Selfsufficientish.com

You need to get the very last bits of root, and offshoots, out or it'll simply grow back. However, I see the dandelion as a wild vegetable, rather than a weed. Used for; coffee, tea, wine, salad greens, healthy infusions, many vegetable recipes, dye, and flower essence (brings joy). Try taking some ...

Thanks all. Interesting points about the ecosystem. Some plants are so voracious it could really upset things, others could be rejected by existing vegetation anyway. Wasn't sure how easily spreading shrooms were. I don't really want a shed, I like wild foods, or wildish, whenever possible. This is ...

I was wondering.... I don't have local wild mushrooms, oh, except one tiny species that I'm fairly sure isn't edible. Anyway, I was thinking about whether it was feasible or even possible to grow mushrooms in the wild. Is there a name for such a practice anyway? What I mean is, to spread the seeds (...

I use face cloths, and they get chucked straight into the washing machine (literally... loo is right next to laundry area). I've been doing it for about 5 months, and find I much prefer it to loo paper. :mrgreen: As gross as that sounds to me, I suppose many of us do just that with diapers. As long...

I would love to be capable of doing this. I imagine this is the full experience of being self-sufficient. However, in practicality, I don't see it happening. But for me, it's about being an aware/thoughtful consumer. So like others, I already purchase 'needs' that are local, fairly traded, organic, ...

Congrats.

What method did you use to kill them? I'm still a wimp about this....

That makes sense. There is quite a damp problem over here, and I believe it has to do with the dominance (and reliance) of cement as a building material. I've just been told that here they tend to mix lime mortar with cement for stone houses. ?? We were discussing a cavity wall build with our builde...

Thanks. No, it adds to our decision to go for the wood burner. Have been looking into it some more and we think the wood collection should be quite do-able. I do love the idea of a wood burner, just was suspect of the tree issue. But we have a TON of deadwood avaialble, and we should also be able to...

Thanks guys! That really helps a lot.

As for great minds, we were discussing last night about having a little stove in the living room just as an extra.
Looks like this is going to be the way to go for us.

Love this forum!

I'm trying to get my head around the differences and pay-offs between efficient use of resource vs running cost vs set up costs vs eco-friendliness! lol Ok, if I have this straight, if you must use electricity to heat the home, then underfloor heating is an efficient option. However, if you have ano...

Hey Martin. We'll be on mains electric. Thinking of those solar water heating panels and solar cooker, and other bits and bobs that we can afford. Might do a wood burner, just not sure about chopping down trees. No pumps. Anyway, the underfloor heating would be mains electric, so sounds like it isn'...

Sorry if this has been discussed before, but I searched and came up with nothing. Anyway, we'll be building our house and we were considering underfloor heating. I thought I had read that it was a very energy efficient way to heat a home. Obviously, if you could use a renewable source of energy to p...

Thanks a bunch Martin. That totally clears it up. So I'll be looking for a vacuum tube system. Just need to source it over here. *shrug*

do they have sheep there? cos sheep fleece is terrific, though with any stone building you'll have to be careful of damp getting into it :roll: Not sheep, lots of goats. Doesn't the cavity wall help with the damp? The stone houses around here seem pretty dry. It's the concrete newbuilds I noticed g...

Thanks guys. I did see one image where they looked liked tubes and wondered if the water was being heated directly.

But Martin, that link is what confuses me. It just looks like a solar panel in use. ??

Thanks for the solar cooker tip Clara - I'm considering that as well. We have tons of sun here!