Selfsufficientish.com

We've recently launched online shows on our smallholding website and thought those in the Selfsufficient'ish community who keep livestock might be interested in entering: http://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/online-shows/ We've started gently with small pig and poultry shows, with two nice book priz...

hedgewizard wrote:Those Expert books are all very heavy on chemicals and fertilizers...

That's very true. We're chemical-free so I just ignore those bits and tend to use it to plan a sowing and planting schedule more than anything else, but it's solution to any problem seems to be "spray with X, Y and Z".

Another vote for the Vegetable Expert by Dr Hessayon. I also really like Sarah Raven's book The Great Vegetable Plot - it's got the best tomato growing advice I've seen in a book.

This morning I was sowing swede, and at the weekend I'll be sowing french beans, peas, spring onions, salads and probably a few more spuds - so there's loads of things you can try! Since the soil is warm, germination is much more reliable and a lot of crops will almost catch up with earlier sowings.

You next :mrgreen: Sadly we had a 100% failure. :( None of the six eggs we were incubating for our friend were fertile, but four of our six were. Those four had developing chicks in them but it looks like incorrect temperature was the problem (and the automatic turner didn't seem to perform very we...

Congratulations!

We keep them off the ground, and we've got 3 cats to guard them. 8)

Good luck! We've got 6 Buff Sussex / Rhode Island Red crosses and 6 Marins due to hatch on Monday, it's all very exciting isn't it.

Like Ina we keep them in cardboard boxes lined with newspaper, but in our garage, plus some in hessian sacks. They will sprout if it's light, but otherwise will store well into the next year. Meant to say it's obviously important to let them dry well first! I take most of the soil off of them, and l...

Yes, I signed up about a year ago, lurk a bit, but haven't really got involved (yet).

And sorry Shirley, we're in Scotland but I'm from south of the border (although my better half is a Scot). FWIW I feel like an honourary Scot a lot of the time.

I'm with Deb - Light Sussex for dual-purpose.

As for pigs, we've always had Tamworths and despite living up to their reputation for being 'boisterous' they're great characters and produce excellent meat. And again they're dual-purpose, good for bacon and pork.

Dan

Yeah, yeah, you can all stop emailing me now, I've done it!

Happy to promote the site, it's a great resource. 8)

Dan

Doh! That was me. Not used to trusting moderators allowing guest posts!

Thanks for the welcome folks, I'm getting a warm fuzzy feeling being here already. 8) Oh, a tip for the lawnmowing which doesn't seem to be your favourite job: I hate it, too. I "employ" two goats to do it for me :wink: . Leaves me with a bit of a fencing job... And unfortunately they are ...

Hi, I'm Dan, from the banks of of the River Forth in Alloa (where that's not where I sprang from, I just live there, I'm actually a Sassenach, but that's another story). Very glad to have been directed here by someone who visited our website. We've got about an acre here and grow loads of fruit and ...