How Selfsufficientish were you in 2014

[Millymollymandy]

I can eat about 8 mixed in with other fruit, but keep forgetting about them to be honest, even though they are all over the table and the windowsill! They are not my favourite fruit but they last well and don't need a lot of looking after. However they self seed everywhere which is a nuisance!

[sleepyowl]

I can't believe I posted near enough the same thing twice, sorry my head has been rather absent of late

[Steve Hanson]

!00% in meat and eggs, free range pork, grass fed beef and pastured chickens for meat and eggs. Two full 12 cubic feet freezers guarantee 100% again this year.
90% in vegetables still eating our own some of these have been bottled to preserve, hope to be 100% this year.
60% in fruit 100% in soft fruit and about 40% in top fruit, hope to do better this year as more of our trees come on line. We were still eating fresh Permission's from the tree in January but now we are buying in some fruit.
50% in firewood must do better.
100% in compost for the first time thanks to our compost showers and compost home heating system.
!00% in milk and yoghurt, still buy in all our cheese until we have a second cow in calf again.

[Flo]

You are lucky Steve you have the acres to do it on don't you? But congratulations on all the same. And it will be plenty of hard work.

[Zech]

Of all those things, Steve, the thing that struck me was the line about compost. Firstly, because it's one of the things I try not to spend money on, yet with all your animals, you've only got to 100% self sufficient for the first time this year. This makes me think I'm almost certainly not putting enough compost on my garden.

Secondly, I'd really like to hear more about your compost showers and compost home heating system. I'm intrigued!

[Steve Hanson]

Flo, we have 13 acres but nothing to do with luck, we intentionally left well paid careers for a simple life, then put in a lot of hard work and design time to get here. Now its less work and lots of time doing the things we love most, spending time together enjoying our stunning environment and I don't just mean our place, with time to do the other things we love, craft.

Zech, most of the cows and sheep muck goes strait back on the land where it belongs increasing the worm population and carbon sequestration. Our compost is made with the winter cows and sheep muck from 8 to 12 weeks of confinement mixed with oak bark chip from our local timber mill the mixture is what generates the consistent heat for the "Jean Pain" style heat heaps I will be posting on our website in the next couple of months about how our systems are built and the figures for how efficient they and the costs involved v returns. I will post links on the forum when I do the posts.

[Flo]

Steve it sounds as if you "made your own luck" by choice and jolly hard sweat.