Selfsufficientish.com

Hello Mick The agent was Robert Bell, but I did keep an eye on Pygott and Crone's farming section on their website, and JH Walters too. We got four acres with a huge old piggery building on it, no water or electricity. We paid £30,000 for it. A large part of the area has been used as a dumping groun...

I was doing exactly the same thing a couple of years ago, in Lincolnshire. I set up searches on various websites, which would email me if anything new came up. I rang round the estate agents from time to time, and checked the local papers and auction companies all the time. In the end I found a fiel...

Excellent document -- Thanks very much for posting the link. Inspiring and informative; I'm almost ready to commence battle with the planners after reading it.

Mick Our thoughts, too, are turning towards getting off the treadmill and living on our own land. We have nearly four acres (we've paid off half the loan, still another six years to go) but have been told we are not allowed to live on it due to planning laws. We are looking at renting a house near t...

Ha ha Boboff, we already have a very successful line in brambles, nettles, thistles etc. Thanks to everybody for your comments. We had been thinking about planting one crop and selling to a supermarket or the local crisp factory, but I have an idea 3 acres is not big enough for the commercial people...

Hello We have about 3 acres of land which is a mix of clay and reasonably good soil. We are thinking about planting one crop on it, to sell. Any ideas about what would grow well? We are in Lincolnshire, the land is slightly sloping, south facing, and has kind of strips of clay and soil alternating a...

Mmmm, good points from everybody. Hadn't thought about the floor rotting but yes, I can see how it might happen. The thing is, we have an old piggery on site, which is 132ft long and 30ft wide, so we pretty much have all the storage space we will ever need! That's why we are trying to think of somet...

Wow, thanks Muddywitch for such a detailed answer. This is exactly the info we were looking for. As we have a foot of snow on the ground at the moment I think waiting until spring is a good idea. Thanks. I'll let you know how the tree gets on in a year or two! Lindsay

Hello We have an ancient caravan on a piece of land we have recently purchased. We want to try to recycle it in some way and wonder if we can convert it into a greenhouse/polytunnel type thing. Our plan (so far) is to cut the walls and roof away, leaving about six inches of original structure all ar...

Hello We have an apple tree that has been in a pot for sixteen years. It bears miniature apples which are very tasty. It was planted from a pip and we don't know what sort it is. We want to plant it out and have been reading up on this. However, does that fact that it is sixteen years old make any d...

Harasimow, we paid the full asking price of £30,000. I say four acres, but it is actually around 3.84 acres. We had previously looked at a bare acre for £15,000 and another bare field of 3 acres for £17,000. Because this field was almost four acres and already had a huge (somewhat dilapidated) build...

Thanks Gem. I know somebody who used to work at the EA so I thought I might ask her advice first. I think we do have some clay-ey bits on the field, near the bottom of the slope, so we could consider doing as you suggest. Oldjerry: As our field used to be a piggery, I'm wondering if it already has a...

Jeremy: I googled GLEI and got this, which sounds a bit like what you are talking about. Will definitely try this rather than a plastic liner, if the need arises... "Yes it is called gley and I believe is a Russian development. It is reputed to be suitable for sealing a pond in a gravel bed. Wh...

Thanks for the good wishes. We won't be using the full four acres to grow veg -- about an acre is going to be given over to grass and a park/garden area for our daughter, and another acre is being left to wilderness, to encourage wildlife. (Although I realise we will have a battle with rabbits and b...

Thanks for all that information. I will certainly dig down (when the snow has gone) and also follow up the possibility of assistance from the Environment Agency, and will bear in mind all the other advice too. Very useful info from everybody, as usual. I'll keep you posted... Thanks!

Lindsay