyond what has already occured?) And does that risk to the capital invested get riskier as they get closer to being wound up (2011?)?

You need to check out the recent changes being proposed by the Canadian Taxation Authorities to these, a recent mailer from Daily Wealth had a piece about this and why they suggested selling them. Below is the cut and paste from about a week ago, I don't know whether this would afflict UK based investors the same way that it does Americans though. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Canadian Income Trust Debacle by Dr. Steve Sjuggerud When individual investors learn about Halloween’s Canadian Income Trust Debacle, they’ll shy away from buying Canadian energy trusts for a while. Today, I’ll explain what happened and share one idea for where investors might go next… Around the office, we’re calling it the Canadian Income Trust Debacle… Investors in businesses structured as Canadian income trusts had a nice thing going the past few years… big cash payouts and nice capital gains to boot. As long as businesses like these paid us 90% of their distributable cash, they weren’t taxed. You could hold these in retirement accounts and earn huge dividends. It was too good to be true… really… In recent years, more and more Canadian companies have been converting to the trust structure to take advantage of the favorable corporate tax situation. The latest high-profile companies to announce their conversion were Telus and BCE – two massive phone companies. Phone companies are a stretch from the intention of the trust law. This week, the Canadian authorities said they’ve had enough. Canada said it loses a mountain of corporate tax revenue every time a company converts to a trust. Apparently, in 2006 alone, more than US$50 billion worth of companies have converted to trusts. So Tuesday night, Canada announced plans to fully eliminate the tax benefits of these trusts by 2011. Instead of no taxes, it appears that Canadians will pay in excess of 30% in taxes. Ouch! Even worse, Canada will likely withhold 41.5% from Americans… said another way, a 7% Canadian dividend will shrink to 4% for Americans, after Canadian taxes. What I prefer to do now is cut and run… and then watch the drama from the safety of being out of my position. If they are worth going back into, we will. But the only way I see them being worth getting back into is if they’re much cheaper. It stinks. The Canadian government just killed billions of dollars overnight. These trusts will probably fall farther in the short term, as investors get angry and leave the sector. Also, no law has been passed yet. So the shares will probably do nothing during this period of uncertainty. And markets hate uncertainty. So where might American dollars go in the future that would have headed for the Canadian energy trusts? When individual investors learn of the Canadian Income Trust Debacle, they’ll shy away from buying Canadian energy trusts for a while. Their brokers will be looking for a place for them to put their money. An easy answer might be, “how about the U.S. version of these things?” My first thought was U.S.-traded energy master limited partnerships (MLPs)… like Enbridge Energy LP (EEP), Enterprise Products Partners LP (EPD), and TEPPCO Partners (TPP). These folks mainly own pipelines in the U.S. They are not taxed, and they pay dividends in the 7% range. Once investors hear about that tax-advantaged 7% yield in an energy pipeline, the sale is made. If I’m right about this, you can now beat ‘em to it. Good investing, Steve --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lol. Electric SUVs???

My Girlfriend used to drive a Citroen Berlingo Electric van when she was a home delivery manager for a Wholefood company. It was a really good vehicle as far as they went, really weird being sat in something that has no engine noise as you go glooming through the landscape. Worked fine with her driving it at 150 pounds in weight probably got 70-110 miles per charge with a full load of food in the back and doing average delivery circiuts of 30 miles. Unfortunately one of the delivery drivers they hired was 300 pounds in weight and the van ran out of juice 15 miles from the depot and had to be towed back to base. So the moral is Electric Vehicles are great for standard weight to height ratio people, but pants for those who veer more to the inflated. Also the servicing and repairs infrastructure Citroen had for these vans was basically non-existing, if it knackered, it had to returned to the manufacturer (just like a bog-standard computer guarantee), really woeful.

AFAIK Sasol (South Africa) and Rentech (USA) http://www.rentechinc.com/ are the leading companies using the Fischer-Tropsch (Coal into Diesel) process to produce Oil from Coal. The South African Government announced a few months ago that Sasol's process was now capable of entirely powering commercial airline flights (as long as everybody keeps shovelling...) by producing 'pure' aviation fuel using this process. whereas until recently, it had only been able to use it as a portion of the aviation fuel. Pretty exciting stuff eh? (well relatively speaking).

Galantas aren't the only Gold Mining co in these islands though. There are still a few very small Welsh Companies mining Clogau Gold (the purest stuff). Admittedly they are at present very small concerns, but the mines that they are re-opening have previously produced a lot of highest quality gold. Here's one of them: http://www.cambriangoldfields.co.uk/info.htm They are mining in the Dolgellau Gold Belt from Northern Mid Wales to North Wales which produces the most beautiful Gold you've ever seen, including Yellow White and Pink/Red.

Thanks Dr B, I shall look into Coal International. I didn't even realise that Cambrian Mining were still in operation. Now all we need to do is get our Cloggau Gold Mines into some kind of serious operation and maybe Wales has an economic future after all.

Thanks for the Reply Dr B. I read your posts with interest (both here and on HPC-I'm not a member there though just a lurker) and can even suss some of them out (thank god I did that 'Successful Investor Course') Although I get a bit flummoxed when various Chartism etc starts getting bandied about, but, i'll learn. I have seen Frizzers mention Stand-Up stuff and will no doubt cosy up to him in the nearish future and see what gives.

Clean Coal Technology could be a boon for countries like Wales where we've got so much of the stuff it's embarrassing. We could easily be self-sufficient in energy and as the Senedd (Welsh Parliament) have rejected the possibility of building any further Nuclear Powerstations after Wylfa etc are decommissioned this has been suggested as a way forward. Of course this would mean that someone will have to go and get it, which is the mucky part. Anybody see the news about Sasol (Sth African co) and their pioneering usage of the Fischer-Tropsch method of coal pulverisation to produce aviation fuel? They say that they can now produce pure aviation fuel (and not just as a blend) from Coal only via this method. Doubt if it's very clean mind, but will probably save a few airlines a pretty penny in fuel costs. Ryannair Flight to Paris 50 pence please. Anybody know of any British Companies doing something similar with this technology, or is that too pro-active in terms of an Energy Future and will they just muddle through?

Hello All, Mabon here. No that's not my real name. Case you are wondering Mabon (Gymraeg-Welsh) means 'Child Of' (Strictly Son of) in English. In Welsh to denote a child either Ab, Ap, Mab or Map are used (same as in the other Celtic Languages ie Mac in Gaelic). I don't see myself as a child, just that that was a better username than NumptyKnickers or DoomandGloomMonkey (hey come to think of it...). I am a Scriptwriter (Film and Television) and Writer, an ethnically Welsh person (living in Wales too). I have been lurking here for a few months and decided to take the plunge and join, as this forum seems to be positive and geared towards some kind of common aim. For the last few years I have been seriously sussing out how to be 'an investor'. This has been a painstaking process and I still don't know that much, but am interested in protecting my meagre wealth from all thieves and adding to it so that I can become Financially Independent, then Independently Wealthy, then set up an empire and then take over the world and subjugate you all to my will...(maybe scratch that last bit, as that's quite a lot of work and i'm on a tight schedule). I shall most probably lurk a lot more, but by registering, it gives me the option to ask daft questions and hopefully get less than daft answers.