Selfsufficientish.com

I just heard about these wind turbines designed to look like trees, for use in cities. Being small, they work at lower wind speeds than big turbines, and they're quiet, too (the manufacturers claim they're silent): http://www.treehugger.com/wind-technology/beautiful-wind-turbine-trees-generate-clean...

while it seems that in terms of energy and water use the dishwasher wins I'm curious about how you came to that conclusion, since I came to the opposite one. I never wanted a dishwasher, but did have one for three years because it was in the house when I moved in. I didn't like the damage it did to...

Ina our council collects garden waste and turns it into soil improver which is excellent stuff for improving the soil but of no value for putting in tubs for the growing of vegetables. There is a difference though a lot of people don't realise it. That'll be me, not knowing the difference. Is the s...

Did anyone else want to beat their head against the wall after reading doofa's link? Physicists, eh! :roll: :lol: I was hoping it might actually answer the question of whether a microwave is more efficient (in terms of electricity required to heat a given amount of food) than other forms of cooking...

Reheating the pudding that I steamed for hours on Christmas day then didn't fancy eating because I'd had so much main course. That's got to be more efficient in the electric box, hasn't it? It only took a few minutes.

I think that if you're using your email address for work, then I would not expect that address to be private from people you work with. In other words, it's your work address and therefore relatively public information. If you want an example of an outrageous breach of privacy, where I used to work,...

They're here. The Welsh hills are full of hippies. Sorry, that's not very helpful for you in Wiltshire. I'd second Green Aura's suggestion about folk music and/or folk dancing (I just googled this: http://www.wiltshirefolkarts.org.uk/ and now I'm very jealous!). It might also be worth looking for cr...

I don't rinse either! I hope you don't use as much washing up liquid as my cousin. He got it into his head that washing up liquid is sterile and safe (they wouldn't sell it for use on your dishes if it wasn't safe, would they?) and he doesn't rinse it off, so everything ends up with a film of the s...

Allow me to present my research on the subject:
http://growingthingsandmakingthings.blo ... an-my.html

Short answer: Don't believe a word of it!

I saved seed from Roma tomatoes, and I got tomatoes, but they definitely weren't Roma. I'm not sure whether Roma are F1 or not. I assumed not, as it's an old variety, but they didn't come true, nonetheless. I had grown other varieties in the greenhouse alongside the ones I saved seed from.

That's a shame. We had a similar situation some years back, but the other way round. We had two brothers, quite young, and when one died the other was obviously missing feline company, so we adopted another cat. Being older and bigger than him, we thought she'd be able to keep the boisterous youngst...

It varies a bit (following a recipe is not my strong point), but a simple biscuit recipe with half the wheat flour replaced with chestnut flour, and sugar reduced a little, works well.

Yes, you give excellent advice!

I did a bit of googling to find out why it doesn't keep, and while everyone seems to agree that it doesn't, no-one said why. It's not the fat content - apparently that's similar to wheat. I did find one piece on buying it that advised smelling it - if it smells chestnutty then it's fresh, if it does...

Green Aura wrote:they could be ground into flour. I think this would have to be at the point of use though as chestnut flour doesn't keep well.

It doesn't? Oh fiddlesticks. I gathered about seven pounds of chestnuts recently and turned most of them into flour, which now fills a couple of jars.