Selfsufficientish.com

Hi. Am I the only one to notice a problem with some font characters not showing correctly ? Some non-letter characters are being shown just plain wrong. Inverted commas and the pound sign are 2 that I noticed and I'm pretty sure it has only happened since the site upgrade. I posted an article a coup...

If they are overwintered onions (autumn sown) then they are just about to ripen anyway and would have fallen over all by themselves. It's usual to loosen them a bit ... sort of half pull them up, to break a few of the roots so that they complete the ripening process. They keep better if they are ful...

Yes I have and I can highly recommend it.
Rhubarb and orange is very nice as is rhubarb and ginger but just plain old rhubarb jam on toast for breakfast is as good as any marmalade.

Well I'm pleased you got it all to work first time ... well done.
The washing business is only really important if you want to keep it for more than a few days.
Shame I live so far away, otherwise I'd be round for a cream tea !

I must admit that I haven't checked on the electricity usage of breadmakers v oven, but I used various makes of breadmakers over the last 10 years and have now gone back to making it by hand and baking in an oven. I got fed up with the paddles tearing big holes in the bottom of the loaf. Regarding t...

Yes I used to make butter on a regular basis but not for many years. In a nutshell, the leaving cream for a few days produces 'ripened' butter ... one with a strong buttery flavour. Butter made with fresh cream produces a milder butter similar to Lurpac. Either way it's a case of agitating it until ...

Hi. You can certainly eat the tops of broad beans, they taste very much like the beans themselves. It all depends which leaves they are as I think the lower more mature leaves would be too tough to eat. Either way it's easy enough to test, just stir fry a sample for a few minutes and try for yoursel...

Parsnips are weird this year, don't give up if they didn't germinate. I sowed 4 rows of parsnips on the 27th of March with fresh seed. About a dozen came up and are doing nicely now, but 2 rows did nothing. I decided to hoe off the weed today in the 2 empty rows and guess what ? Lots of freshly germ...

Try digging up the roots that are still in the compost, you might find greyish grubs there that have eaten the stem through (cabbage root fly larvae) or you might find an yellow orangey wormy thing that has burrowed into the stem (wire worm) although that's less likely in compost. If you find the ro...

Yeah, I agree with ocailleagh, I am trying one this year for the first time. These planters sound like a good idea but .... with the centre tube it's easy to water the bottom ones and the top ones are obviously easy, but there is no way to water the middle ones. If you discover a better use for one,...

My bet is it's probably a Costoluto Fiorentino (I think that's how it's spelt) It happens to mine, every first truss has a huge mutant flower in the centre, but it just dies and never turns into a giant tomato. Doesn't seem to be a problem though, all the other "normal" flowers on the truss go on to...

I'm growing 2 varieties of blueberry in my garden under near ideal conditions here in south west Ireland ... acidic soil and copious rain ! One thing they didn't like though is cold wind in early spring. They had just come into flower in February when we had a nasty cold east wind which burnt the ne...

Hi Adjoa. Welcome to the site .. we are both newbies together. Tomato leaves curling themselves under I've found is caused by too much bright sunshine, they prefer bright but filtered sunlight when the summer days arrive (have they ?) In a greenhouse situation you usually shade (paint) the glass wit...

Are you sure they're woodlice ? I have been plagued (literally) by earwigs for the last couple of years, especially in my polytunnel. I have upside down tin cans on sticks filled of hay and every morning have to dispose of several dozen in each can. They browse off just about anything, especially em...

If you are producing eggs to sell quasi commercially then the figures possibly don't add up so well. BUT, if you are keeping a few chicken for your own eggs then I don't understand some of the costs quoted here. I bought 3 pullets about 6 weeks ago that cost me €7 each. With a low wattage bulb in ...