Hello from Lancaster!

[Francois]

Hello everyone! I'm basically here as a long-term advocate of frugal living and homecrafty stuff (beer and winemaking, a bit of cheesemaking, preserves, outright refusal to buy processed food etc ... )

If I'm honest a good chunk of the root of all this was being cheap but it's progressed from thrift to routine second nature now and is gathering steam (because making everything from scratch is BRILLIANT in numerous ways), and I really want to extend my knowledge/skills any way I can (BY STEALING ALL YOURS )

Not bought beer or wine from a shop in about a year, bashed through a good few recipes from Andy's booze for free (ace book, incidentally) and just started getting a bit more into wild food (wild garlic pesto all over the gaff this month...) and now I'm hungry for other ways to have lovely stuff for free.

If I can reduce the family's food miles etc and generally help the environment while I'm at it then that's a definite plus!

Frankie

[RunnerBean]

Hi Frankie :)

I must admit I have no knowledge of making booze. I don't really drink so I leave all the boozemaking to my husband. I'm intrigued by cheesemaking though. You know what they say, 'blessed are the cheesemakers'. Wild garlic pesto sounds lovely too.

Enjoy the forum :)

[diggernotdreamer]

welcome to the forum

[skeast]

Hi Frankie, just down the road from you in sunny Longridge. Bit rubbish at wine making still, but practicing, and grow lots.

Sarah

[tosca]

Hi there. We don't drink much but drink is incredibly cheap out here if we did and there is a co-operative in the village where you can take fruit for processing. Added to that we are regularly given rakia and wine by the neighbours so our booze bill is nil.

Other than that, in our first full year of growing it is looking hopeful that we will be just about self sufficient in fruit, veg and nuts this year, with plenty over. Also we have lots of grape vines arranged for shade.All we are buying in the food line at the moment is flour, sugar, vinegar, (for processing) pasta and a bit of meat for OH...and the only junk food, one pack of fish fingers a month! There is also masses of fruit and nuts in the hedgerows to be had, as well as the usual sloes, crab apples and hazelnuts, we have mulberries and cherries ready now. apples, pears, plums, figs, walnuts and all sorts of berries, greens and seeds. A forager's (or brewer's) paradise. And most of the fruit is used to make rakia of various harshness.