http://www.selfsufficientish.com/main/blog.php Urban Homesteading on a budget Sun, 14 Mar 2010 14:33:00 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Whether you approach it from the point of view of conservation, entomology, crop pollination or simply a love of honey, beekeeping is an engaging pursuit and a fascinating window on the natural world. So what does it take to become a beekeeper? The essentials are simple enough: some sort of hive, a ... http://www.selfsufficientish.com/main/blog.php/2010/03/14/thinking-about-keeping-bees-by-philip-chandler-of-wwwbiobeescom/ (Please note the following is a press release from Defra, however selfsufficientish 100% agree that every gardener should go peat free) A new, younger generation of ‘Good Life’ gardeners has emerged through the recession, according to research released today by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) but ... http://www.selfsufficientish.com/main/blog.php/2010/03/08/new-generation-of-gardeners-urged-to-go-peat-free-for-a-greener-garden/ It's that time of year again that many of us are reaching for the seed catalogues and decided what we are going to fill those frosty winter beds with come the warmth of spring. Well this year I advise you do some research before sowing your seed and make sure you ... http://www.selfsufficientish.com/main/blog.php/2010/02/24/getting-ready-to-buy-seeds/ [caption id="" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Kids in the Garden"][/caption] Not being a father makes it difficult to give this book a truly objective review. This troubled me somewhat, especially as I now generate the majority of my tiny income from writing and know how useful a review can be.  So, to do ... http://www.selfsufficientish.com/main/blog.php/2010/02/20/book-review-kids-in-the-garden/ The wine you made in Part 2 is by no means great. It's OKish, but it has lots of faults. Think for a moment about drinking a reasonably good wine made from grapes. What are your impressions? There's a certain indefinable "feel" in the mouth, a sort of viscosity which ... http://www.selfsufficientish.com/main/blog.php/2010/02/17/taking-the-fear-out-of-wine-making-part-3-cheating-and-improving/ We do what we can at self sufficient 'ish' to give you ingenious money and environment saving ideas.  This is why our resident cartoonist Spencer Hill was commissioned to draw this card. Click on either of the cards for a bigger versions and wait for it to load. Now print ... http://www.selfsufficientish.com/main/blog.php/2010/01/28/valentines-day-free-card-and-present-ideas-by-andy-hamilton/ Method 1: by Red you will need: a washing up bowl washing soda crystals washing up liquid hot water [caption id="" align="alignleft" width="270" caption="Unwashed Fleece"][/caption] The method I use is to only work on a small part of fleece at a time, the advantage being that it's not so daunting and you can keep the rest of ... http://www.selfsufficientish.com/main/blog.php/2010/01/27/scouring-washing-fleece-by-red/ Messing around in a bucket Those somewhat fictitious "traditional" ancestors of ours made wine in anything they could find. Usually, they would have started it in a big bowl covered with a cloth and then finished it off in a salt-glaze earthenware pot - at which point they couldn't see it ... http://www.selfsufficientish.com/main/blog.php/2010/01/06/taking-the-fear-out-of-winemaking-part-2-by-mkg/ Biography [caption id="attachment_294" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Andy Hamilton - writer, forager and broadcaster"][/caption] Andy was born in Northampton where he undertook a collection of "interesting" jobs the highlights including being the mash potato man in a food factory, selling double glazing door to door and the dizzy heights of operative in charge of ... http://www.selfsufficientish.com/main/blog.php/2009/12/25/andy-hamilton/ Getting rid of the fairy stories By MKG If I said to a fairly representative group “Take some fruit juice, squeeze some lemon juice into it, empty a bag of sugar into it, top up to about a gallon with water from the tap and then stir or shake until everything’s ... http://www.selfsufficientish.com/main/blog.php/2009/12/11/taking-the-fear-out-of-wine-making-part-one-by-mkg/