Love to live somewhere semi rural

@Julien

Hello, I'm starting on a journey to discover a better way of living in another country.

My husband and I are financially self sufficient and would love to live somewhere semi rural where we could grow organic and meet friendly folk.

Thank you for any imput.
🙏
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@Julien

Hello, I'm starting on a journey to discover a better way of living in another country.

My husband and I are financially self sufficient and would love to live somewhere semi rural where we could grow organic and meet friendly folk.

Thank you for any imput.
🙏
- @biscuitdixon


You should tell us more - maybe start a new thread.
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@biscuitdixon Hungary is great for self suffiency, I hope your budget is realistic in these time, but Hungary is still fine (especially in the East I would say)
What do you need 10.000 sqm or more, anyhow still possible to get at a cheap price.

For real self sufficiency you need solar panels, water well, some guard dogs (if real rural). Still I believe you need a phone and internet, so some providers are needed (also for garbagem dealing with local taxes etc.) Real self sufficient not possible I think, but possible to be close at a good price.
Good luck and I have respect. In my experience more than 80% of Hungarian people are VERY friendly, in the East difficult to find English or even German, if you have real own means (EUR 400 K +) you can also buy something massive close to eg Heviz. (language is easier there). But then again in rural neighbours tend to be old (sometimes very old). Languagues are useful with other expats and providers. Do you want contact with other expats or real locals. Language and rural in a way is a contradiction (apart from other expats (by the way do you speak German? (if you speak Hungarian which I think you do not would be the greatest asset). English sometimes is fine, but German is still more useful.

Bottom line living rural and looking for contacts with English only I think is not too easy (possible though)
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@biscuitdixon Having a hobby is very very useful , in my case it was chess and I was very very welcomed, even if the members did not speak other languages really, still with a bit of babbling and sign language you can come far (if people make the effort). Me and my wife were invited to number of gatherings,(restaurant, general meetings (the club arranged for a special translator)
Even home visits etc. INCREDIBLY how people can be friendly. These were normal people and did not ask money from me at any stages (if at all they give for victories I achieved for them (HUF 1000 per victory :))
Doesnot really matter, singing, knitting, football, volleyball, I am sure you will be welcomed!!!




Of course one get ripped of by providers (gas man, gardener, ...) being an expat, but if self sufficient it is not needed.

As a side note in our street me and my wife 60 and 51 respectively were considered youngsters, most were 75+ (be aware of neighbours (we liked out privacy it was perfectly for us good).
For self suffiency, yes we eat vegs and fruits, 80% out of own garden, but also we like meat, wine, whisky, .... (difficult in self suffiency). Also we liked to go to restaurants from time to time. We also had a car (does also not really match, even if we tried to limit the use, we had one).
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For self suffiency, yes we eat vegs and fruits, 80% out of own garden, but also we like meat, wine, whisky, .... (difficult in self suffiency). Also we liked to go to restaurants from time to time. We also had a car (does also not really match, even if we tried to limit the use, we had one). - @cdw057

You could make your own palinka.  My FIL used to make litres of the stuff.  He had a large piece of land north of the far end of Balaton with many grapevines and fruit trees.  He had his own little winery/brewery/cellar.  It was like jet fuel.  He could have also put it in a car as I'm sure it would have worked in an engine even if with mixed with diesel.
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@fluffy2560 I would trust not myself in making Palinka, I knew some neighbours who did, but I am too afraid to drink my own produce. (but yes possible)

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For self suffiency, yes we eat vegs and fruits, 80% out of own garden, but also we like meat, wine, whisky, .... (difficult in self suffiency). Also we liked to go to restaurants from time to time. We also had a car (does also not really match, even if we tried to limit the use, we had one). - @cdw057

You could make your own palinka.  My FIL used to make litres of the stuff.  He had a large piece of land north of the far end of Balaton with many grapevines and fruit trees.  He has his own little winery/brewery/cellar.  It was like jet fuel.  He could have also put it in a car as I'm sure it would have worked in an engine even if with mixed with diesel.
- @fluffy2560

Being self suffient anywhere isn't exactly easy.
It depends on how much actual experience in growing you have.
Knowledge of soil and when to plant different crops.
The idea sounds great but often people think it is easier to grow crops then it is.
Organic gardening sound like you might be planning on turning it into a small business?
I knew many people in Hawaii who grew everything for their own use but that soil is good for just about growing anything.
Sandy soil might be good for growing grapes and not much else.
I know my in-laws had one the the best gardens in Erd in the day. My FIL was raised in the countryside in the 1920's in Romania as a German . He spoke Hungarian, Romanian, German and after being held as a POW in a work labor camp in Russia as a prisoner of the HU Army after WW11 for nealry 6 years, he spoke perfect Russian as well.
He knew everything about growing, how to take care of fruit trees, how to keep bugs and all sorts of insects away, how to can foods, how to slaughter a pig ,chicken  or rabbits how to build his own house and make sure his cellar was totally water proff. Most of his neighbors in Erd had water issues with their cellars.
It would depend on how much you have to invest in land and a place to live.Most of the cheaper areas have issues.
Mostly just older people stuck behind while the younger ones moved away to work closer to the cities.
If you have allot of exerience with gardening, and living off the grid it's still going to be a hassle to find help if needed out living in nowhere's land.One needs to be a jack of all trades.
People in some villages will be very suspisious of outsiders coming in.
It's going to take allot of research to find the perfect place.
In these smaller towns and villages making palinka and wine are a real hobby.
When my FIL passed he left behind 200 liters of wine, we gave a good 100 liters away to the alcohlic living next door. This was still basiclaly within the city limits in Erd.  He would hang a large bottle on a tree that was between our prperties. He had to hide it from his wife so he hung the bottle out of the way for us to fill up for him. He just wouldn't take no for an answer either. In the end he would hang a roasted chicken in the tree for us in exchange for a bottle of wine.
Put us off roasted chicken for awhile...
He dislocated his shoulder when  he slipped washing his floor. His wife was so embarrassed by how drunk he was that we had to drive him to the local ER.
The next day he was riding his bike, drunk with his arm in a sling.
That's about the excitment of living in the boonies.









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I knew many people in Hawaii who grew everything for their own use but that soil is good for just about growing anything.
Sandy soil might be good for growing grapes and not much else.
I know my in-laws had one the the best gardens in Erd in the day. My FIL was raised in the countryside in the 1920's in Romania as a German . He spoke Hungarian, Romanian, German and after being held as a POW in a work labor camp in Russia as a prisoner of the HU Army after WW11 for nearly 6 years, he spoke perfect Russian as well.
He knew everything about growing, how to take care of fruit trees, how to keep bugs and all sorts of insects away, how to can foods, how to slaughter a pig ,chicken  or rabbits how to build his own house and make sure his cellar was totally water proff. Most of his neighbors in Erd had water issues with their cellars.
It would depend on how much you have to invest in land and a place to live.Most of the cheaper areas have issues.
Mostly just older people stuck behind while the younger ones moved away to work closer to the cities.
If you have allot of experience with gardening, and living off the grid it's still going to be a hassle to find help if needed out living in nowhere's land.One needs to be a jack of all trades.
People in some villages will be very suspicious of outsiders coming in.
It's going to take allot of research to find the perfect place.
In these smaller towns and villages making palinka and wine are a real hobby.
When my FIL passed he left behind 200 liters of wine, we gave a good 100 liters away to the alcoholic living next door. This was still basically within the city limits in Erd.  He would hang a large bottle on a tree that was between our properties. He had to hide it from his wife so he hung the bottle out of the way for us to fill up for him. He just wouldn't take no for an answer either. In the end he would hang a roasted chicken in the tree for us in exchange for a bottle of wine.
Put us off roasted chicken for awhile...
He dislocated his shoulder when  he slipped washing his floor. His wife was so embarrassed by how drunk he was that we had to drive him to the local ER.
The next day he was riding his bike, drunk with his arm in a sling.
That's about the excitement of living in the boonies.

- @Marilyn Tassy

It all sounds attractive living off your own produce but it's just really hard work.  It'd be dawn to dusk non-stop and cabin fever in winter.  Just foraging for wood for the winter fires would be awful.   Be OK as a hobby perhaps at the country estate. 

Making alcohol is easy of course, right kind of yeast, water and sugar - the rest is flavouring.  I see there are restrictions at the supermarket on buying sugar again.  Yet when I was at Aldi the other day, couple of people were buying a lot of it - they were individually buying multiple packets.  Stockpiling for palinka later or maybe for making jams now.   

Getting smashed out in the countryside smacks of psychological problems - trying to overcome the boredom of nothing happening in the village of far away Kukutyin.  Next door to Mucsajröcsöge.
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Yes, we only were out in Erd which is I suppose semi-rural.
Everyone was a drinker.
They collected all the rotten fruit off the ground and made palinka with it.
I helped my husband and his mom make her last batch of wine.
She was not a drinker at all but as her husband had died and her being so frugal, she didn't want the grapes to go to waste.
Dang, that was hard work , at least for lazy me it was!
Making sure the grapes are growing up the vine, tying them up, picking them, sorting them, making the wine with sugar, it does involve allot of bees...
They were always around buzzing away, too tempting for them with all that sweetness in the air.
It was a bit sad after my FIL passed and my MIL got too old to work the land by herself.
We used to visit her every 6 months frm the US for a couple of years to help her out.
We really just turned everything over and grew some grass, not even the fun sort of grass!! ( God knows I could of used some being out in Erd!)
They had a double sized lot so it was allot of land and work to keep it up.
Sad to see the best garden around turn into a weed garden.
The women who bought the house was a country women and even she tore down all the outer buildings and just has a nice big grass lawn now.
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Yes, we only were out in Erd which is I suppose semi-rural.
Everyone was a drinker.
They collected all the rotten fruit off the ground and made palinka with it.
I helped my husband and his mom make her last batch of wine.
She was not a drinker at all but as her husband had died and her being so frugal, she didn't want the grapes to go to waste.
Dang, that was hard work , at least for lazy me it was!
Making sure the grapes are growing up the vine, tying them up, picking them, sorting them, making the wine with sugar, it does involve allot of bees...
They were always around buzzing away, too tempting for them with all that sweetness in the air.
It was a bit sad after my FIL passed and my MIL got too old to work the land by herself.
We used to visit her every 6 months frm the US for a couple of years to help her out.
We really just turned everything over and grew some grass, not even the fun sort of grass!! ( God knows I could of used some being out in Erd!)
They had a double sized lot so it was allot of land and work to keep it up.
Sad to see the best garden around turn into a weed garden.
The women who bought the house was a country women and even she tore down all the outer buildings and just has a nice big grass lawn now.
- @Marilyn Tassy


Knocking down outbuildings - don't like the sound of that.

I've got a out building on my land of about 30-40m2.   It's useful for storing all the garden tools, use as a workshop and just storage.  I plan to rebuild it somewhat - new roof mainly, windows and door plus install water, drainage and redo the power properly.  Not quite big enough for a garage and not enough land to extend it legally to make a garage.  Originally we were supposed to knock it down as it was built illegally by the previous owners and subsequently legalised by us.  No way I am going to knock it down.   I'm not sure I need planning permission to restore it.   I don't see why I would if I'm just replacing stuff that's already there.  If we didn't have the shed to do tinkering, I'd go insane.

My MIL cannot do anything in her garden. It's just too big to deal with now my FIL has gone and her dementia/stroke damage means she doesn't always get what is going on and is physically incapable.   She has a couple of sheds on the land - both built illegally.  And a big house.  But the whole thing is just falling into disrepair.  The fruit trees are unattended, the trees are too big and need trimming, nothing gets cleaned unless Mrs F or someone else does it.  Hard to imagine what will happen in the end. 

My FIL also had land elsewhere including quite a large piece (like 5000 m2) with cellar out in the sticks.   I don't think anyone goes there to keep on top of it.   My FIL would go out there by train, do his vines/fruit trees, make his palinka  and wine and then spend time passed out drunk.  He suppose he had high expectations I would join him in his path to alcoholic oblivion!  Err....no thank you.
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My FIL bulit his own house in Erd. Had to have inspections along the way to make sure everything was up to code.
He also helped built my SIL and BIL's homes.
My husband and his friends help with the framing but that was many years ago.
Our friend in AZ built his own house and also bulit several homes in Hawaii for people.
He was a framer by trade.
We rented one house in Hawaii for a month that he built, not too bad, at least it didn't leak!No, it was pretty nice.
On the BIg Island most homes are kit homes, like nail by number do-it yourself homes.
The homes our friend built were actual homes with blue prints ect.
It's hard when people age to know when it's time to pack it in and move to an old folks home. Or a safer place.
My MIL wouldn't leave her house even at age 80 when she fell in her garden and had to lay there until someone found her.
We bought her walkie-talkies so she could at least contact someone in the house if she fell again.
No interent service or many cell phones back then.
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My FIL bulit his own house in Erd. Had to have inspections along the way to make sure everything was up to code.
He also helped built my SIL and BIL's homes.
My husband and his friends help with the framing but that was many years ago.
Our friend in AZ built his own house and also bulit several homes in Hawaii for people.
He was a framer by trade.
We rented one house in Hawaii for a month that he built, not too bad, at least it didn't leak!No, it was pretty nice.
On the BIg Island most homes are kit homes, like nail by number do-it yourself homes.
The homes our friend built were actual homes with blue prints ect.
It's hard when people age to know when it's time to pack it in and move to an old folks home. Or a safer place.
My MIL wouldn't leave her house even at age 80 when she fell in her garden and had to lay there until someone found her.
We bought her walkie-talkies so she could at least contact someone in the house if she fell again.
No interent service or many cell phones back then.
- @Marilyn Tassy

I can relate to home built housing.  That's my MIL's house.   And also my shed.  You can see how they poured or made reinforced concrete but didn't really have proper shuttering to mould the concrete to the right shape.    The surfaces aren't smooth but wooden textured but in an inconsistent way - probably because they built it in sections using the same wood shutterings.     They would never have used a vibrator to get the air and gaps out of the setting concrete.  Maybe they just used rods to wobble it about a bit. 

It's not like other countries it seems. Inspectors never ever turned up here to check our rebuild.  We had proper plans submitted and that was good enough.  I suppose it looked like a serious build - which it was of course.  Final permission was just photos sent by e-mail.  Then we got permission to live in it by post!  We were already living in it by then.

A Canadian guy I knew here bought kit plans for his house and had it built. It was almost all wood like many houses in Canada.  It didn't seem sensible to me as people don't build wood houses here as wood is expensive and concrete is cheap.  I was walking around in his house and everything creaked - the floors, the stairs, everything!  Not used to building with wood and leaving a slight gap. 

My MIL couldn't operate a walkie-talkie.  Someone would have to follow her around at a discreet distance.
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My FIL built his houses back in the commie days,
They waited for inspectors to show up and everything had to be done by the book.
Literally.
We sent a ticket to my husband's step-bro to come to S. Ca. around 1987 to work on our house for 2 months.
He had tons of experience mostly with concret work and tiles.
He worked for many months per year in Russia in work crews building.
He did nice fast work and knew how to do almost any house hold job.
Problem was we told him we would pay him per hour of work, free room and board.
We didn't realize when we gave him such a nice offer that he would smoke us out and just about drink us out of house and home.Not counting trips to Disneyland, SF and Vegas all on our dime.
I swear he learned more then consturction working in Russia all those years...
He learned how to drink as well!
We told him he had to keep it to just wine or beer.
Well, a gallon jug of wine plus a 12 pack of beer was about his daily average.
Smokes, I was buying a 12 pack carton every other day!
I got a call from a neighbor telling me that a man almost fell off the ladder when he was painting the exterior of our house!
I was never so happy to see someone fly off, the kicker was a few weeks after he left we invited some friends over to see all the work done at our house.
We kept some nice bootles of hard liquir in our extra room in a cabinet.
We never really touched the hard stuff and kept it for entertaining.
Went to serve some drinks and found every single bottle of brandy, vodka, rum empty.
Sneaky guy drank every drop in sight.
We must of served tea or ran to the market, can't remember but I know we were madder then a hatter.
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My FIL built his houses back in the commie days,
They waited for inspectors to show up and everything had to be done by the book.
Literally.
We sent a ticket to my husband's step-bro to come to S. Ca. around 1987 to work on our house for 2 months.
He had tons of experience mostly with concret work and tiles.
He worked for many months per year in Russia in work crews building.
He did nice fast work and knew how to do almost any house hold job.
Problem was we told him we would pay him per hour of work, free room and board.
We didn't realize when we gave him such a nice offer that he would smoke us out and just about drink us out of house and home.Not counting trips to Disneyland, SF and Vegas all on our dime.
I swear he learned more then consturction working in Russia all those years...
He learned how to drink as well!
We told him he had to keep it to just wine or beer.
Well, a gallon jug of wine plus a 12 pack of beer was about his daily average.
Smokes, I was buying a 12 pack carton every other day!
I got a call from a neighbor telling me that a man almost fell off the ladder when he was painting the exterior of our house!
I was never so happy to see someone fly off, the kicker was a few weeks after he left we invited some friends over to see all the work done at our house.
We kept some nice bootles of hard liquir in our extra room in a cabinet.
We never really touched the hard stuff and kept it for entertaining.
Went to serve some drinks and found every single bottle of brandy, vodka, rum empty.
Sneaky guy drank every drop in sight.
We must of served tea or ran to the market, can't remember but I know we were madder then a hatter.
- @Marilyn Tassy

Same with my MIL's house,  all self-built.  But when I look at it, I can see the total bodging.  They covered up a lot of dodgy work - brickwork particularly.  They just threw render over it to smooth out the muddled up  bricks.

I can see they make a better job of it these days.  FIL and his chums, I don't think they could build a straight wall.  Same here, none of our walls are straight or at right angles.  And we used "professionals" to build this place.

Commie standards were definitely lower - no insulation and no efficiency etc.   Don't know if they had inspectors.  Moreover, they didn't have designers. The MIL house internal design is appalling. I have no idea how it could be changed around to make it more modern.  Lots of useless rooms - needs a total rebuild.

I see people around here doing building work.  Some of them might be drinking beer all day and none of them are wearing any safety gear when clambering around on roofs.  Minimum they should have fall arrestors to stop them falling off.  And hard hats....they don't know what they are!   It's not just builders, it's tree surgeons. I watched a guy cutting down big trees at the house opposite, he had some ropes and just went up, tied himself on and cut it down in sections using a running chain saw hanging on a rope and some manual tools.  No hard hat, just a kind of jury rigged harness.   

Booze, dangerous machinery, heights to fall from, no safety gear - what could possibly go wrong?!
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It was bth funny and maddening when my sweet 80 year old neighbor rang me up to infrm me there was a man almost falling off the ladder while painting our house.
So lame.
We tld him he had to d his work hours then his time was his to drink, smoke or whatever. I was hme most of the day keeping tabs on him but it wasn't easy.
The work got dne though, looked nice.
We had him put in tarre cotta tiles on the pati by the pool.
He make about 20 rws and they were not striaght.
Mus tof been hitting the brady that day.
My husband got home from work, tld him he wasn't paying for those hours and he had to pull up all the tiles and redo them.
Funniest thing ever to see was my mother's new tile flooring in her bathroom.My alcoholic step-dad, husband n. 3 put doown mosaic tiles that came in nice square sheets, just put them down and add grout later.
Well, ding-bat him, he cut each tile out of the preformed sheeting and put them in piece by tiny pice. A patchwork of a mess!
My mother just laughed it off when we saw it, called him an idiot drunk, no one argued about that fact!!
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It was bth funny and maddening when my sweet 80 year old neighbor rang me up to infrm me there was a man almost falling off the ladder while painting our house.
So lame.
We tld him he had to d his work hours then his time was his to drink, smoke or whatever. I was hme most of the day keeping tabs on him but it wasn't easy.
The work got dne though, looked nice.
We had him put in tarre cotta tiles on the pati by the pool.
He make about 20 rws and they were not striaght.
Mus tof been hitting the brady that day.
My husband got home from work, tld him he wasn't paying for those hours and he had to pull up all the tiles and redo them.
Funniest thing ever to see was my mother's new tile flooring in her bathroom.My alcoholic step-dad, husband n. 3 put doown mosaic tiles that came in nice square sheets, just put them down and add grout later.
Well, ding-bat him, he cut each tile out of the preformed sheeting and put them in piece by tiny pice. A patchwork of a mess!
My mother just laughed it off when we saw it, called him an idiot drunk, no one argued about that fact!!
- @Marilyn Tassy
Tiling is quite easy - in theory.  I've done quite a bit but getting it all flat is really a problem. Wall tiles are hard work as well as gravity works against you.  The grout makes it all look so much better and of course, makes it waterproof.  Our tiler was good and did what he could with our out of kilter walls but we can see where he had to make adjustments due to things not lining up.   He even came back for free when it went a bit wrong and needed repairs. We wanted him to do other work but he left the country and went travelling with his GF to Asia.  I suppose he's still there.

Why the hell did your step-Dad cut them out?!  Was he too plastered (or grouted) to know what he was doing? Maybe he was making a Roman mosaic of his own design?
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It was one of the funniest things ever, seeing my mother's new tile floor.
I dragged my sister over to see it and the moan that she made was priceless...
Mom was going to pull it all out but just gave up.
He was plasted for sure when he did the job.
You could see where maybe he had been semi-sober when he started the work but by the time he was done it really was a masterpiece of his own creation!
That was the funny part, the swirling of tiles was truly a work of pop-art.
Right up there with some of Warhols best!
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It was one of the funniest things ever, seeing my mother's new tile floor.
I dragged my sister over to see it and the moan that she made was priceless...
Mom was going to pull it all out but just gave up.
He was plasted for sure when he did the job.
You could see where maybe he had been semi-sober when he started the work but by the time he was done it really was a masterpiece of his own creation!
That was the funny part, the swirling of tiles was truly a work of pop-art.
Right up there with some of Warhols best!
- @Marilyn Tassy


Flower power groovy!
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Yes, it was pretty, far-out!
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Hello!
Balaton region is very nice in  Hungary. Good climate for growing, I just started a garden and surprisingly lots of vegetables growing and better than I expected.
Good luck!
Livia
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Hello!
Balaton region is very nice in  Hungary. Good climate for growing, I just started a garden and surprisingly lots of vegetables growing and better than I expected.
Good luck!
Livia
- @Livia Kretsch
Are you experiencing water shortages? Balaton water levels are very low right now and it hasn't rained for weeks.
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We are in the US for 5 weeks and going back to Hungary today. I'll let you know how the lake is.
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Are you experiencing water shortages? Balaton water levels are very low right now and it hasn't rained for weeks.


North Balaton where I live, very dry. The local government has implemented restrictions that prevent watering of vegetable gardens since July 21st. May garden is suffering..... All those lovely plants in June now are dry and wilted.

Rain suppose to come tomorrow.... we shall see. Predictions have been wrong all summer. :-(
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@Balaton Wine

Everything is super dry! This was my first vegetable garden and it looked really good earlier, but now it's awful. My husband hates the large rain water barrels (attracts mosquitoes) so we never had one. It would be pretty useful now.
The lake was surprisingly descent yesterday. I thought it was going to be lower…
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Are you experiencing water shortages? Balaton water levels are very low right now and it hasn't rained for weeks.


North Balaton where I live, very dry. The local government has implemented restrictions that prevent watering of vegetable gardens since July 21st. May garden is suffering..... All those lovely plants in June now are dry and wilted.

Rain suppose to come tomorrow.... we shall see. Predictions have been wrong all summer. :-(
- @Balaton Wine
This is different to previous years. It's been dry for too long.

It's supposed to be raining tonight but it really needs a very consistent downpour once or twice a week.

Messed up our tomatoes.
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@Balaton Wine

Everything is super dry! This was my first vegetable garden and it looked really good earlier, but now it's awful. My husband hates the large rain water barrels (attracts mosquitoes) so we never had one. It would be pretty useful now.
The lake was surprisingly descent yesterday. I thought it was going to be lower…
- @Livia Kretsch


You can put some olive oil on the top of the water in the barrel. 

It supposedly stops the mosquitoes laying eggs and emerging.

Seems to work for us and it's obviously green.
Like
@Balaton Wine

Everything is super dry! This was my first vegetable garden and it looked really good earlier, but now it's awful. My husband hates the large rain water barrels (attracts mosquitoes) so we never had one. It would be pretty useful now.
The lake was surprisingly descent yesterday. I thought it was going to be lower…
- @Livia Kretsch


You can put some olive oil on the top of the water in the barrel. 

It supposedly stops the mosquitoes laying eggs and emerging.

Seems to work for us and it's obviously green.
- @fluffy2560


I maybe think you replied to the wrong person..... Edit issue with your reply? No problem. This site seems to have problems with that.

FWIIW: I did not mention water barrels..... Someone else did. I do know how to deal with water barrels for pests and loss to evaporation. But those also ran dry this year. My fault. I simply did not have enough. Quantity issue not quality. :-)

But since you mentioned it..... Rain barrels can simply use proper sealed and planned plumbing, metal screens and covers to keep out pests. A one time purchase and install. No need for buying expensive oils. :-)

Hope this helps.
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@Balaton Wine


- @fluffy2560

To prevent any confusion, my handle in bold at the top of your reply seemed to indicate you were replying to me. But it seems you were not.

Mea culpa. My error. Hope this helps.
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@Balaton Wine

Everything is super dry! This was my first vegetable garden and it looked really good earlier, but now it's awful. My husband hates the large rain water barrels (attracts mosquitoes) so we never had one. It would be pretty useful now.
The lake was surprisingly descent yesterday. I thought it was going to be lower…
- @Livia Kretsch


You can put some olive oil on the top of the water in the barrel. 

It supposedly stops the mosquitoes laying eggs and emerging.

Seems to work for us and it's obviously green.
- @fluffy2560


I maybe think you replied to the wrong person..... Edit issue with your reply? No problem. This site seems to have problems with that.

FWIIW: I did not mention water barrels..... Someone else did. I do know how to deal with water barrels for pests and loss to evaporation. But those also ran dry this year. My fault. I simply did not have enough. Quantity issue not quality. :-)

But since you mentioned it..... Rain barrels can simply use proper sealed and planned plumbing, metal screens and covers to keep out pests. A one time purchase and install. No need for buying expensive oils. :-)

Hope this helps.
- @Balaton Wine
Things have got a bit strange on this site since it was revamped.  Some functionality works and other times it doesn't work as expected - the quote system doesn't work very well.  I wish there was colour selectable highlighting.

We gather the water off the shed roof in old metal barrels and we have no covers or anything like that as they are never more than just there by accident. 

Bit of olive oil from the supermarket does OK.  Only needs a capful - just enough to cover the surface with a thin film.  It seems to work and stop the nasties penetrating in either direction. I suppose any other oil would work as well - used sunflower oil etc so more like recycling.
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@Balaton Wine


- @fluffy2560

To prevent any confusion, my handle in bold at the top of your reply seemed to indicate you were replying to me. But it seems you were not.

Mea culpa. My error. Hope this helps.
- @Balaton Wine


I've got used to it really and I don't really pay much attention to it.   

It must say I did wonder several times if there's some etiquette issue over replying to someone's post when it begins @whoever.  Maybe wouldn't be much of a forum if no-one can carefully reply to others posts. 
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@Balaton Wine
I was somewhat confused by this too in the beginning
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