Selfsufficientish.com

First frost today; light but very early. The patch may have to wait for a while, there is just too much going on over the next few months to give it any time. Which idiot said that retirement was for relaxing?

Thanks Maggie, I will try this one and a more traditional ferment. I think my issues with edibility is climatic - too warm and dry so the veg concentrate nutrients in the leaf making them very bitter(tougher and harder than usual) its the same with dandelion, sorrel and cos lettuce. I probably reall...

I have an excess of Kale I am considering fermenting (because we have declared it inedible cooked normally) as well as a plethora of turnip /radish greens. Ideas as to the most suitable process for these - I have never fermented veg before.

I think we are going to skip the balance of summer and move straight into autumn - nearly 130mm rain the past few days (25% of annual average) with temps down to mid 20's c when we would normally expect mid 30's to low 40's. every "winter" seed has shot at least two months early, onions and leeks le...

just harvested the garlic, red and white onions - they did really well this year with the mostly mild spring; apart from the leeks which took exception to the early spring 30 C days and bolted but I will save the seed. Blackberries are fruiting madly, raspberries yet to start; soft greens (except so...

as long as the economy is based on spending growth we lose; growth by its very nature is unsustainable.

Agree Ina - after trashing a number of woollen jumpers over the years I have returned to buying quality products. he first of these was an NZ semi raw wool heavy jumper that sequentially went through all its stages - good, OK for going up the street, great for working out the paddocks and finally th...

As I have noted previously,(at least in OZ) the food police, while necessary, have a lot to answer for in this regard. I have raised the subject with butchers in the past; here they are required to meet the meat handling standards (2 vol; spiral bound, 320pp - yes I have a read it) does not allow "o...

I would possibly be a candidate for wearing a skirt (syn, kilt; sarong) around the patch in our summer (+ 36C) As an old hippy, wearing a sarong etc. was not unusual. While the legs may be still OK, the upper body is probably not my best feature these days.

I agree with Flo - we will never get rid of plastics so need to use them more appropriately. One of the major issues with plastics in the environment is the huge quantity that is not recyclable (cannot be re-used) or not able to be recycled (no facilities / will to collect and recycle).

last of the winter greens - starting planting (trying Hiko 40 cell trays for starting seedlings) spring greens, spuds, strawberries and some herbs. Put in a few early tomatoes just in time for a late frost!

If my memory serves, triffids were boiled down for oil

a forge of some sort was always on the retirement plan - I have gathered most of what I need over the years although there are a few specialised (modern) tools that would make things much easier

is this a new ISH Skill? the Kids gave me a course in Japanese knife forging as a retirement gift - after an intensive 20 hours at forge, anvil, grinder and tedious hand finishing the result is a single edge Nakiri for slicing and a two edge Deba for general purpose use - both are great to use and c...

preserving in oil? Anyone into preserving in oils? (olive oil in my case) I have tried this for things like chillies, garlic, ginger etc but the oil usually ends up cloudy and sometimes has a wax(?) layer on top.

Or is this normal?

Many of the self branded products are imported from SE Asia and EU - I do look at the ingredients lists and the nutrition details and if anything they have higher levels of added "taste enhancers" than the branded products.