Selfsufficientish.com

OH has been in Edinburgh all day rehearsing for the Beltane shenanigans on Calton Hill, leaving me to contemplate our land plan. I would like to bounce my ideas off you good people!

Readers of my blog may recall the initial plan was to be semi self sufficient and sell veg boxes locally to produce an small income. To do this we rent 2 acres, half of which has pigs & hens on and the other half our 3,000ft tunnel with about 3/4 of an acre for outside veg. Sadly the very heavy clay/wet spring/summer put paid to all the outside plants knocking year one of veg boxes on the head. OH works full time and I do at least one, sometimes two days a week Consultancy and as a result, the 3/4 acre of house garden (which we/the bank own) seriously suffered - bits of it were chest high with thistles!

This year we have been concentrating on licking the house garden into shape the house is an old Estate Gate Lodge and the soil in the garden is in good heart. Sadly it does have patches of the dreaded ground elder though.

I am seriously considering shelving the veg box plan and concentrating on producing food for ourselves. We usually have at least 2 pigs a year, c30 hens and this year we have been offered orphan lambs. The lambs have really got me thinking - the 2 acres in the field is not stock fenced and we don't have cash to do this. I am loathed to refuse even a couple - they would be good to augment our pork supply and add to our meat barter stock!

I have been pacing around the house garden this evening and have calculated that it divides itself neatly into 5 parcels:

1. The area beside the garage which will become a workshop when I get more progress on the carport/barn. This will also provide hard standing for 2 cars, a place to dry washing and a place to tinker with the Landy.

2. A front garden directly infront of the kitchen windows - this is the part that people see and will hopefully be pretty nice by the summer with the amount of flower seedlings I have coming on in the big tunnel. This area is 15m by 10m.

3 & 4. Two 'paddocks' both about 250m2. These will be joined together and could be made with stock fencing (by recycling my boundary fence from the rented field) and have an 8ft field gate in between them.

5. A veg plot of about 450m2 which will include 2 existing fruit cages and our small (10ft by 30ft tunnel). This has access from the road by a full size field gate.

It would probably take until next spring at the earliest to clear the two paddock areas of 2 knackered sheds & various ill placed shrubs. There are also 2 dilapidated greenhouses which are close to being beyond repair (one has a peach tree in it and we would love to save that).

We would reduce our hens from c30 to about a dozen. They don't pay for themselves and if we had enough for ourselves and the odd half dozen to barter/gift 12 would be the max required.

So, my questions are:

Can the two 'paddocks' support pigs for say 6 months and lambs for 6 months each year. Rotation/reseeding will of course be necessary.

Are we daft relinquishing the 2 acres in the field? I need to do 5 days consultancy just to pay the rent and it does not/has not/is unlikely to pay for itself.

Given that the world is going to Hell in a hand cart should we concentrate purely on producing food for ourselves and put the idea of a veg box outfit behind us? I quite enjoy my Consultancy and I can do more days in the winter when I can be lass productive outside and less Consultancy in the summer.

Sorry for the long post! I am genuinely interested in your thoughts - what would you do in our situation? Even if nobody has any ideas, at least I have now got it down on paper (so to speak!)

I am so sorry that you are having to make this decission Everyone seems to have had a bad year last year.

I don't have many thoughts on this but I would be reluctant to loose the veg-box idea altogether... these things are really taking off all over the country and surely, given time it would be a good little earner? Can you shelf it until your own land gets under control, then come back to it in a year or two?

I don't really see it as a negative situation. Yes last year was a bugg3r but the soil is very poor in the field and I think it would take at least another full 5 year lease to get it somewhere near workable.

You are right that the veg box could be a right little earner - money is not really in the equation though. OH's salary pays the morgage and monthly bills. My Consultancy pays for heating oil, runs the Landy and give a little over for what food we do buy. My worry is what the situation will be when we come out of our fixed mortgage in just under 3 years time!

Do we want the stress of having to supply x families with a good variety of quality veg for the growing season? It only takes a year like last year for there to be no veg and then if you want to keep the thing going, you needto buy it in which in my mind defeats the object.

I dare say that in my plan above, there will be surpluses which we can decide on whether to cook/bottle/preserve/freeze for ourselves or sell as a one off.

I guess there will be a long discussion when OH gets back from town!

I think in your shoes, I would aim to be as self sufficient for my own needs first.. and keep the veg box idea at the back of my mind.

once we are up and sorted.. think bigger things.. if you see what I mean.


how coime the hens dont pay for themselves.. the money you get for eggs does not cover feed costs?

red wrote:how coime the hens dont pay for themselves.. the money you get for eggs does not cover feed costs?

It's a combination of things - me being cr4p and only charing a pound a half dozen....some of the hens being lazy - I am only getting about a 60% lay rate atm....loosing good layers to the fox last year/capitalcost of replacements.....no lighting in the hen house (due to it's distance from the house) during the winter.....increasing feed costs.

If I look at the cash in/out now they make money but over the course of 12 months they do not. We tried to put the price up to £1.20 last year but some people refused to pay the extra!

The other problem is having an irregular supply. I can sell loads through my old work but I have to take them into Edinburgh - I do this on my regular Consultancy day but if I am to be out of the office it's too far to trek with eggs on another day, which (like this week) leaves me with a backlog at home. There is not enough regular demand locally - people get used to picking them up at the supermarket during the winter when we have none and it's difficult to convert them back in the spring.

I did ask about this on a poultry forum last year and it turned out that most people sold them at a loss - some were selling them at 50p a box!

people with pet hens giving them away or charging silly amounts are not really very helpful...

refusing to pay1.20 - sheesh cost 1.55 for 6 in the co-op people!

I am hoping to be able to sell some from the door eventually - but at the mo we only have 4 hens.. one is raising chicks and one is being difficult about laying... so just meeting our own needs at the mo.

I bet people who refuse to pay £1.20 for your eggs have no idea how much they pay for the same - only not as nice - in the supermarkets...

Depending on where you are situated, could you maybe down-size to just selling at the house gate whatever you happen to have a lot of? That would get you out of the commitment of having to produce a large amount (or buying in if you fail to do so), and still get you a bit of extra cash, while you are sorting out the various land/livestock problems.

Ina - I think that's where we will end up. The veg box idea was when OH was not enjoying his work and was looking to get out too. things have changed and he is really enjoying it and wants to make the most of it so doing veg on any scale is out - there's only so much one person can do! I am not Stoney

I am with Red on the producing for ourselves plan.

I would be interested on people's thoughts on the two "paddock" idea too.

OH has 'gone to the pub' on the way home so looks like the discussion will be tomorrow!

Were you thinking of using the same field for lambs and pigs (not together, I know - one ofter the other) in one year? Too much reseeding etc isn't really so great - too expensive, and a decent sward needs some time to establish... Maybe it's better to rotate little fields over several years; lambs for three or four years, then hens/pigs (grub out roots of weeds that may have turned up), veg for 3 years or so, then down to grass again...

Thurston Garden wrote: I would be interested on people's thoughts on the two "paddock" idea too.

OH has 'gone to the pub' on the way home so looks like the discussion will be tomorrow!

I can't visualise the size of the paddocks...

Much that I enjoy my sheep, and the wool they give me to play with - sheep are lots of work - although I have not actually kept pigs (yet) they do seem easier

The reason we keep sheep is because our land comes with grazing we want to keep as grazing and we dont have enough for a cow or two.
sheep are not the only thing you could consider. what about goats for milking etc (no personal experience here)
or raising more poultry for the pot? what about geese.. ducks?

Ina this is where I need some guidance. The area which would be occupied by one paddock is 80% down to grass atm being our back 'lawn'.

Paddock 2 is currently being cleared by 3 pigs so could stand pigs on it again next year but not a third.

(Paddock sounds too grand for a wee fenced off bit!)

red wrote:I can't visualise the size of the paddocks...

Something like 20 yards by 20 yards -not huge by any means.

red wrote:Much that I enjoy my sheep, and the wool they give me to play with - sheep are lots of work - although I have not actually kept pigs (yet) they do seem easier

The reason we keep sheep is because our land comes with grazing we want to keep as grazing and we dont have enough for a cow or two.
sheep are not the only thing you could consider. what about goats for milking etc (no personal experience here)
or raising more poultry for the pot? what about geese.. ducks?

Yes, someone did say that a sheep's sole purpose in life is to die before you want it to. But they will be free....my favourite price! I do have a friend very nearby that I can call on for guidance tho.

OH has been keen on goats, but I know they will be left to me and I am less keen. We will still hopefully have space in the plan for hens for the pot.

Thurston Garden wrote:Ina this is where I need some guidance. The area which would be occupied by one paddock is 80% down to grass atm being our back 'lawn'.

Depending on what kind of grass you have on that - well, if it's normal lawn grass it won't be that great for livestock. Might do to support a couple of lambs - but lawn grass is not meant to grow much (too much work!), so won't give you a lot of feed. You'd be better off to reseed with a mix that's suited to the purpose, preferably including clover for N fixation, and with that and the occasional "fertilising and weeding period" courtesy of pigs and hens you shouldn't need to worry about soil fertility.

free is a very good price..

ina wrote:

Thurston Garden wrote:Ina this is where I need some guidance. The area which would be occupied by one paddock is 80% down to grass atm being our back 'lawn'.

Depending on what kind of grass you have on that - well, if it's normal lawn grass it won't be that great for livestock. Might do to support a couple of lambs - but lawn grass is not meant to grow much (too much work!), so won't give you a lot of feed. You'd be better off to reseed with a mix that's suited to the purpose, preferably including clover for N fixation, and with that and the occasional "fertilising and weeding period" courtesy of pigs and hens you shouldn't need to worry about soil fertility.

It's not the best of grass although it grows like h3ll - I cut it today for the third time this year. I would seed the one the pigs are on now with something more suited and then move the pigs onto the lawn - I guess they would make short work of it.