madzone
Physically unfavourable
Best thing would probably be to post the link and then people can read it for themselves
How much land would you need to be semi-self sufficient
- Thread starter Herbsman.
- Start date
Idaho
continuity character
madzone
Physically unfavourable
Hmmmm, that's not the one I meant. We had a spot-check last summer and they wanted to look at the pigs (though we only had one then) and in the kitchen and at the compost heap. They also left some literature which was very clear about not feeding pigs anything that had been prepared in the house and stated that there were strict punishmenst for anyone found doing so. I'll see if I can dig it out but I think I binned it in protest
I'll see if I can find a copy onlineDo you keep pigs Idaho? Have you been spot-checked? It seems that like most of Defra's activities people's experiences vary depending on all manner of things. It would be interesting to here someone elses experience
Idaho
continuity character
Only the long kind
....They also left some literature which was very clear about not feeding pigs anything that had been prepared in the house and stated that there were strict punishmenst for anyone found doing so. I'll see if I can dig it out but I think I binned it in protest
Feed the leaflets to the pigs???
I think the whole 'how much space' thing depends on a)How 'simple' you want your lifestyle to be -my parents have a large ish vegetable/fruit garden, you can grow a lot on 1 acre, just that it'd get a bit food wise boring day in day out, without the supermarket to suppliment it, and b) if you want animals. They take up a lot more space. That’s when it get harder I’d guess, as cows, horses need rotation through the fields so the grass can grow back.
People survived 100 years ago, I can’t believe they all had 10 acres each?
How sustainable is sustainable?? You would really need a small tractor, fair enough, I don’t think they’re *that* costly. Ignoring one-off costs, where do you get the money for the fuel – from another job, savings etc, or by growing more than you need and selling it???
Edit: Thinking about it, what do you do in the winter?? it's all a bit bleak food wise and muddy then, without any nice fresh fruit to make things ok. Potatoes keep ok in a cool garage etc, but stuff like chickens, they don't really lay many eggs in the winter do they???
Funky_monks
Neo-Rustic
I do, and I've never been checked, although I imagine the stomach contents have been examined.
I had a pig with severe constipation once, had the vet out and they didn't even bother to check then.
Thanks for the other info. I was on the rivercottage bulletin boards, but the people on there were mildly irritating sometimes. I will cost it out when/if I bid on the place, but I think I could make a tidy living by selling retail/adding value. I was looking at the carcass price indexes in the FG last week and the thought of how much you could(nt) make out of 30 acres worth of cattle made me go pale.
I could maybe contract myself out as a gardener or something part time, but certainly the idea is to make a living with me and my wife running the holding (she is ace at admin/marketing, I'm more of a 'livestock' person)
Funky_monks
Neo-Rustic
Every year I grow about 75 kilos of spuds and they keep just fine until about now-ish when they start to sprout. the trick is to keep them below 5C and above freezing in the dark/dry. I do this by 'piggybacking' our works cold store, and all the British potatoes you eat will be stored like this until the news arrive sometime soon (now in Cornwall?). Otherwise, in winter it would be cabbages, carrots, swedes, winter lettuces....the real problem is the 'hungry gap' in early spring - purple sprouting, leeks, overwintered carrots and swedes are about it. My chickens still lay some in winter, but I always try to have some pullets in their first season over winter. I do this by eating my older birds.
I remember as my child my parents used to buy big sacks full and keep them in the garage over the winter, then they later got some land and started growing their own.
I don't live with my parents these days, but whenever I buy spuds from the supermarket, in a dark cupboard, they seem to sprout after about 5 days! I can't eat them that fast! What am I doing wrong? It's probabally a bit warm. (inside the house)
I don't live with my parents these days, but whenever I buy spuds from the supermarket, in a dark cupboard, they seem to sprout after about 5 days! I can't eat them that fast! What am I doing wrong? It's probabally a bit warm. (inside the house)
madzone
Physically unfavourable
Yeah, River cottage is a different animal altogether from DS
They're the epople tot alk to about that size of land though. I wouldn't know if it's feasible to make a living solely from 30 acres but there are people on there who are probably doing somehting similar. You're very lucky you haven't been spot-checked for the pigs. They seem to see smallholdres as a bit of an easy target down here. It's all a farce really. They put us on movement restrictions for a year once, because the vet forgot to send the TB test results but they forgot to tell us so we were merrily moving stuff around anyway
Really, join DS
madzone
Physically unfavourable
They're just old spuds. Probably last years.
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
Heh, just saw this. Not really though. I'm more focussed on the theoretical macro-scale stuff. How do you make entire communities or regions self-sufficient?
Me and the wife dabble a bit in small-scale self-sufficiency, but it's really constrained by me having a fairly demanding job and us living on a modest suburban plot and liking pretty flowers as well as veg. The experiences of some of the people with smallholdings and such is probably a lot more relevant to the OP than my impassioned rants about the need for source-separating toilets.
