Selfsufficientish.com

OKKKKAAAYYYYY.... so about half of the tomato plants are smashed and other stuff is damaged. The forecast is shit. Some of the fields around here look as though they've been strimmed with the sunflowers & maize particularly badly hit - talking in terms of a complete loss for some people locally.

There was a mention of mobile phones earlier and it's funny how so many people now regard them as essentials rather than luxuries. I have one now as I'm self employed but did have one before but I was cut off. The reason? I hadn't made a call or sent a text for 18 months on it so vodaphone cut me o...

Thunder, lightning & hail over night; I've yet to summon up the courage to go and see what it did to the vegetable garden, but I don't suppose it has done a great deal of good. Still, it is relatively warm at last (great conditions for growing blight) and at least I don't have to do much in the ...

It's peak season for us in the gites (which is how we earn the cash to pay the outstanding range of taxes with which we are presented) so it's seven-days-per-week for the time being with most spare time spent in the garden.

The thing is, it is the lactose in the milk that the bacterial culture feeds on, so if you start with lactose-free milk, you can't make yoghurt. Lactose free yoghurt is made from ordinary milk, lactose and all, but the culture is very carefully managed - often with the addition of additional enzyme ...

Boboff is right - glyphosphate is the best of the bunch when it comes to weed killers and it does break down very quickly (about 7-10 days) in the soil. I use it as a last resort, though I don't spray it with gay abandon. However, it won't get rid of the tough perennials on its own. When I cleared a...

Making progress at last. We're into the 20s finally but still very unsettled.

Bit further south than you, but same country. Welcome.

I plant about a metre apart, but, to be honest, they trail everywhere so they always end up being a sort of living mulch for the tomatoes or whatever. The most common commercial variety is "Ultra" which is a hybrid strain, so what you get from your saved seed might not be similar to the on...

oldjerry wrote:So basically ,the only thing worth surveying is your veg patch...from a distance with pride/despair.

Or frustration. I've had to replant rather too much this season due to stuff dying of cold. Not frost, just consistent low temperatures slowing them down until they drop.

Do a survey of this village and I reckon 250 of the 300 households will have a veg garden. Surveys are mostly about deciding what answer you want and then going out to pick the right sample

Lucky you! If they're young hare, a roast baron of hare is a rare & wonderful thing. Otherwise, stewing them with a sturdy red wine is a way forward.

For the inside of the pen you might consider looking at a mix of grasses plus some deep-rooting herbs like alf-alfa, comfrey, vetch and (gulp) dandelion. These are quite rich foods for chickens and can really supplement their diets. Dandelion in particular is rich in carotenes which can give richly ...

Strikes me that there are a few of us who have found that self sufficientish can be a full time occupation. Yep! Self-sufficientish morphs into more self and less ish. In the last couple of years I've taken up: - soap making - home curing of sausages - perfecting sour dough breads - finally sorting...

I was advised over the weekend that nettle tea is quite useful too, particularly when the blight affects tomatoes. I'm taking a year off growing potatoes this year to give the soil a break. That way I'll be able to plant in soil that hasn't seen a spud for three years at least. I'm hoping that this ...