How self-sufficient are you?

[Laura Hillier]

Hi Everyone,

There are many different steps towards leading a slightly more self-sufficient life, as we all well know. You may have a pot of herbs on the windowsill, your very own smallholding or anything in between! So, we were wondering, how self-sufficient are you?


Answers may be edited and published in the June issue of Grow Your Own


Laura

[darcyvuqua]

As I now have an allotment I will be taking all steps in not buying veg throughout the year gluts will be frozen or canned in jars.

I really would like chickens on the plot but our sites rules are strictly no livestock I am now looking at getting some bantam hens in our back garden with there eggs being the protein source of our diets with all the meat scandals we are cutting down on meat and when we do we use the local butcher.

[SarzWix]

I'm generally self-sufficient in both veg. and fruit for about half of the year, and top up with bought stuff for the other half of the year. The last 12 months have been something else though with the summer we didn't have last year, and so we've had to buy much more than usual due to the failure of many crops. Fingers crossed we'll be back to 'normal', or something like it, this year...

[Aberdeenplotter]

I am lucky, I have three half plots so I have the room to allow me to be self sufficient in most veg. Of course, there are seasonal gluts and shortages of some varieties but at these times there is normally something else that can be harvested and brought in to the kitchen. I try to do my bit to reduce food miles and reduce my carbon footprint and growing my own contributes hugely to that. At the moment, I am reduced to having Savoy cabbage, leeks, swedes kale and parsnips available to pick fresh but we are still using our own spuds, onions(almost done) and I have beetroot stored in a pit/clamp in the allotment ready to take home when needed. It is so satisfying walking down the vegetable aisle in the supermarket thinking I don't need to buy that,or that or that or that. It's not that I'm a meanie, The way allotment rents have increased up here it is cheaper to buy vegetables in the supermarket (the local authority has admitted this) but in any event it is so much more satisfying knowing we are eating what we have grown and we know what it has and perhaps more importantly what it has not been treated with

[VirginVegGrower]

Eggs and veg we are pretty good on. I can't keep us supplied with citrus fruit demand as we don't live in Spain. Or bananas as we don't live in Fyfes
I like to keep us in our own veg as I don't want WAXED or PEST SPRAYED muck on my plate. The harm to your health, once done cannot be undone. If I buy, it's seasonal all the way and from a local organic farm produced shop.

[Thelma Sanders]

I usually run out of potatoes just about now, and I'm coming to the end of the other winter veg and overwintered salads in the greenhouse
I still have enough frozen and dried beans to last me through, but will have to buy fresh green stuff until this years crops get going.
Crops for this time of year are difficult to plan as I only have a 3.5 rod plot so need all the beds cleared in time to start again for this year.

[binley100]

Have now run out of tatties and can't grow enough onions to last but other stuff if we haven't got it we don't tend to eat it. Freezer still has beans, passata, toms, and parsnips. I still have squash stored and fresh we now have psb , still some savoy , leeks and overwintering caulis and spring cabbage have started to get going.

[Doive]

We have two 60sqft raised beds that provide veg for most of the year, and umpteen potato grow bags for numerous varieties of potato, all ready at different times. I tend to grow crops such as kale and tree cabbage that are cut and come again, and usually last right through the winter with a little looking after. For peas we have dwarf, early and maincrop varieties. Carrots and parsnips I usually do successional sowings to keep going into early winter. Onions and shallots have a good keeping ability as well - dark, cool spaces are your friend!

[Feral007]

We have started trying to grow our own veg and fruit in the last two years.
Our ground and climate is pretty hard to garden in. Last year we were really happy with how much veg we could produce in such a small area.
This year we increased the area x 3. And didn't do so well. There was very little rain and immense heat and wind. Even so we have had snow peas, (the broad beans didn't last the heat) masses of rainbow chard, lettuce +++ but we weren't able to get the sessional planting organised well enough so lots some weeks and some gaps others. A lot of seedlings just couldn't make the transition due to the sudden and huge heat we got early season. Our herbs did good. We have our first harvest of our own sweet corn to share with the chooks. The potatoes are coming along, the zuchinni's have gone feral at last (thank goodness) and the turnips did ok. We're looking to do an autumn planting now and expect this season to be better due to rains the last two weeks.
We've just put in a small fruit orchard, but will be adding nuts and some veg to the area as well during winter and next spring.
And we started our chooks this summer. Getting 4 more ex batt's next weekend so we should be self sufficient (or in glut) for eggs then.

I'd love to say we were self sufficient, or that the 'hunger gap' that is talked about was small. But that's not happening yet. When you consider the time it takes to grow fruit trees to getting a good crop, it's silly of us to expect it.

Our main expectation at present, is to have some fruit and veg to eat, be improving the ground as we go, and putting in trees and shrubs and green manures, as we go, to end up with a garden that is more efficient at providing a suitable climate for the things we'll be growing in the future.

We've made a start. And we're enjoying the stuff that we do get to eat at the moment.

[redser]

There's not a doubt in my mind feral that you'll get there. It's just a matter of time. Fair play

[scorpius]

Cant get an allotment but do keep chickens in our back garden. Grow our own rhubarb, herbs, toms, runners, peas & anything thing else that might grow. Last got raspberry, blackberry, blackcurrant, blueberry, gooseberry & cranberry bushes. Have an apple tree. Would love more space to be able to grow more fruit & veg, keep a couple of pigs for meat etc

[Feral007]

No, see we would need to become vegetarians if we had to sustain our own meat, we just can't eat anyone we've known.

[Marcher]

We buy most things but top up with what we grow

This one. The veg patch isn't big enough to be self sufficient, it just supplements what I buy. If I dedicated the whole garden (very tempted to) I could easily be self sufficient in most things and have a surplus to sell at the gates ('tis a big garden )

[PyreneesPlot]

I buy potatoes and onions because both of those don't do well - I grow some but not enough. And sometimes we splash out on a bag of carrots as I can't seem to grow them, either. Otherwise we are self sufficient in veg.

That can mean eating the same things over and over, but that just forces me to be imaginative in the kitchen. Anyone got a good recipe for curried leeks?

We have planted apple, pear, plum, fig, walnut and cherry trees so sometime in the future we may be able to survive on that produce. But, like carrots, I will always buy bananas.

[Farmer_Gyles]

Providing we get "normal" weather, we should be about 90% self-sufficient in fruit and veg (not including things we can't grow like bananas). We make all our own jams and wine. Having 2 very large freezers helps with storage of fruit and veg until we can eat it or turn it into jams and wines.