Selfsufficientish.com

Shops are appearing at a rate of knots around there, but there's some who have grasped the nettle and are going quite well; the milkman's now delivering some essentials, the nearby Londis has refurbed and has much more of a breadth of stock and the butcher's in town are offering what is sort of a cl...

That's awesome :)

Mrs. Viper has been told she may or may not be made redundant at the end of May. Clarity would have been better than just worrying about it for 3 months, so I've put a pause on pretty much every life decision for now.

I check in once a week and generally have a dig around. But it is quite quiet.

Been trying to dig out couch grass and nettle roots whilst nothing's growing, but it's a long job! :)

Thankyou. I have made some tentative progress in the last couple of weeks; work are receptive to my hours changing to four longer, earlier days and a half day. With some of the uncertainty coming down the line economically, it makes sense for me to not drop any paid hours just yet, but I could start...

Yeah, I'd concur with most of what's here. 2021 likely to be a tight one. My job's OK but Mrs. V's is tenuous and she is moving on to full-time food production if she loses it, which is at least a solid interim plan. Perhaps a holiday in the UK, if a holiday becomes a possibility. So I'm happy to co...

I think half the charity shops here in Newcastle (under-Lyme) have shut up shop and left; I used to really enjoy getting records etc. from some of them :/

Thanks to all for your advice. The hound and I will go searching.

My allotment is hedged with hawthorn, so there's a starting point I hadn't considered.

Located some plum trees tucked away over a back path as well.

Urgh, it's all got so much more difficult in the last year. COVID is being used an excuse to pedal everything backwards in terms of progress. I used to get the majority of my fruit/veg at the butchers, armed with my net bags. Now they are wrapping portions of fruit and veg, which spoils it. The stal...

All mine's cast iron. I live in fear of the day it starts to leak...

Sounds lovely - I do like using shallots

No good at foraging whatsoever. Can anyone recommend a book I can get from the library to get me started? :)

Right, I just need to work out how to actually make it work financially now - in terms of numbers. Everything else is approved in principle. I don't do well at making stuff up on the hoof, so next year is the year to demonstrate I can churn a decent amount of food out and then ramp it up the year af...

I don't really understand it - you'd think they'd put on more vans if numbers able to get to the supermarket are limited. Not all that easy suddenly acquiring more vans and drivers... I'll see how my usual shop on Sunday morning goes. Buses a nuisance, as always. As somebody who previously worked i...

I think this is to do with plant passports. Not all companies are going to deal with them, hence the difficulties upcoming :/

I still managed get to get a lost bowl of tomatoes this morning but I think the time has come to take the polytunnel down and clear the plants out.