Self sufficientish in 2019

[Flo]

Well time for a review.

Not being a carpenter I bought a new bed. Had the son-in-law had time it might have been "shall we try building one?" but he's doing whatever it takes to earn a living. Yep it's a wooden one I bought. Would have been fun looking for suitable wood mind. The frame on the old one was getting a touch shaky but someone took it away with the skills to upcycle it. I could have done but .... well I fancied a new one. Will only be number 3 in over 70 years.

I've some curtains in a heap next to the sofa. Wonder if the daughter will ever have time to turn them up with the sewing machine or whether I shall have to get out the needle and sewing box to do the job by hand. The material and gathers at the top are worth the £4.50 I paid.

I've seen snowflakes this morning so outside is still on hold. I can prepare an area for spuds on the allotment if I get a dry day soon. Not worth setting things away for at least another week.

As the weather has been so cheerless I spent an hour or two removing cellotape from cardboard packing from the bed and taking out the bits with coloured printing on. I now have some compostable cardboard for the compost heap. Actually it will probably go under some compost to top up last year's compost heap as a growing area.

Am waiting for the landlord to do some rewiring work in the kitchen. Then it will have to be repainted. Can do I suppose.

[ina]

I have curtains like that... They were bought for the previous house I lived in, but never used. I know where the sewing machine is, but can't find all the bits. Always something...

Some of the rain this morning looked like sleet, too. At least I managed to get the onions out yesterday. Most important now is cutting the upright bits for my new raised bed. And getting that up, and the garden "tidied", so I won't get in trouble with the council. And I'm in no mood for that at all.

[Green Aura]

Is it general sort out time? I spent most of last week sorting out mine and OH's wardrobe to remove clothes that no longer fit us. OH refused to let me send his old chinos - he still can't get iin them and they must be 30+ years old. I didn't argue too much though, the quality of them compared to a similar item purchased fairly recently is staggering. Everything else is going to the charity shop where they'll either resell in the shop or send for recycling.

This weekend we finally started to take out the last of the fitted wardrobe in our bedroom. I'm sure it was built with the best of intentions, and it was built beautifully, but our NNW facing bedroom never sees a lick of sunshine and gets mouldy really quickly if I don't keep it heated and aired. Spots inside the wardrobe never properly get either and so it has been a constant problem since we moved in.

We recently (a year/18 months ago?) had an assessment by the Energy Saving Trust and their chap finally came up with a sensible plan to rectify this problem - a heat retaining fan. We'd never heard of one of course but investigated and bought one last year. After a few delays - jobs, health problems etc. we're now ready to go. Well we will be when OH deciphers the wiring to the lights in said wardrobe - it will become the wiring for the fan. I have the job of renovating an old chest of drawers to fit in the new space, so that will be fun.

On the edible front we've got some decent tomato plants in the tiny hydroponic units and others, some more spindly but fairly healthy looking coming on more slowly and lots of chillies. I've brought in and potted on the lettuce seedlings that were sprouted under cover in the garden. Hopefully I'll have some cut and come again leaves in the next week or two.

I too had hoped to start getting out in the garden a bit but the sudden dump of snow yesterday has put paid to that, so back to sorting and mending (OH is sporting a lovely dark green wool jumper, darned with a light grey - I couldn't find any green fine enough ). I've also got a stash of much loved but fairly knackered wool jumpers that I can't bring myself to get rid of. Some of them were very kindly fulled by my mother when she "helped" with the washing, and others have holes etc but I think I can salvage enough to make a memory blanket - most of these jumpers do have some good memories. That will keep me busy for a bit too.

[Flo]

I'm in no mood for allotment work either Ina. The broken leg that laid me off for a couple of months has moved the mojo completely. I see that the home lawn has grown moss again but I don't think I'm fit enough to spike it yet. Really it could do with completely lifting, digging over and relaying. I have the knowledge, the tools and the garden bin to take away the diggings out. It's just the effort required. Maybe it's like Maggie's wardrobe that has been awaiting its turn to be sorted.

[Flo]

Hurrah - the daughter has agreed to amend the curtains to fit as she has a sewing machine and has done curtains before. Add to the list - need to do something about the hall carpet. It really needs replacing with something that can be mopped and is non slip. Not sure what and not sure if I have the skills. Something to be put off till next winter I suspect and see if freecycle comes up with something suitable. Or maybe Facebook market place or Gumtree if that fails.

[Flo]

I'm in the process of handing over internet related duties that have been taking up too many days each week I might just get around to having time in the real world to be self sufficient. Never volunteer she says. 7 years on one community website and 5 years on a community supported agriculture Facebook/Blog have been serious time wasters - especially the latter where I was asked to take on content management for the website as well (nope -not me guv). I now have time to do all sorts of things if the knees will allow. More allotment time to catch up on things that have been let slip (very pokey hedges and grass paths though the beds are full of crops). Time to actually look at the home and buckle down to getting things done - like new flooring for the hall and decorating the kitchen which is shabby looking. Trouble is that there is still the allotment society where we are short of committee members.

[Green Aura]

Sounds like a good plan, Flo.

We're still in the process of converting my ex-therapy room into a greenhouse-ish affair. It is SW facing and has long windows - nearly 3m wide in total and gets full sun from about 10-11am to sunset. It used to be obscured by the lean-to bin/wood store roof, but when the new house roof was fitted they had to remove it, so we had it replaced with polycarbonate and the added light is fantastic. It was originally a tiny stable ( I have no idea why the MoD would need a stable ) so it has a drain in the middle of the floor so can be washed down easily. When the gal moved back in with us we had to use it for storage and it's currently half full of junk (we've cleared out a lot but still a way to go). There's now sufficient room, though, for an apricot tree, an olive tree and a long table (my old shop counter) which is nearly as long as the window and raises plants up to window level. We've put an external tap inside the lean-to, so we now no longer need to traverse the full length of the house with full watering cans.

It's all starting to look very promising. All we need now is some sun!

[Flo]

( I have no idea why the MoD would need a stable )

For the mascot used in ceremonial parades of course - they often use miniature breeds

[Green Aura]

I suppose it might house a reasonable-sized Shetland pony.

[Flo]

This morning I have had a clear out of old stuff relating to voluntary things I'm not doing any more on the computer. I've done a round robin to the committee of the local allotment association to get approval for an advert to recruit more committee members and to get some help in our association Hut which is our public face. That seems to have roused one present committee member - does he think we are going to replace him? Well yes if he's too busy to help. Done the weekly adverts for what we are selling in the Hut itself to raise some more customers. Apparently we were £1000 up in takings in the year 2018 when the new committee took over so pressure is on to see if we can raise the roof again. Doubt it but we can't be seen to be going backwards. Oh and there's a letter to outline to send to a committee member for her to polish up so that we can wind up the town council again. Can start that and then I'm off for a day out with village chat club. In lieu of the hedge cutter not yet being mended I've started to hand clip the miles of hedges down the plots. It's therapeutic and gets me away from the computer as well as building up the compost heaps and allows me to stop for gossips which you can't do when using a hedge cutter. You know there seems to be so much more time now. Reckon that another couple of days and I shall be almost back to normal like when I joined self sufficientish!

[Green Aura]

Well, if you can't get out in the garden, winding up the Town Council seems like a fun alternative.

It doesn't sound like you're winding things down Flo, just finding new things to do - better things by the sound of it.

[Flo]

My allotments make me self sufficientish so if I have to keep the committee going to keep my allotments then so be it. The other things I have been doing have contributed to other people's self sufficiency not mine. That letter has gone on its merry way.

[Flo]

Looking back over the last few months - the kitchen is now converted, modernised and as good as social housing will get. They left me with all my own gear in the form of cooker, washing machine, fridge and freezer. More cupboard space as the gas meter has gone outside. And taking out a wall to include the small passage to the backdoor has increased the usable space in the room.

At least that's been easier than a friend from the local chat club who has moved into a modern apartment up the road with all fitted conveniences and is having to work out how to use the washer/drier, the cooker, the microwave, get the telly to work and find out where she can get mobile phone reception as well as sorting out broadband.

Christmas has come early in that the daughter has bought and fitted the home made front living room curtains. A different cleaning firm has renovated the hall carpet to the state where it doesn't need replacing (good for budget and the environment) as well as cleaning up the reclining armchair. Now the reclining mechanism needs a bit of work Something for the grandson and his dad to consider over the Christmas break before spending cash.

[Green Aura]

Not got much to look back on - we've been woefully un-self-sufficientish this year. The polytunnel has gone to neighbours who have rebuilt it in a much more sheltered spot and are making much better use of it than we were able. However, we converted my old therapy room (it's a fab little room which has had many uses to previous occupants - at one point it had been a small stable) into a greenhouse and we had a small crop of tomatoes and peppers. We'll do better next year.

I carry on fermenting and preserving veg, cheese and bacon making but mainly with bought in veg etc unfortunately.

We've converted my shop into a workshop and our plan, over the winter months, is to make the structure for a geodesic dome. That's a couple of hundred or so fairly precise triangles that need cutting, constructing and "glazing" with polytunnel polythene. It'll have to go where the polytunnel used to be, but with no flat edges it will stand up to the weather much better and being able to remove and mend the the odd triangle, as necessary, will also be much easier. Although I'm not looking forward to the tedium of making it all I can't wait to see how it fares. We went to a gin distillery, with some friends, and they had a dome where they grow many of the botanicals for flavouring their products. It was in a much more exposed site and had stood up well for several years.

We've also started home brewing again, after a long hiatus. We have made small batches of several different herbal beers (we don't do grain-based beers these days), ciders and some mead which should all be ready to sample at Christmas. If any of them take our fancy we can scale the recipes up to make 5 gallon barrels.

Most of the renovations in the house are pretty much finished. With the prospect of our gal moving out some time next year we might have a bit of rejigging to do but nothing major, thankfully. So hopefully our focus next year will be reclaiming our garden - weather and health permitting!

[Odsox]

I have to say that 2019 hasn't been that good a year for me.
I have had problems with my leeks, parsnips and sweetcorn, all for the same reason. Up until now I have started those 3 veg in the greenhouse sown in toilet roll tubes, and then planted out complete with their tubes which then rot away.
This year though, Lidl for some inane reason decided that their toilet roll tubes needed glazing on the inside, which made them waterproof and unable to quickly rot.
I didn't realise what was going on until they were planted out, with me wondering why they were wilting when the soil was plenty moist enough. In consequence the sweetcorn was a washout and my leeks are still not much bigger that pencils.

The other problem was grass cutting, or lack of it. My orchard wasn't cut at all and neither was a rough area where my coppice trees are. I have brambles spreading everywhere too, both partially due to the weather but mainly due to me feeling my age and keeping putting manual labour jobs off.
The same applies to weeding, with both tunnels going to be a problem next year as I allowed weeds to seed.

Not all bad though, I quickly directly sowed a 2nd lot of parsnips and they're doing well and I had a bumper harvest of peas and beans, and squash, so we won't starve this winter.