Topic: How self suficient are you?

[North Country Boy]

Just wondered how self sufficient you all are. More out of interest than scientific research. I would love to go the whole hog but my current lifestyle will not, at this moment allow, wife thinks im a bit eccentric but admires my passion. Are you just in it for the veg or do you go the whole hog?

[wardy]

I'm just in it for stress relief  :)  The by-product is just a bonus  ;D

Just being on the plot, even if doing nothing is particular, is relaxing.  I don't even mind the rabbits (picture Watership Down and you're there).  It's surprising how the hours just fly by  :)

[wardy]

Ncb - there's going to be a TV programme about a group of people who are going to live the life of self sufficiency for a year.  Three families have been chosen and the programme charts their progress over the year.  the prog will be in 8 parts and it's called The Real Good Life

The producer is Tom Gould, but unfortunately the article I read didn't say what channel the programme will be on or when so we'll have to keep our eyes peeled

[ACE]

Tried it for about 3 years but had to go to work as well because of the morgage, grew all my own veg, had chickens, goats, rabbits, geese and ducks. Used to sell the surplus but it was not enough to support us financially. The children were really healthy and still drink goats milk when they can get it. The big drawback is you need a 25 hour day.

[Mrs Ava]

We can dream!  I would say 95% veg and a fair whack of our fruit, if only I could get my banana palms to produce!  Make all my own jams, pickles, chutneys and relishes, along with cakes and pies all from my own produce.  I can't claim self sufficiency, but we do try and buy what we can from local growers and suppliers.

[North Country Boy]

Ncb - there's going to be a TV programme about a group of people who are going to live the life of self sufficiency for a year.  Three families have been chosen and the programme charts their progress over the year.  the prog will be in 8 parts and it's called The Real Good Life

The producer is Tom Gould, but unfortunately the article I read didn't say what channel the programme will be on or when so we'll have to keep our eyes peeled

I actually applied to go on the programme, replied to an advert in our local paper but never got through, left all my details on the answer phone but no-one got back to me. I'd imagine thousands of people applied to go on it.

[wardy]

aw shucks ncb - very sorry to hear that.  You'd have been great  so you would   ;D

[North Country Boy]

Thanks for that, i think my food growing naivety would have made for a good laugh. Where's your allotment based?

[wardy]

NCB  I have an allotment in Boza  ;D

[Deleted]

Hi

I'm just starting on my allotment, but it will be just to have home grown fruit and veg that is tasty and fresh, plus free from goodness-knows-what. I adore all veg & fruit, and we do a lot of home cooking - we never by packet meals. I'll still be buying the more exotic fuits - mangos, pineapples & bananas, for example - unless global warming speeds up a bit.

I'm also a meat eater. While i love to eat many vegetarian meals, i couldn't survive without meat at all. I know I could keep chickens, etc., but am also a hypocritical softie. I couldn't 'do the deed' when it came to gathering the Sunday lunch, yet am quite OK about buying meat from a butchers (although not so keen on preparing meat - my partner does that), and I LOVE a rare piece of roast beef. Confession over. Doesn't make sense, I know, but that's me.

[Rowan]

I'd love to be self sufficient but I think we'd need more land and a lot more time, and I'd need better health than I've got at the moment. Last year we didn't buy a single vegetable all Summer - I'm really proud of that! Only thing is it was such a let down when we had to start buying again!

We do have chickens, which give us lovely eggs and two of the toughest ones kept going over the Winter, just one egg or so a week. We haven't had to buy eggs for two years now. They've all started to lay now, they must think it's Spring! (It certainly doesn't feel like it! Weather's still freezing  ::))

This year, the aim is to grow as much as possible so that I can fill the freezer. We had loads of courgettes last year and there's still a few bags of those left but everything else is finished, now.

I've spent half the afternoon unloading a trailer load of manure and really enjoying it. (So nice to be outside). Is this when you know you're a gardener, when doing this sort of job becomes fun?!!  ;D

[Mrs Ava]

Dawn, you made me chuckle.  A family story/myth reads my great great someone or the other kept pigs, along with his neighbour, but they couldn't stand to eat their animals, so come slaughter time they would swap!  Perfectly happy to eat their neighbours beast.

[Deleted]

Mmmm. It's when you start naming them the trouble starts. Who could give little Percy and Petunia Piglet the chop? Not me. Even my frogs are named (giscard and mitterand, since you ask).

Just re-read my post - am thinking of having myself certified...

[North Country Boy]

Excuse my ignorance wardy but where is Boza? sounds reet foriegn.

[Svea]

how do you define self-sufficiency though? only in terms of food?
what about clothes, materials that things are made from, electricity etc etc

actually, bizarrely (or not so bizarrely) since i have taken on the allotment i have also been thinking about this a lot more. why do we throw away clothes that have a hole in them? why cant we patch them and wear them for longer? why do we ditch clothes altogether (unless of course they no longer fit ;)) - give to the charity shop, for sure, but still. here, it's fashion, right? trousers with patches are not to be seen dead in. flares are in this year, and out for the next 6 or 7. it's this whole throwaway culture we live in.
do we really need a bigger TV? a faster car?

then, on the other hand, i think wouldn't it be nice to know how to make your own soap and cremes? how to make various food things from scratch? and yet again - no! i am the child of a spoilt generation - i use a washing machine, not wash by hand. i use stock cubes, not make my own stock and freeze/dry it. i buy clothes, not make them. ok, i knit, and i can sew on a button, but that's about all. i am sure my grandma was a dab hand with her foot-powered sewing machine. she knows how to mend a large rip in a dress or shirt. i don't.

self sufficiency - where does it stop?
i find the idea of looking after myself and living simpler and yet more content very appealing - yet i dont want to spend hours working on what is readily available to buy in shops. i would need to be at home full time, and work hard every day, to achieve self sufficiency at such a scale.

and then this is how trade evolved - i make lots of jam, and my neighbour makes lots of soap. so we trade for the other, rather than having to make our own in a painstaking and time consuming way.

ok, i realise i am going round in circles here, but anyways, i am kind of trying to figure all this stuff out to see what my interpretation of a 'modern' self-sufficiency is. how i can repect nature, not be wasteful, yet not want for anything?

it's a very tough call.

[NattyEm]

then, on the other hand, i think wouldn't it be nice to know how to make your own soap and cremes? how to make various food things from scratch? and yet again - no! i am the child of a spoilt generation - i use a washing machine, not wash by hand. i use stock cubes, not make my own stock and freeze/dry it. i buy clothes, not make them. ok, i knit, and i can sew on a button, but that's about all. i am sure my grandma was a dab hand with her foot-powered sewing machine. she knows how to mend a large rip in a dress or shirt. i don't.

it's a very tough call.

I have a book called Better Basics for the Home - every recipe for cremes soaps cleaning liquids lotions and potions, from car cleaning, to brick motar and paints you could ever want.   I try and avoid chemicals in the home.

I never throw away clothes they either get patched up, torn up for rags, passed on to someone else that might need them or charity shopped.

Not wanting for anything is a tough one, I truely belive I don't want for much at all, I could do without the TV and so could the kids (husband disagrees) the only luxuries I would want to hold onto are the pC and internet, cooker, and washing machine.

Anyway - self sufficiency, a distant ideological whimsical dream, reality hopefully one day will be enough fruit and veg that I won't need to buy any.

[wardy]

NCB     Boza is reyt exotic.  It's up yon, rarnd corner from t'arn.  That one wi crooked spire in it.  ;D

[return of the mac]

Heritage- goats milk is great innit? I drink it for health reasons (my crohns stays at bay if i avoid cows milk). Would love to keep goats and chooks but no space at home and not allowed on the lottie. :(

[Roy Bham UK]

I tried a carton of Goats milk as my puppy decided he didn't like it much and neither did I arrgh! poured it down the sink  :-\

[Columbus]

I am very proud when I make a huge meal that I grew the ingredients for. I am still eating last years blackberries, the spuds only just ran out. I re-use and recycle tons of stuff, including sheds.

Col