Nosey me :o)

[flowers-v-spuds]

Hi, i was just wondering what brought you to the desician to opt for a self suffientish lifestyle, and how long it took you to put your ideas into pracitce? Did you dive straight in? or did it evolve over time? You know...that sort of thing

Am i being too nosey?

[Andy Hamilton]

Nope thats not nosey mate

For me its one simple anwser, food! Once I started to question what I was eating, that was it. The easiest way is to grow things.

As for cycling, recycling and all that I think that is more to do with who I am.

The thing that I have found with myself and most people is once you have been bitten even a little bit by the bug there really is no looking back.

[nick]

Hi have grown the basics through the warmer months and let the garden go through winter for a couple a years, then saw a tv segment on the country of origin and the pesticides in the food we were eating. not being able to afford to pay for organic produce,and having space I decided to grow as much as I could. Also have two young children. It's amazing that when we have visitors (adults and children) they didn't know that broccoli grew so many heads or corn grew tall, how beetroot grows and so on. I feel happy to have err... help from my 4 yr old especially when he chose (a rather expensive) tomato bush from the shop and how he's looked after it and watch it grow taller than himself.
I have tried having a cow to milk but because she wouldn't go back in calf she had to go.
we have chooks for eggs and currently 1, 2, 3, 4 roosters running around (only 8 weeks old) and 2 pullets from the same clutch.
have our own beef in the freezer
I wouldn't say we are as self sufficient as I would like to be as there is so much to learn.
I am making small changes as time goes by - hopefully for the better.

[Chickenlady]

I am not self sufficient, but I am self sufficient -ish.

For me, wanting to grow my own food and produce some of the things I need is a reaction against big business, ruining the environment and exploiting people and animals for profit.

I do not like how materialistic people have become, how everybody rushes around in a state of extreme tension in order to pay for the stuff they 'need'. I long for a simpler existence, with less 'stuff' and more real experiences. I am getting there, one step at a time!

[Boots]

My Grandparents left Manchester in 1950. They had lived through the Blitz with Gran providing first aid, and Grandad tagging toes and searching the rubble for people. Gran was raised in British orphanages. The day they docked in Aus they had everything they owned stolen on the boat, and they stepped onto Aussie soil with only the clothes on their backs.

They raised me.

[ina]

Some of my background is similar to Boots' - my parents went through two wars, and lost everything twice. Well, the first time it was their parents who lost everything. My parents never went along with the consumer madness after the WWII, but kept up their habits of making do, growing their own veg, living without a car and TV... They must have been the last in town to get a fridge, hoover and washing machine, too. When my mother died I discovered several boxes of scrap paper in the attic - stuff that could still be used for shopping lists etc, because only one side of it had been written on... So I grew up with a slightly different outlook on life from most of my mates.

Some of that got lost in my "wild" years (eh, even me...), but even while still at school I was interested in farming and nature. That got stronger over the years. So really, for me there never has been a dramatic change, but rather a gradual development and discovery of what else I could do for a better life.

Ina

[Millymollymandy]

I've been crazy about gardening for many a long year so growing veg just became part of it, slowly, starting with herbs and tomatoes/peppers/chillies etc in pots. We were always renting and moving house every couple of years so it wasn't until we bought a house that I could really get into veg growing properly.

When we moved to Brittany we had already decided to buy a place with more land and be a bit more self-sufficient in veg and fruit. Becoming organic is something that just sort of happened over time, along with an interest in nature. I think I've come a long way since I was living in London 10 years ago and couldn't have told a blue tit from a great tit!

It's also thanks in part to this forum that I have become much more environmentally aware about issues such as plastic bags (never thought about them before!) and all sorts of other things. I have also become a bit of a nag/preacher on the subject of recycling etc - my poor brother when he came to stay got a right earful!

Also being short of money makes you think about things too, like not wasting electricity or water - although if I won the lotto tomorrow I don't think I'd go back to wasting those things.

[flowers-v-spuds]

Hi, and happy hogmanay (nearly )

Thanks again for the replies everybody, it's nice to have such nice folks on this site to type to.

My mam always (and still does) used to follow war cook books, and i've mentioned on another thread about my dads alotment, so they've been doing it for years (ha ha you know what i mean )
I first got into 'make do and mend' after watching that great series, that should be brought back, SCRIMPERS (anyone remember it?) So already adept at the , "oh look what they are throwing out, we'll come back when it's dark and get it" Or the "do you want..." and before they say what it is I've said yes
As for food, well, supermarket stuff is pretty blurghh! When I get given home grown tomatoes and compare them to shop bought..well, there is no comparison.

Thanks for all your replies again, i enjoy reading them and gaining knowledge.

Have decided my first attempt at growing will be parsnips in february/march - although heard a rumour that in scotland you should always add a month, so that would be march/april. Can anyone confirm please?

Wont be around tomorrow night, so hope everyone enjoys themselves and doesn't get too out of it on the old pea pod burgandy

[flowers-v-spuds]

PS - thanks for not laughing at my picture (a flower and a spud with boxing gloves on and a v in the middle)

[nick]

just couldn't work out which you could be the????

[Leanne]

I am not self sufficient, but I am self sufficient -ish.

For me, wanting to grow my own food and produce some of the things I need is a reaction against big business, ruining the environment and exploiting people and animals for profit.

I do not like how materialistic people have become, how everybody rushes around in a state of extreme tension in order to pay for the stuff they 'need'. I long for a simpler existence, with less 'stuff' and more real experiences. I am getting there, one step at a time!

chicken lady has summed up exactly how i feel, I couldnt agree more.

[Shirley]

Wow such great stories.

My parents didn't grow anything in the way of veggies - my dad did some flower gardening though. He was also raised in an orphanage Boots - didn't know your family was from Manchester - me too!!

I too agree with Chickenlady and Leanne - Selfsufficient-ish... which is why we are all posting on this board I guess :D

I'm definitely doing things bit by bit - I know that getting our first chickens was a big step forward for us - we have too many cockerels at the moment though - Ina, don't suppose you need a light sussex roo ?? If we don't find homes we will eat them. As my other half (timberframer) mentioned in another post, we used to have sheep, ducks, geese too but had to leave these behind when we moved up north. We hope to have these again sometime in the not too distant future.


money definitely rates highly as a reason for our lifestyle - why pay extortionate prices to supermarkets when you can grow your own? Why buy new when you can buy/acquire secondhand? Why add to landfill when you can take (before it gets there)?

It's infinitely better for the children too to understand the proper value of things, and to know where things come from. I can't believe that some children don't even know what chips are made from?!?!

I could go on.

Happy Hogmanay!

[ina]

Thanks for the offer, Shirlz - but I really don't think I want to start with a cockerel... Keep the neighbours sweet. We have to get up early enough as it is, we don't want an even earlier alarm in summer!

Showing children the origin of food is one of my hobby horses, too. I think that every single school should be connected with a school farm, and that a few weeks living (and "working") on that farm should be a non-negotiable part of the curriculum! Maybe then less food would be wasted, too. I keep hearing figures up to 40% of all food gets thrown out! No wonder farmers can't make a decent living, if their produce is valued that little.

Sorry, going off track a bit.

Ina

[Kfish]

Good question.

I've never really liked the way society / the economy is organised. The whole 9 to 5, work yourself to death and only eat if you have money mindset has always felt wrong. When I was a teenager, both my parents were stuck in jobs they hated.

When I moved out, I decided that if I didn't like the way society was run, I should minimise my dependence on it / complicity with it. Hence the gardening.

My parents both came from a tiny town in the middle of Queensland, and we always had chooks growing up, so that bit was easy. I'm still working on the gardening bit.

Kfish

[Wombat]

G'Day All

Self sufficiency is a harsh mistress, it is the ideal to be aspired to but never gained that is why I prefer to be self sufficientish, it gives me the permission to acheive less than the ideal. The site certainly resonated with me when I found it!

I started with vegies 25 years ago and have been building and adding ever since - water tanks, 12 volt system, solar oven etc. and soon maybe bees and a goat - it is journey (as the saying goes).

Nev