Selfsufficientish.com

Thank you Mrsflibble for your reply. Those are very good reasons for removing your child from that school, although to be fair it sounds very much like that particular school was the issue rather than the system itself. But that is what your experience is of, so thank you again for outlining your ex...

Local Testicles doesn't seem to understand the concept of having enough checkout staff to cover the volume of people coming through. I usually find myself having to make a visit around 5pm on Saturdays, all the checkouts are queued back into the aisles and there are up to 10 checkouts not being used...

I agree absolutely that parents should play a large part in the educating their children, but absolutely not at the expense of a school education. It is interesting to hear your take on the topic, and I think that you are in agreement with me, that you should be responsible for supplementing your ch...

Brilliant!!!

Hi With the impending arrival of our first born I suppose this is a bit premature but it's never too early to start thinking about how you are going to approach things further down the line. First of all I want to say I'm not trying to get backs up here, if you are a dedicated home schooler and it w...

It's not beyond the realms of impossibility, studies are reporting populations of them appearing further north in Europe and all it takes is a migratory bird to carry a few eggs across the channel attached to their legs and hey presto. Stranger things have happened. Whatever it is, it's definitely P...

If you are referring to the photo in lycia's post these are definitely not juvenile salmonids. I work with these things daily and that's definitely not what they are. There's no parr marks along the sides for a start. If I have missed another photo (my browser is quite old and has a tendency to omi...

Did you find out what they are yet? They're an unusual colour but they look like juvenile salmonids to me. The large pectoral fins give it away. Do they have an adipose fin (small fleshy lobe between the dorsal and tail fin)? If they do they're definitely salmonids and not cyprinids. If you are ref...

If they are salmonids they will most likely be a lot bigger than 5 inches if they have been in there for a few years.

Our allotment site allows chickens, and many people keep them without issue. The only drawback is that dogs aren't allowed on site as a result, although I don't know how welcome dogs are at most sites, given the capacity of dogs to trample seedlings.

Rosa canina hips are now starting to ripen, got a bucketful yesterday. Straight into the freezer for the frost treatment. Have found 2 prolific bushes so far, will be revisiting them throughout the season!!

Went elderberry picking yesterday, and came back with a bucketfull of heads, which worked out about 1.3 kilos of berries. There's plenty more on the trees as well which haven't ripened yet and that's just one of the 3 haunts I've found. Should be a cracker year for elderberry wine!!!

This a pretty useful resource, it's taken straight out of the River Cottage Hedgerow book.

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/L ... lendar.pdf

Lettuce love this time of year, you can have a crop in a few weeks. They last longer before bolting if it's a little cooler. Spring cabbage goes in now, and don't forget to keep some room for over wintering onions and garlic. Broad beans go in some time in autumn also.

By the way, what's everyone planting right now? On my list is fennel, chard, kale, garlic, over-wintering onions, winter cabbage (to make sauerkraut with), and thats about it. I'm keen to grow whatever will grow, but especially stuff that is either expensive or unavailable from the tescopoly. RIght...