Islay finds, makes and bakes...

Pleasing

 The sight of a washing line full of fabric. Yes, I prewash my fabric. I think it originated from using so much vintage and salvaged fabric - possibly if I used exclusively high quality quilting cottons I wouldn't bother, but there can be a fair amount of variation in shrinkage even in quilting cottons. I also find some fabrics fade a surprising amount, which can mean that, for instance, two blues that seemed to match perfectly no longer do when they are washed.

My system is, broadly:

1. Wait until there is enough of a particular shade to do a wash (or throw them in with our normal light/dark laundry)
2. Wash at 40 degrees with standard laundry detergent (we use either Bio D or Ecover). I don't use a colour catcher sheet - too cheapskate. Although possibly the first time I get a proper bleeding fabric will be when I convert to them. Until then, no catchers.
3. Hang on the line
4. Press (this bit is boring. A couple of episodes of Doctor Who on the computer keep me going if there's a lot)
5. Fold
6. Store
7. Sew!

We don't have a tumble dryer, so I don't tumble them. You can't beat a few hours in the breeze on a sunny day, anyway.

This batch has been waiting for a wash for weeks (can you tell I have more fabric than I need in my life?). There are even some of the limited edition Liberty cottons from our trip to the Quilts exhibition in the V&A. I was finally spurred into action by the imminent opening of my fabric journal (just as soon as I come up with a name for the darned thing). Task number one is going to be emptying my stash out, photographing every fabric, and storing it back on the shelves in an orderly fashion. So, come back in about 2016 and we'll be all set to go.

Incidentally, aren't the vegetables coming along well?

 

Kids' clothes week

 

I have a slight confession to make. This is a teeny bit embarrassing, given my handmaking-homemaking-ethical-living aspirations, but I have never ever finished a handmade garment for Teddy or Adam, and all I've made myself recently are a couple of skirts (which now don't fit since I lost the last of the baby weight) and several pairs of socks (which I wear all the time). I've started knitting a couple of jumpers for Teddy, but they've never been quite right, so I've abandoned them mid-project.

It's been playing on my mind in a vague sort of way, as I'd quite like to gear up for a season of making everything that we can from scratch (from food to clothes to carpentry, as much as possible), and frankly if I can't knit a pair of socks or throw together a pair of pyjamas, I'm unlikely to be able to meet all of our family's needs for an entire season.

Anyway, I was finally galvanised into action by this post by Elsie Marley (aka Meg) last week, and I'm determined to make at least a couple of pieces for Teddy's summer wardrobe. Look, there's a button on the side of the blog and everything!

Of course, it's at this point that I normally put myself off by saying, 'oh, but I need a serger to make decent t-shirts, and how much use is a couple of pairs of cotton trousers?' This time I am not listening to myself. OK, so I can't make a terribly useful t-shirt, but half a dozen pairs of simple trousers would come in useful for the more frequent changes of clothes that having a garden (and all it's watering can/compost bits and bobs) entails, and I really want to knit a couple of jumpers and cardigans for him.

 
In a jumper knitted by a relative with a kinder soul than I

So, one hour a day, that's all Meg's demanding of us. I can manage that, right? Even if I only do something for Teddy's naptime every day, I'll rack up my seven hours, and I'm hoping to find a little bit of extra time in the evenings.

I've got Debbie Bliss's Essential Kids pattern book out of the library, which has a gorgeous knitted pea coat, along with a simple jumper, and I'm going to get a pattern for some simple trousers (no, my sewing skills are not up to knocking up plain elastic waisted trousers without a pattern, thank you so much) in preparation for the second week of May. I don't for a minute think that I'll get all of these things finished, but if I can get a chunk of knitting done and a pair of trousers, I'll be pretty darn pleased with myself.

And then I just need to get started on all the other WIPS. Maybe I'll have a WIP Week after Kids Clothes Week. Or maybe I'll keep staring at them and feeling guilty for a little longer.

How green is your growing?

 In the light of yesterday's post on making my textile stuff more environmentally friendly, I just wanted to make myself feel better by proving that in some ways I really am doing my (very little) bit.

I bought these seed trays last year along with some cell trays (where the seeds are sown in individual little cells rather than sprinkled over a whole tray). I love using cell trays, but hate removing seedlings from the big trays with no cells (the roots get all tangled and the plants never seemed to thrive as well), so instead of popping to the shop to buy yet more cell trays, I made my own.

I save all our empty toilet rolls, along with any other rubbish that 'might be useful', in a big box under the sink - toilet rolls can be used for crafting (currently Teddy mainly goes "woooo" through them, but I'm holding out hopes for a desk organiser in about ten years), I make our crackers at Christmas, and now, with the help of this handy tutorial, they can be used as seedling cells too.

Now I've made myself feel better about my carbon footprint, here's a quick run down of what's been planted so far:

1. Beetroot (white and red) - just a few, so we can get an early-ish crop
2. Cabbage (red) - same as above
3. Basil - useful for growing on the kitchen windowsill
4. Coriander - as above (assuming I don't kill it all this year...)
5. Leeks - for early autumn harvest
6. Aubergines - who am I kidding? I live in England, not Morocco. But anyway, I'm giving them a shot
7. Tomatoes - lots and lots of tomatoes
8. Cucumber - a few seeds, despite my two efforts last year giving up the ghost at the seedling stage.

All these vegetables have wonderfully romantic names like Monstrueux de Charentan (i.e. early leeks), instead of 'F1 Mcboring' because they're all heirloom seed varieties from this wonderful website. I think heirloom seed varieties are pretty easy to get hold of in the States, but this is the only well stocked UK supplier I know of. Delivery was quick (within a week) and everything I ordered was in neat little bags, complete with instructions on seed harvesting so I don't need to buy another whole load next year (even though we all know I totally will).

I'm so excited that this year we might move just that teensiest bit closer to our version of self sufficiency - last year was more of a practise effort on the vegetable growing front, this year I really think we might be able to get a few whole meals from them!

What colour is your quilt?

 Fabric for a floor quilt in the style of a farm playmat I have planned for Teddy to go in the new house (moving in 8 days! Haven't even started packing!). I hate these colours. Sorry. I think it needs more solids and more brights. More on this another day.

There are a couple of reasons that we, as a family, do things like grow some of our own vegetables, bake our own bread, make as much stuff as possible and generally don't buy much. While money saving and the environment that we want to bring up Teddy (and any future children) in has an important part to play in all of this beavering away, the environmental impact of our lifestyle is also a huge consideration.

Without getting up on my high horse, I'd just like to reiterate that I believe that climate change and human damage to the world is a real and present problem, and that we all need to do our bit on a local as well as a national and international level to solve it. Sermon over.

As I was pondering some fabrics yesterday to start out a new quilt for Teddy, I realised that with my quilts and other handmade items I'm turning more and more to new fabric, rather than compromising a bit on the exact design I want and using entirely vintage fabrics. As I become more experienced at the whole handmade process, I find it harder to make something that is a compromise in any way in terms of design.

I don't know the specific figures, but I would imagine that the new fabric coming into our house probably accounts for a reasonable proportion of our carbon footprint from bought in goods (we don't buy much in the way of new clothes, and our food is usually local and/or organic).

I could, of course, go back to either compromising on design, or stop making things altogether until I have the exact palette of fabrics I require for any given project, but the fact is that I also need to contribute to our household income, and if I can't make my money through my supplies and handmade Etsy stores, I have to go out and get a 'proper' job. Frankly, that's not an option, as it would mean entirely changing the decisions we made about the way we want to bring up our children (with one parent at home for as long as humanly possible, not using too much childcare, and with an appreciation for a degree of self sufficiency and the nice side of life). Spending less time at home would also mean an end to the veg growing and bread baking etc, which would mean having to earn even more money, and so on and so on.

 So, in an effort to make my work (and play!) just a little bit more eco-friendly, I've come up with a brand new and super duper five step plan for minimising the environmental impact of my work:

1. Cut as economically as possible when chopping up fabric
2. Save every scrap, sorted by size (I know quilters who throw away anything smaller than a 5" square. Not me, my friend)
3. Use the scraps in other projects, such as the current hexagon quilt in progress (and likely to be in progress for the forseeable future).
4. Recycle bits that I can't reuse, such as cotton reels (unless I can find some nice new use for them. Incidentally, there are some good ideas here for reusing cotton reels if you scroll down, and Google will probably yield even more)
5. Organise my stash properly (can't wait till we move!) by colour and size of piece so that I can easily see whether I have something suitable on hand. At the moment half my fabric is in the cellar, which makes working out what I've got a bit challenging.
6. Consider every bit of waste (fabric, thread, packaging, blunt cutter wheels) as its produced and work out whether I can do anything with it, or whether anyone else might want it for something.
7. See if a local charity can take my too-small-to-use scraps for their scrap bags (I know some charities sell scrap bags of fabric to companies that remake those scraps into loft insulation and other boring-but-essential things)

I know that was actually seven points, but we'll gloss over that...

While I appreciate that this is a long way from living in a wood heated yurt in the forest with no running water or electricity, I'm hoping that these little steps will mean that my work has a much smaller impact on the environment than it might otherwise do, and perhaps inspire one or two of you out there to do the same.

 Ummm, nothing to do with the environment at all, but there are the super-speedy-delivery-from-Fabricworm Anna Maria Horner voiles I ordered (I've got another few coming from Sew Mama Sew too). I just thought you'd like something nice to look at after all that dreary green.

New life

Tomatoes (Galina, or possibly Amish Paste)

There's always a vague disbelief, when planting seeds, that those dry little husks will turn into an actual real live plant. It's something of a relief to find out that they do.

Unsurprisingly, the aubergines in the airing cupboard are looking less convincing - still a tray full of potting compost. I'm still holding out hope that they might do something before we move though.

Next year's 'garden'

I've been looking through what we grew with success this year, and planning what to bother with next year. As I've whinged about on numerous occasions, our garden is actually a paved courtyard that I certainly couldn't lay flat out on, so we have to pick and choose carefully what to plant, and stick to those that will do well in containers.

In brief, the, ahem, less successful crops were:
1) Carrots - even special little parmex F1s designed for containers apparently don't like my containers. 2 long troughs yielded about 100g of mini-carrots
2) Beetroots - these weren't quite as shameful as the carrots, but still not worth giving garden space over to. I think the biggest one was around 3cm in diameter, the average was about 1.5cm.
3) Courgettes - apparently I am the only person in the world who can't grow courgettes. They were weedy, stringy, didn't flower very much, then turned up their toes and died in a rainstorm
4) Pumpkin - as above, really.
5) Cabbage - not a failure as such, but too high maintenance (slug magnets), and took up a lot of space. I might sow the rest of the seeds I have and see if they germinate, but won't get more.

And the best of the rest:
1) Herbs - definitely a big success (except for the mysterious death of the thyme). They like pots, they like neglect, they're hideously expensive in the supermarket and insanely cheap in the garden. A winner all round
2) Salad leaves/lettuce - definitely will do more of this next year. Had lots of lettuces, rocket and miscellaneous green things. Did some by sowing, cutting young and waiting for it to come again, and some by growing actual lettuces. Again, v cheap in the garden compared to the supermarket
3) Tomatoes - these were a last minute success - we got absolutely loads from them in September, and there are even some nearly ripe toms on the plant as I write. Definitely worth planting enough to perhaps make some of our pasta sauce from next year
4) Beans - while the runner beans weren't brilliant (mainly due to my complete failure to keep them free of blackfly), the dwarf french beans were excellent, and just kept producing for about 4 weeks. Even though I only planted a few, we got a good few meals worth out of them.
5) Potatoes - we didn't get loads, but since the biggest expense is the potato bag, which we already have (I've heard you can grow them in fertiliser bags too, might try that), and my mother can usually be relied on to donate a couple of seed potatoes, we'll probably give them another go next year.

Obviously, if we (a) move (b) get an allotment (no breath holding going on) or (c) find some other local patch of ground we can beg, borrow or steal, things will change, and I'll give a lot of the failures another chance, as well as try to make our veg patch useful into the colder months as well (we will have nothing from ours apart from the odd herb over the winter), but I'm currently working on the expectation that we'll stay where we are for at least another year.

Yes, you heard, we're probably staying here for a bit longer. Boooooo. I really wanted to get into gear and buy and get ahead on our five year plan (if someone would have actually given us a mortgage), but realistically it's going to be better to save for another year, at least, and having a bit of stability will be nice as we begin to think about things like wedding planning (oooooooh, how girly!) and actually settling into day to day life with Teddy (yes, I do consider it perfectly reasonable to take over a year to settle into having a baby. I don't know if anyone mentioned, but it is a bit life changing).

Sloe gin yumminess

Now, there are many methods for making sloe gin - do you prick with a fork, freeze, or wait until after the first frost and hope that they haven't all gone? The Cottage Smallholder (interesting blog with lots of recipes from people who clearly have more of an idea what they're talking about than me) carried out an experiment to see which method worked the best. Her results are here.

I had to take sloes when I could get them last weekend (none round here really), so it was the second best method for us - freezing for a few days. And here's what I did:

Sloe gin
Ingredients:
75cl gin (I bought a couple of litres of Sainsbury's standard gin. I hear varying reports on whether the quality of the gin makes a difference, so I've gone one step up from the Basics range, but not all the way to Gordon's)
1lb sloes
6oz granulated sugar

Method:
1) Don't panic too much about the quantities. But put about a pound of sloes into sterile bottles (wide necked enough to fit sloes into, around a litre in size), add about 6oz of sugar, and top up with around 75cl of gin.
2) Shake the bottle (seal it first!) every day for a week or two, then store in a cool dark place for at least a couple of months. Ideally you leave it for around six months, strain and rebottle, but I expect we'll give in and have some at Christmas.

The garden has almost stopped growing

I haven't really mentioned my garden (read: small concrete yard with five minutes sunshine a day) for a while. If you click on the 'Vegetable growing' tab down the right hand side of the page (under the 'Labels' heading), you can see a few updates from this summer, and you can learn a bit more about my attempts to grow some vegetables entirely in pots in our small courtyard.

So, now we're in September, harvest season is almost over, and this is how the 'garden' looks:

The cabbage isn't looking too bad, and there's a bit of lettuce left. It's all a lot happier than this specimen:

 (This, in case it's not clear, was also a cabbage).

The herbs are coming along, hopefully they'll survive the winter:

 The tomatoes have, after a shaky start, proved quite a success. Not bad considering the complete lack of attention I've paid them in recent weeks. Here's the latest crop (we've probably already eaten this much again):

They're from our four plants - two anonymous small yellow plum ones, an Ailsa Craig (although I bought a small plant for 50p, as mice ate my seedlings) and and another anonymous yellow one, this time cherry toms, and on a bush, not a climbing plant. This one was a particularly good one, so I'm hoping to find the label kicking around the patio somewhere when I next tidy up.

I'm sure there was something else I was going to add... I'll remember it as soon as I hit post.

Some things I want to try

I have a list of things I want to attempt in our mission to be more self sufficient. Although many of them involve buying in 'ingredients' of one form or another, I'm hoping that they will prove cheaper than the shop bought versions. Just thought you might all like to admire my ambition, and laugh at my complete inability to get any of it done (I have had this list since I started the blog, and haven't ticked anything off it yet):

1) Knit a jumper for me (but first I need to finish my beautiful blanket)
2) Ditto, for Adam (ditto excuse)
3) Double ditto, for Teddy (double ditto excuse)
4) Make paper from our rubbish (need a paper making frame. Ebay maybe?)
5) Make Chistmas crackers from the toilet rolls (need snaps!)
6) Make soap (scared of pouring acid all over myself)
7) Make candles (need to clear jam out of kitchen first, or risk Adam leaving me)
8) Design and make all our cards (I actually have the things I need to do this in front of me, so no excuses here)
9) Make floor cleaner from vinegar and whatever else it is that makes good floor cleaner (I did just try with vinegar in water, and even that worked pretty well)
10) Buy some secondhand linen/fine cotton and make napkins/hankies
11) Sew a patchwork quilt from all my scraps (ah, I have a proper excuse here, my mother's taken my sewing machine away to make it work better)
12) Grow aloe vera and make remedies from it (I am the most accident prone person in the world. Aloe vera is my friend)
13) Buy some fabric from the charity shop next time it's someone's birthday and wrap their present furoshiki style (I don't think we've had a birthday since I came up with this)
14) Make ginger beer
15) Make my own eye and face moisturiser
16) Learn to sharpen our wonderful Japanese knives so that they are actually useful instead of just decorative

Ummmm... Would someone like to babysit Teddy for a year or two so I can get started?

A preserving update

First, here's (pretty much) the sum total of last week's work:

 It might not look a lot, but I reckon I've preserved near enough a bushel of apples (about 42lb), and over 20lb of plums, as well as using several pints of vinegar and a good 20lb of sugar. The top left hand jar in the picture is dried apple pieces, which are such a success I'm going to do even more of (luckily I snatched a couple of extra apples as we left to come home yesterday). I'm also going to make some apple and loganberry curd as soon as Teddy gives me a decent break.

I'm really pleased with the amount we managed to preserve. I know it's a long long way from the kind of harvest we'll be dealing with when we're growing a larger percentage of our own food, but it felt like a nice warm up act.

Now here's a good reason to be self sufficient...

The oil has almost run out! I know it's a bit of a scaremongery, worst-case-scenario article, but it's still quite interesting, no? (Incidentally, I only came across this article because someone on another website pointed it out, hopefully he won't mind me stealing his link).

I think it's interesting that as the next new crisis comes along, we forget all about the old one. How often do we read about the hole in the ozone layer now? Do you know, without googling, whether it is getting smaller, larger, or staying the same? Ten years ago I was being taught in school that we needed to find alternatives to fossil fuels because they will run out, now it's all about alternatives because of climate change.

I think it's interesting to be reminded that whether we like it or not, fossil fuels are running out. Whether we find alternatives before we have to turn to dirtier and, more pertinantly to the non-eco-worriers, much more expensive methods, depends on both government choices and consumer demand. So I say, get demanding!

It's another one to add to the list of reasons to be self sufficient though - the more expensive energy gets, the more financial viable (and logical) it becomes to invest in one or more of the host of domestic renewable energy generators.

So what's your five year plan?

I think I need a plan. Of course, we all know what my general five year plan is (see the 'Self sufficiency' link above), but it seems a shame that I, with a love of list making that verges on the obsessive (I have yet to meet anyone outside of my family that writes 'make list' at the start of the list, just so they can cross something off), have yet to make a list of specific goals that I can cross off on our route to self sufficiency apart from the very vague one in the introduction.

I suspect this list will get jumbled up, added to and subtracted from in the coming 1,770 days (oh god, that counter was a lot higher than that when I began!), but I think it will be useful for me and anyone who wants to know where this rambling is actually going to have a more precise list to tick off as we go.

I like to think that efficient sufficient will mean something for everyone reading this blog, but in general I see it as self sufficiency with whatever compromises an individual finds necessary to live a nice life. So for us, the list of targets (in approximate order of expected completion) is:
1) Forage all year round for as much of our food as possible, preserving what we find where practical (such as blackberries)
2) Bake all of our bread and treats
3) Make gifts and cards for families and friends for all birthdays and christmas
4) Knit any woolies that we need, including socks and winter jumpers
5) Become self sufficient in vegetables (except a couple of treats)
6) Grow a couple of fruit trees, and some berries and soft fruit (I'm sure I've read you can grow a small apple tree in a massive pot. Maybe)
7) Buy a house/land to build on
8) Keep a couple of chickens
9) Get beehive/s and start beekeeping
10) Convert/build said house to be more energy saving and sustainable
11) Go onto a water meter and reduce our water usage as far as possible, including saving as much rainwater as possible for the garden
12) Generate at least some of our own power or heating (depending on circumstances)

I don't think I've missed anything, except the optional extras like keeping another animal or two (probably not practical any time soon, as we probably won't be able to afford the land we'd need). Each point on this list practically deserves a sublist all of its own, but I think the phrase 'too much of a good thing' might be appropriate at this stage.

Number seven is the obvious sticking point. We are saving as much as we can (hopefully a bit more now I've got some more regular freelancing work), and crossing our fingers that house prices will continue to fall, or at least not start rising again, and eventually we might catch up with them. 

Foraging: The time is ripe (and so is the fruit)

We've entered the best time of year for foraging beginners, like me. This is because not only is wild food at its most abundant in late summer/early autumn, it's also the time when all the easily identifiable stuff, like blackberries, are ripening, instead of random spring greens that need half an hour to identify each leaf.

My tip for the day is take a tupperware or a ziplock bag with you every single time you leave the house. I've got into the habit of chucking an empty tupperware into the basket under the pram every day (even easier now that I am Monday-Challenging myself to new heights of organisation), but keeping a ziplock bag in your handbag or pocket is doable even for the busiest of souls.

As I'm out and about, I just grab anything that's ripe, from blackberries on the footpath I walk up practically daily with Teddy to the windfall apples from the tree in the park. Rather than trying to persuade myself to go to all the effort of making one small pot of jam at a time, I'm storing the fruit in the (little, still on) freezer, so when I finally have a sensible amount I can start with the recipes.

 I already have getting on for a kilo of blackberries, which (when I've got more) I'm planning to turn into blackberry syrup/cordial, and lots of blackberry jam. Possibly some blackberry ice cream, but I'm thinking I can just mix the syrup with some leftover frozen blackberries for making ice cream at a later date if I want.

 I'm a bit scared of the rosehips, as you need to deal with them carefully to prevent getting any of the hair from the seeds into whatever you make, but apparently you can make yummy syrup, jams and all sorts. Will be good to experiment. I'm also wondering whether I can use the hips in the garden to similar effect, or if they won't have as strong a flavour as the wild dog rose and rosa rugosa.

 I'm also chopping apples and freezing them every time I get a couple more. I've got absolutely no idea what I'm going to do with them (all cookers), but if all else fails they can either get chucked into a christmas chutney or I can make some herby apple jelly to go with roasts. Seems a shame to let them go to waste!

 I've also found a cherry tree, but due to only getting a tiny handful at a time, and being too lazy to stone them, I just keep them in the fruit bowl for snacking on rather than making cherry pie or something ambitious like that. Possibly it's time to think about a smaller fruit bowl though.

I've also (I think) found walnut, hazelnut and sweet chestnut trees. I'm not a massive fan of nuts, but I'm thinking I might be able to create some kind of sugar roasted nut thing for christmas.

What's the buzz?

Saw this in the news yesterday, quite interesting reading. There's lots of research that shows that bees are very important for pollination of crops, as well as producing honey, and even more research that shows their numbers are dwindling.

As some of my friends may be aware (I mention it on average every other day, according to my sister), I would love to keep bees. It's something of a preoccupation of mine, despite a fairly major fear of things buzzing round my head and a complete lack of bravery about being stung.

Honey can replace sugar in lots of recipes, from cakes and deserts to chutneys and salad dressing, and bees don't cost a fortune (so I'm told) apart from the initial investment in hives and safety gear, so beekeeping seems like the perfect step in our self sufficient lifestyle.

Unfortunately, we are planning on moving next year, and even if we weren't, only have a miniscule little courtyard garden which is already filled to bursting with pots and growbags, so beekeeping is off the cards for the moment. As soon as we move somewhere more permanent though (or if I ever get to the top of the allotment waiting list, and if they allow hives), it's top of my To Do list.

However, I'm not planning on one of those nasty ugly plastic hives. I haven't done an awful lot of research, but I read an interesting article in Permaculture magazine (good magazine, must think about subscribing) on Warre hives, and quite like the look of them. Plenty more reading to do on the subject though.

(Roller)balls to it

I am desperately trying to use up all my pens. It is not going well - apparently, despite being a writer, I write almost nothing down in real life, except my daily To Do list.

You see, I have promised myself that in the spirit of being efficient sufficient I will never again buy crappy disposable pens. Instead, when I have finally used up every last pen in this house, I will treat myself to a lovely fancy fountain pen with a refillable ink cartridge thingymabob (I suspect there's a proper name for it). And I will use it forever and ever and never lose it or stand on it or break the nib or anything.

Before deciding this, I would probably have estimated that we have three, perhaps four, working biros of one form or another in this house. There is never ever one around when I need it, so there can't be that many, right?

No.

I started actually putting all the pens in one place so that I could track my usage and get progressively more excited about buying a proper pen, sad bastard that I am, and I found not three, not four, but nearly a dozen pens! Plus a whole load of pencils (why? I swear I haven't bought any HBs since I was about 14), which really I ought to use up in the spirit of the thing.

So as well as counting down to self sufficiency, I can probably also assume that I'm on approximately a five year countdown before I use up enough bloody biros to justify a nice fountain pen.

Maybe I'll start drafting my blogs on paper first...

Quick, turn off your freezer!

It saves a crapload of energy.

I have always convinced myself that a chest freezer would make us more, not less, green, as I figured we could bulk buy meat, freeze summer fruits and make our own ice cream. We do all of these things occasionally, but there was certainly plenty of time when the freezer was languishing almost empty.

After thee shock results of last week's Monday Challenge I'm going to have to weigh that one up a little more carefully now, and at least make sure we're getting maximum use from our freezer if it is on.

For the seven days prior to turning off the freezer, our average daily energy usage was 10.78KWH per day, according to the Wattson. I have no idea if that's good or bad, but I imagine it's reasonable. However, for the six days since turning off the freezer (I only turned it off on the Tuesday evening, which this average includes, and obviously I don't have today's data yet), we have used an average of only 7.70KWH per day. This is a pretty massive cut, almost 30%. I suppose there's probably other factors in play - we've been out and about a fair bit, so perhaps have used a shade less electricity than normal, for instance - but even accounting for that, it's a pretty impressive saving.

I'm determined not to turn the freezer back on until we really need to, and I'll definitely investigate other preserving options for things like the fruit we'll probably pick in the coming weeks. I'll keep an eye on our average usage and see if it remains consistently below last week's, which will prove that the energy saving is from the freezer rather than coincidence.

Now what?

So, the freezer is off, the little one is chock full of goodies, the veggies are doing their thing in the garden, the bread would be rising in the oven if I'd remembered to make it this morning... Life is pretty good, and getting on with being self sufficient.

So how do I get us closer to the efficient sufficient dream? I am trying to come up with some new ideas that will (a) increase our level of self sufficiency in the short term and/or (b) help us move towards the eventual house/landowner aim. It's frustrating, as really the main thing that there is for me to do is sit back and watch the savings mount up - which will hopefully happen much faster now that I'm actually bringing in some money, but I want to do things to help it along! I have a few things on the To Do list though, which will help a bit, and hopefully alleviate the frustration:
1) Ebay the last box of bits and bobs that we don't need and stick the money in the Compost Bin
2) Smile winningly at all our friends and relatives and see if we can Ebay anything for them for a bit of commission
3) Re-evaluate the £1 a day Monday Challenge, and reinstate it in a couple of weeks time, perhaps as a month long super-challenge, to be slightly more realistic about it
4) Plant some seeds for some winter veg - I think I can still put in some kohlrabi (weird looking things), perhaps some beets, and some herbs on the windowsill

Really it's just a question of waiting for time to pass. There's so many big projects that I'd like to get on with, like keeping bees (despite a really quite significant fear of buzzing things) and chickens, and investigating some form of eco energy production. I suppose I could start the research for that, but things change so quickly in technology that everything I learn will probably be out of date by the time we're in a position to implement it. Oh, and growing food on a larger scale. Everything really.

Any ideas for how I can move things along?

Free stuff makes good stuff

I have just made another batch of vegetable stock. This one is lacking the lentils and the crucial half a lemon so might be a bit less interesting, but will doubtless be useful for something.

I have also made foraged crumble! Well, almost foraged. Free, anyway. My lovely friend brought this for me when she came over for dinner the other night:

 You see, it pays to let everyone know you're a cheapskate.

I was, at the time, trying to think what to do with the windfall cooking apples I snaffled while walking through the park the other day:

 So I cooked the apples up with some sugar, the handful of blackberries I picked the other day while out for a walk (always take a tupperware when you go walking - you never know what you'll find) and about three tablespoons of already cooked rhubarb I found while emptying out the freezer. Et voila

 Pink vomit! But it's tasty, I promise. Three minutes work with the topping, filling and a load of glass ramekins saved from the numerous times we've splashed out on yummy Gu puddings from Waitrose, and I had eight portions of crumble, just like that:

 It took me perhaps 15 minutes, and cost the price of two tablespoons of sugar and a bit of ground ginger chucked into the crumble topping.

I'm going to pick up more cookers next time I'm out walking and see what else I can do with them. I fancy trying some kind of apple syrup/cordial, but have no idea where to start. Google, here I come.

Some musings on freeganism

Freeganism - what a great concept, eh? You go through rubbish bins, take out what others (supermarkets, mostly, it seems) throw away and eat/use it. Et voila, good stuff for free!

No, actually. I have decided I have issues with freeganism.

One of my relatives avid blog followers sent me this link, about a chappie who has written a book on freeganism. Apart from the fact that a book on freeganism that requires you to spend money on it is a bit of an anachronism (but very convenient, no doubt, for the author, a Mr Tristram Stuart), I don't like the ideology of the whole thing.

You see, freeganism relies on our western, consumerist lifestyle continuing. The only way freegans can continue to remove stuff from bins is if other people continue to put it there. So freegans are, in a way, perpetuating this lifestyle by spending their time rooting through rubbish bins rather than either growing their own food (and showing their friends and families how to do so too) or spending their money at local greengrocers, butchers and other businesses, who actually use up their produce, and only throw away food that genuinely is past its best before. Creating a demand for these kinds of businesses would allow them to lower their prices, encourage other small local businesses to open and gradually (and I appreciate we're not talking a ground breaking movement here) begin to draw a bit of the business away from the supermarkets.

I also know people who feel just that little bit better about their supermarket shop at, for example, Sainsburys rather than Tescos because Sainsburys doesn't lock up its bins, therefore the homeless and the freegans can take the waste, which makes the whole supermarket thing better, right?

In conclusion, I'm sorry Mr Stuart, but in the true spirit of freeganism, I won't be buying your book. I will, however, be recommending that you go and find some trees and pick some of the astonishing quantity of food that's growing wild, or buy a fishing rod and go catch something rather than fishing through the processed food chucked out by supermarkets.

Sometimes you just have to accept defeat

I've tried, I really have. I have been committed and persistent, and still I have failed. Not in stopping climate change (although I have to accept a fairly limited degree of success so far on that score too), but in finding a half decent, low-evil-chemically-ingredient-ridden shampoo and conditioner that costs less than £10 for a teeny tiny bottle.

I haven't been fussy, I'm prepared to accept that my hair might not be as smooth and silky as it was with Pantene's finest, but I do at least expect to be able to get a brush through my hair after washing and conditioning it.

In my quest, I tried the following:
1) Avalon organics Rosemary shampoo/conditioner - probably the least awful one, but I had to leave the conditioner on for about 10 minutes before seeing any kind of benefit, and I just don't have that kind of time in the morning with Teddy falling flat on his face every three minutes (crawling: still not a success)
2) Weleda - again, not too awful, but more expensive (nearly £8 a bottle) and had to use lots to get any kind of decent result
3) Jason Salon normalising shampoo/conditioner - not too bad, probably the best conditioner, but gave me dandruff. I am prone to this, so it's probably an unfortunate reaction
4) Faith in Nature Rosemary shampoo/conditioner - nice and cheap (under £4 for a 400ml bottle), and the shampoo wasn't half bad, but I had to use absolutely loads and loads of the conditioner, as it was really quite watery
5) Waitrose Organics - the worst of the bunch. I'm actually contemplating taking it back. Never before have I felt that my hair might actually be improved if the conditioner was replaced by a scouring pad.

I should add at this point that I have an unfortunate combination of quite long (below shoulder length) hair that is really greasy (if I go two days without washing it, burger van vendors start eyeing me up as a replacement to the pan), as well as very straight, so shows up any lack of condition beautifully. All this in addition to the aforementioned flaky tendencies. Therefore my shampoo/conditioner needs are perhaps a little more stringent than most.

I would like to say that I approached Boots with a heavy heart to purchase my very own bottle of ammonium lauryl sulfate, ammonium laureth sulfate (does anyone know the difference?), glycol distearate, dimethicone, panthenyl ethyl ether, polyquaternium-10, and so on and so on (I should add, I know nothing about chemistry - one of these could very well be the chemical name for organic lavender oil, raised in sunny fields with no fertiliser, but I doubt it). My dislike of chemically things stems more from a worry about the cocktail of artificial chemicals we accumulate in our body, and what they might do en masse, than a particular desire to avoid some specific toxin. If you want a well reasoned argument as to why this is a good idea, I suggest you find the blog of someone who knows what they're talking about, rather than a concerned but completely clueless woman who panics slightly at discussion of anything more complex than sodium chloride.

Anyway, back to the point. I practically skipped to the chemist, and gleefully threw a bottle each of Aussie haircare shampoo and conditioner into the basket. I've convinced myself (I didn't have to try very hard, or even at all) that the inclusion of two types of eucalyptus extract practically makes it organic.

I promise that once my hair has recovered a bit, I'll start looking again. I'm thinking of trying to make my own shampoo bar, then splashing out on the outrageously overpriced Neal's Yard conditioner.

But in the mean time, Adam has just come out of the shower smelling of lovely clean Aussie shampoo fragrance (he chose not to use the Three Minute Miracle conditioner, but I think he'll give in soon), and I find myself, for the first time in months, looking forward to washing and conditioning my hair.

No compost heap? No problem!

I hate the fact that we don't have a compost heap/bokashi bin/wormery (no un-paved/gravelled outside space for compost, and don't fancy the thought of moving a wormery or bokashi bin if we move next year), and always feel ridiculously guilty for the peelings and veg scraps that go in the bin and out with our normal household rubbish. Seems such a shame to throw something that could be useful away.

So I was inordinately pleased with myself for finding a way to at least use the veg scraps before they go in the bin. I saved these in a tupperware box in the freezer over the course of the week:
- A couple of dozen broad bean pods
- Several onion skins
- A few garlic skins
- Potato peelings from a couple of meals worth of potatoes
- Some carrot peelings
- The sad and wilting ends of a lettuce, two carrots and a couple of the new potatoes from the garden, all good for nothing but the bin in normal circumstances.

At the end of the week, I bunged them in the pot with half a lemon (if you google, apparently this is essential), a small handful of green lentils (apparently also slightly essential), a few herbs (I had some lemon thyme and rosemary, but I think pretty much anything fresh or dried will do), a couple of bay leaves and some salt (not much) and pepper. Et voila!

 No, not the least appetising soup you've ever come across, but vegetable stock. Not completely free, but since we're growing herbs, the only thing that was paid for was the lemon half and the lentils (neither of which are bank breakers). Not bad for a couple of pints of stock - definitely less than buying organic stock cubes. I strained it through a butter muslin (everyone should have one - basically like a baby muslin but with tighter weave so fewer bits get through).

No reason why the stock couldn't be frozen, but I used mine immediately in a risotto. Tasted at least as good as any shop bought stock.

So although it's not quite as self sufficient as having a compost bin, at least it's a nod in the direction of self sufficiency until we can improve on it, which I feel is nicely in the spirit of being efficient sufficient. It also marks the end of this week's Monday Challenge, which I have concluded was a success. I didn't save as much as I would have liked, but definitely a lot more than normal, and I'll keep saving the bits for Ebay packaging and vegetable stock, as well as keeping an eye out for anything else I can put to good use!

I'm Cropping! Try to contain your excitement

We are practically self sufficient already. So far this year, after many hours hard graft over the crops in the field... back garden... growbags on the patio, I have grown and fed to the family:

8 large lettuces
A couple of meals worth of rocket and other small salad leaves
2½lb of potatoes (no idea what breed, my mother gave me the seed potatoes, but they were fairly small and waxy, very tasty)
25g of runner beans
Half a dozen very mini beetroots, picked to thin out the bed to encourage the others to grow bigger

Impressive, nay?

Ok, so I'm not exactly feeding the world. Or even, in fact, our family of three, one of whom only eats a few mouthfuls of food a day. But it's a start. This is the first year I've ever tried to grow anything more ambitious than one of those bulbs that you put in water to make a flower to give your mother at Christmas. You know, they always make you do in primary school in late autumn. What the bloody hell were they? Mine was usually the bulb that turned up its toes and died within in a week, so I'm pretty gosh darned proud of my harvest so far.

In other news, I got three nice books for the princely sum of £6 today from a secondhand bookstore near us that's sadly closing down in a few months - including one called 'Country Bazaar' that details a million and one country pursuits, from beekeeping to beer making.

Oh, and it was a hyacinth. I just googled.

Is self sufficiency sexist?

Just pondering a comment I read on the SelfSufficientish forum (wonderful place, full of lots of ideas and enthusiasm for everyone from windowsill growers to off-grid-ers), that suggested that self-sufficiency usually results in the woman staying at home and keeping house, rather than the man.

So, does self sufficiency mean regressing half a century or more?

Any kind of degree of self sufficiency inevitably means a bigger commitment to the home. The amount of time committed varies from household to household, but from our meagre efforts at vegetable growing, bread making and making-do-and-mending, I can confidently state that we wouldn't be able to manage even that if I was working full time.

In our case, I do all of the veg encouragement/trimming (my tomatoes are about seven feet tall. I have not the least idea why), most of the cooking (bread baking etc and any meals that cook for a long time), some of the cleaning (well, I put the laundry on, I'm keeping quiet about the fact that Adam does pretty much everything else) and all of the daytime childcare (except for the brief respite of part time journalism, when he's at the childminder). But this isn't, as far as I can tell, because I'm a repressed housewife. I may be wrong, but I think it's because I'm actually not hugely enthusiastic about the whole office thing, and prefer to spend my time saving us the equivalent of my salary after childcare by growing veg and making stuff to actually going and earning money.

So in our case, yes, any degree of self sufficiency will tie me, the woman, to the home more, and make it even harder for me to get a proper job. But in my mind, that's a plus side, not a problem. Why on earth would I want to go and get a real job when I can sit at home and bake bread and grow vegetables and figure out what on earth tahini is (houmous, anyone?).

I can see that, with many families, it will be the woman who takes on the 'homemaker' role (although in a self sufficient household, homemaker might mean exactly that). However, there's no particular reason, apart from society norms, why in a traditional but self sufficient family unit it ought to be the woman who stays at home rather than the man. If the woman has higher earning potential or likes her job more (or her kids less!) than her partner, there's absolutely no reason why the role can't be shared or given lock stock and barrel to the male half of the family.

So, in conclusion, I am not repressed. There you go. Come to me, have your complex societal issues solved in under 500 words.

Is self sufficiency sexist?

Just pondering a comment I read on the SelfSufficientish forum (wonderful place, full of lots of ideas and enthusiasm for everyone from windowsill growers to off-grid-ers), that suggested that self-sufficiency usually results in the woman staying at home and keeping house, rather than the man.

So, does self sufficiency mean regressing half a century or more?

Any kind of degree of self sufficiency inevitably means a bigger commitment to the home. The amount of time committed varies from household to household, but from our meagre efforts at vegetable growing, bread making and making-do-and-mending, I can confidently state that we wouldn't be able to manage even that if I was working full time.

In our case, I do all of the veg encouragement/trimming (my tomatoes are about seven feet tall. I have not the least idea why), most of the cooking (bread baking etc and any meals that cook for a long time), some of the cleaning (well, I put the laundry on, I'm keeping quiet about the fact that Adam does pretty much everything else) and all of the daytime childcare (except for the brief respite of part time journalism, when he's at the childminder). But this isn't, as far as I can tell, because I'm a repressed housewife. I may be wrong, but I think it's because I'm actually not hugely enthusiastic about the whole office thing, and prefer to spend my time saving us the equivalent of my salary after childcare by growing veg and making stuff to actually going and earning money.

So in our case, yes, any degree of self sufficiency will tie me, the woman, to the home more, and make it even harder for me to get a proper job. But in my mind, that's a plus side, not a problem. Why on earth would I want to go and get a real job when I can sit at home and bake bread and grow vegetables and figure out what on earth tahini is (houmous, anyone?).

I can see that, with many families, it will be the woman who takes on the 'homemaker' role (although in a self sufficient household, homemaker might mean exactly that). However, there's no particular reason, apart from society norms, why in a traditional but self sufficient family unit it ought to be the woman who stays at home rather than the man. If the woman has higher earning potential or likes her job more (or her kids less!) than her partner, there's absolutely no reason why the role can't be shared or given lock stock and barrel to the male half of the family.

So, in conclusion, I am not repressed. There you go. Come to me, have your complex societal issues solved in under 500 words.

Movin' on up out

OK, so it's a fair old way off, but Adam and I have decided to move to somewhere with more outside space next April (assuming we're not in a position to look at actually buying somewhere by then. I doubt we will be somehow).

The main reason is because I want more space to grow more stuff, but other reasons include:
1) T will hopefully be moving around a bit by then (although he is currently more than happy admiring the world from a firmly seated position), so space for him to play will be nice
2) We'll be able to get more space for the same money a mile or two out of Chichester, and it's not beyond the realms of possibility that we might have a second baby in the next couple of years
3) I may bang myself over the head with a (not hot enough) frying pan if I have to cook on the crappy electric hob for too much longer - not hot enough to stir fry, but hot enough to cremate your hand should you accidentally touch any part of the hob top for 45 minutes after cooking.

Exciting, as it means we'll be able to grow much better crops next year, assuming we move soon enough to actually get some in the ground. We're committed to this place until April, otherwise I'd be tempted to look sooner.

No idea whether we'll find somewhere where the landlord doesn't mind us turning his garden into a vegetable patch, so I'll keep the fingers crossed for a donation from a hitherto unknown distant relative with a small fortune and a passion for the environment - unlikely, as most of my relatives seem to think that putting the washing machine on for a pair of knickers and a t-shirt is acceptable behaviour.