Selfsufficientish.com

Just ordered my quota of wood. Probably won't need much more this year, although I'll use some for the bread oven, wood range and BBQs during the year. For 10m3 stere of wood I'll pay £100 plus £40 for transport and probably another £10 for someone with a chainsaw to cut it up into shorter lengths (...

I think that was Merlin from Bulgaria, I think he had some videos about cheese and wine making. I have a post I put together on another blog of mine about making simple white cheese though:

http://romanianfoodblog.blogspot.ro/201 ... -casa.html

I don't have a press. I just get two one-kilogram food grade containers (ex-yoghurt pots in my case) that fit one into the other. Then I punch holes in one of them (from the inside so it does stop the other container sliding in), then put the cheesecloth wrapped curd into one, put the other one on t...

Hi,

Have a look here: http://www.crannogales.com/HopsManual.pdf

I haven't read it and it's probably for larger scale than you want, but it might contain some useful info on growing methods, harvesting and yield.

Cheers,
Mike

Great link, Flo, thanks! Nice list of things you can use (or not). I'll print that out and take it with me.

It recommends not having gaps in the sides, but I always thought that compost heap walls were supposed to have gaps or holes in them.

I find with drinking it's an awful lot easier to say "no" than to just have the one glasss :drunken: Me too exactly. I'll sometimes go weeks without a drink; not because I'm making an effort not to drink, I just never happen to be in the mood or have occasion to drink and it doesn't worry...

The 5:2 sounds interesting. I've always been far better at cutting something out completely than moderating intake. I quit smoking just by stopping, no patches or gums, just stopped one day. The problem with food is that you can't just stop, you have to eat something, and if I try to tell myself I'm...

Have the supermarkets followed this change or led it? I'd say they have probably 'encouraged' it. Ready/frozen meals have a longer shelf life than fresh ingredients and therefore it's in the supermarket's interest to encourage us to choose more of these types of products. So while they'll happily c...

It's the preserve of the "new middle classes" to eat from scratch and grow there own in this post industrial world, the proletariat now have no desire to cook... This is one of the things that I like about staying in the countryside here as the village norm is for people to grow their own...

Helsbells wrote: so what is safe?

Home made sausages/burgers which you've minced yourself, I suppose. I'm glad I haven't eaten shop-bought mince products for a few years now due to similar concerns.

Thanks for the additional replies. Unfortunately it snowed the night before I went up to the house, and then snowed again on the Sunday, so I didn't manage to get started on the compost heap or clearing out of the (what is going to be the) vegetable plot :( Repaired a fence instead and cleared out t...

Thanks again.

Mike

Thank you for that, Lyn. Excellent information. I'll follow your advice and put it together completely from boards. I have plenty of wood lying around the place so it shouldn't be a problem knocking something together. I'll put together a separate one for leaves, as you suggest. In fact, most of the...

Hi diggernotdreamer, I'll probably make one compartmentto start with, about 1m3, but not sure whether to use wire netting or planks - any pros-cons to either method? I was thinking of three wooden-slatted sides with wire mesh on the front which could be easily peeled back for access once it has comp...

Hi,

I'll probably build a compost heap in the coming weeks and a choice of locations. Is it better located in full sunlight (here that can mean three months of hot temperatures, 30 deg C plus) or is it better if it doesn't dry out?

Thanks,
Mike