2009 the big Selfsufficientish Year - one month challenge

[Millymollymandy]

I had every intention of being up for this but had quite forgotten how you just have no time at all left in August you are madly harvesting and trying to use everything

Food bills should be good this month, just as well as I have no time to shop with all this harvest/cook/harvest/weed/harvest

Tell me about it! It's quite depressing to spend the summer in the kitchen.

[Peggy Sue]

[quote="Millymollymandy
Tell me about it! It's quite depressing to spend the summer in the kitchen. [/quote]

Yes, the dog is looking at me each evening as if to say oh well I'll go to bed if you're going to cook all night...again.... no fun here. Still she enjoys the odd bit of 'washing up'

[Flo]

Vegetables - not a problem. Have frozen various gluts rather than throw them which means that I have things to use. I had a big stock up of the store cupboard in July - things like various sorts of tinned beans, pasta, lentils which are things you don't usually grow on an allotment in the UK. I don't expect to shop for dry stores before Christmas. It's going to be mainly the small amounts of fresh stuff like bread when I'm short of time to bake and cooking oils. This greasing of tins for baking can be interesting as well as providing the fat required for such things as cakes.

Fruit isn't in great abundance on the allotment as I only grow a small variety - none of which are available in August. I'm going to have to have a look around the hedges for blackberries, perhaps the rain this week has helped them to fill out. But living in a small town, there are not a lot of hedges. There's not a lot of foraging in the local parks either - other than the odd full beer can where the under age drinkers have done a runner leaving the alcohol when some police patrol appears.

Being a vegetarian, almost vegan, has its moments. You can't trade veg for protein as eggs and meat are not part of the diet. It makes life interesting. As for freegan activity - you should be so lucky with the lack of food shops with skips around here. The local co-op has the most efficient lock down you ever did see and that's about your lot.

It makes me realise that I'm far too used to having the countryside at my finger tips and that I grew up with hedgerows which were taken care of in order to provide fodder for the humans as well as the wildlife. As well as having the ingredients to make butter and cheese from the house cow (no there isn't one in my flat ).

It makes you realise just how dependent most of us have become on other people for our food, clothes, homes and heating.

[Peggy Sue]

This greasing of tins for baking can be interesting as well as providing the fat required for such things as cakes.

I was given some time ago this non-stick baking sheet thing. You just put it in the tin and peel it off the cake/ bread after, wash it and reuse. No greasing (and I used to hate greasing).

BUT you don't get perfect square loaves, they have wrinkly edges!!

[Andy Hamilton]

My plans for this have not gone according to er well .... plan. I was heavily relying on corn to be one of the main bulks of my food but it has just not grown and blight has hit the tomatoes and potatoes again!!

Saying that, I have had a quite a few meals now that have been made entirely from foraged and grown food. I am pretty confident that something that I have grown or foraged will be on my plate every day for not only the duration of the month but well into next year if I preserve everything correctly. As for the challenge, I think every evening meal for a month could be fairly realisitic.

[Flo]

I see that the suggested dates for this were 15th August - 15th September so I've three days to get myself organised to see how far I can go. Yipee!

[Peggy Sue]

Ah the 15th, I thought it was the 11th for some reason and had felt quite down hearted that day 1 I ran out of cheese and had to buy some (not too bad as thats only timing I can't make cheese anyway),

but day 2 the dog ran out of chews (just had 4 teeth removed at GREAT expense so chews are important!) I can get free bones from the butcher but only if I go Tues or Weds.... when I'm at work- so had to buy them.
To cap it all there was a knock on the door from bettaware and my OH had obviously ordered some fancy duster all plactic and nylon, wrapped in more plastic for £7- more than I had spent on food for us this week- and had bogged off fishing so I had to pay!

OK so If I have til the weekend thsing are looking up! I'm getting lots of veg in now, I don't think the OH will entertain veggie food every day so we will ahve to buy meat, fish, flour, fat, milk, probabaly tinned tomatoes as I think i have blight too, and sugar to carry on jam making/chutney making and breadmaking....well and cake making too!

Geting on well with the local farmer so I'm getting free eggs at the moment in exchange for cake - so see the cake making IS essential!

Got loads of potatoes, onions, garlic, marrow, spaghetti squash, beetroot, carrots, cabbage, beans, herbs and corn is looking promising....
I can find puffballs occasionally around here but not really experienced enough for true mushroom foraging.
There's a good supply of plums which I can scrump and apples too, plus blackberries on the way.

I think I'll keep count of what I DO buy and see if I can improve on that next year maybe.

I'm absolutely sure the OH will suddenly need stuff but at least if I try...

[Cloud]

I don't think the OH will entertain veggie food every day so we will ahve to buy meat, fish,...

Could your OH just catch himself some fish?

Good luck with the blackberries. Up here they look pretty poor, and may have wiggly things in them . And last year we had more than we could eat.

[Peggy Sue]

I don't think the OH will entertain veggie food every day so we will ahve to buy meat, fish,...

Could your OH just catch himself some fish?

.

Oh forbidden words!! Fish must always be put back- apparently

Actually last night I decided to tell him about the challenge, when he was looking chirpy (after a few beers), I expected a deep sigh and some comment about another bandwagon but instead he said ' oh well does that mean we can't have a curry tomorrow then?' Amazing since for one thing he seemed resigned to it and for another we ahven't had a takeaway Indian in almost a year

[Flo]

Well here we are folks. It's the suggested start date. Hey ho - now we are going to learn a lot about ourselves I suspect.

There are no failures here - just learners.

[Peggy Sue]

Looks like my OH is really joining in- he went shopping, came back and told me what he'd got and then said, 'Is that Ok for self suffientish?'
He's a bit upset there are no mushrooms if we don't buy any veg unless I can find a puff ball (which I couldn't).

Sadly the fuel tank which I hoped would last the whole month in the car (I normally get 2-3 weeks from it) won't make it as OH then went fishing and locked himself out of the car so I had to drive over there with his spare keys

I realise this challenge ends the day we go on holiday to Wales for a week- very handy. May need a day off for the local beerfest?

[Flo]

I say, I say after a week and a day I am just beginning to see that my lazy ways will have to change. I've made bread from the stores when the loaf ran out.

But don't have the ingredients or the time to make ice cream to replace what's in the freezer when it runs out. So that means I shall have to go without for a period. Not urgent though.

May end up with a lack of vegetable oil for stir fries. Shall have to think of other one pot ways of cooking things. Can make the vegan spread for the bread last longer by not using so much on each slice and eating less bread. Perhaps that will help the figure. Trouble is that a slice of bread is easy when you come in off the allotment late.

If I make cakes I shall need either more begetable oil or soya milk, an interesting syndrome. You can't trade fresh food for soya milk so far as I know. Suggestions?

[Green Aura]

Could you trade for soya beans, Flo, and make your own milk and okara. Then you'll have milk and a source of protein to put in burgers, stews, or whatever.

However, we're having to buy milk. Couldn't find a source of milk locally so we're stumped. Otherwise not doing too badly - plenty of veg, spuds and toms and we're living on the contents of the freezer, which is probably cheating as we didn't catch or barter any of it.

Still, T£sco won't be getting our business for a while yet, so however well we do every day we stay away from there is a winner!!

[Flo]

Trading would be good if there were the goods that I wanted to be traded. It's easy enough to give but trading seems harder.

Yes I'm using stores off the shelf too which is probably cheating as you say. Not being an eater of meat to trade or catch is rather out of the question in that area. I don't have the growing space available to provide everything that I need to eat so can only be self sufficient in food.

But by providing enough vegetables and a little fruit, doing a little foraging down the hedgerows and looking at sources of food other than the supermarket, I'm finding out what I can do for myself. That's part of the challenge for this month as I see it.

It's all adding to the experience. It will make growing on the allotment next year slightly different that's for certain.

[Andy Hamilton]

Trading would be good if there were the goods that I wanted to be traded. It's easy enough to give but trading seems harder.

I agree it seems too that everyone wants to trade the same things, courgettes and runner beans

Had a couple of fully foraged meals the other day whilst working at Eden project. It was great as there were other foragers there too. We just got and really worked as a tribe. Digging up burdock, picking loads of leaves and fruit. In fact we had a foraged 3 course meal in the end. It does seem a lot easier with others, starting to come to the conclusion that to be fully self sufficient you need a group of people who all play to their strengths.