What should we talk about?

Wendy February 11, 2011 at 2:13am

Hi Laine, Ive just joined the group and dont know where to start sharing - there are just so many worthwhile discussions to have on the subject!

We shifted back to our village block at the beginning of this year. We have 5310 sqm in a very fertile area of Waipa. We have 50 fruit and nut trees (about 9 years old)in the orchard and have just started our no-dig gardens. With the help of our first chicken-tractor we are on pace and they are on patch no 5.

At the rate of one patch (3.6m by 1.2m) every two weeks we are quickly running out of compost, so have begun to scavenge materials from neighbors in the village.

Our first investment was a mulcher/chipper, the trees werent looked after in our absence so we have plenty of material there for this layer in the gardens.

We did a lot of planning prior to coming back to the village and worked out based on our consumption how many chooks (110 per year), sheep (1.2 per year) and staples like potatoes(83 plants) we might need to grow to determine just how much space and self-sufficient we could become. We are now putting these calculations into practise and I will share the calculators once we can see we are on track.

It is a careful juggle financially for us and we are still finding our feet but between us we work 5 days a week, thats not a bad average of 2.5days of paid work each to keep things ticking over. At this stage we would have to work more to afford the bigger expenses (shade house, fencing off the orchard,alternate energy) .

For us becoming self-reliant and being part of the community are equally important. We feel like weve got a head start because we begun to plant 9 years ago, but there are a lot of things we would change; if only we knew then what we know now.

I estimate we will be able to become about 80% self-sufficient; the biggies like our own power/fuel alternatives and grains will be thehardest to achieve but we will give them a good nudge!

There are already some great ideas posted on here, I like Moggy's meetup idea maybe in our local groups perhaps we could arrange progressive learning were we all host the group once in a while and look at where we are at, what we have learnt and how we can help eachother. I like Jane's initiative in giving grains a go -sharing results from experimentation is great. And Silja's idea to focus on the other aspects of sustainability like alternate energy, and resources is great too.

I look forward to more comments and ideas and am in boots and all!

ttfn,

Wendy

Laine > Wendy February 15, 2011 at 9:35am

Hey Wendy,

thanks for sharing what you are up to. Sounds like you are very busy, but great to have some time not doing paid work to get stuck in. Keep us informed of your experiences please!

Smiles

Laine

Jane Maarie January 19, 2011 at 3:37am

As a child I grew up in the country on about 50acres or so with parents who were dairy farmers. We had huge fruiting orchards & veggie gardens that had to be weeded straight after school & as harvest time came around, again we were there for the long haul, selling surplus food at the gate, to the grocery man, feeding the family, making preserves, milking the cows & giving loads away to neighbors as trade for other goodies. My job was weeding the gardens which was as big as 1 acre along with my sisters. I remember thinking how much I hated living in the country because we were always put to work in the fields.

We were very much self sufficient in those days as we had no power & no running water. We had to run down to the bottom of the paddock in barefeet and collect our drinking water in plastic bottles every morning before school & We bathed further down stream. We boiled our water on the coal range for drinking & cooking. We had no luxuries and only lived on the basic means necessary. (not a sob story, just the way it was).

As an adult & looking back at that time of my life I can definately say that living a true self sufficient life is almost impossible nowadays but at least we can all try to do it. After many years of dreaming about moving back to the country we finally sold up & moved 10mins out of town on to 1 acre.

I gave up my job so that I could live my dream of living off the land by growing our own food & selling surplus at the gate which is proving to be a really good thing. What I am trying to do is create the lifestyle I grew up with on a much smaller scale, a very simple way of life that offers food from our land with tried & true skills I learnt & am still willing to learn so that we can teach our sons.

We have been in the country about 18 months now & we are loving it. It means that we are in a sense poorer because of travel back & fourth to town & higer mortgage but we are richer due to the fact that we are healther & freer to grow everything in order to eat & live a better way of life. My husband still works to suppliment our lifestyle. He is gluten free & suffers from allergies so, in my trial gardens I am experiementing with growing different kinds of corn to be ground down into flour & one of our sons is vegetarian so growing vegetables and living the simple life is at least a litte sef sufficient for us. Most of what I grow is from seed which are mostly the old heritage types from Koanga Institute & all our fruiting trees are the old types as well. cheers.

Butterflydreaming > Jane Maarie January 19, 2011 at 4:11am

:+)

Thats awesome

Thanks for sharing

Silja Baer January 12, 2011 at 7:54pm

I personally would also be interesed in the small and simple things that people may do to become less dependant on outside resources.

And I personally am not only interested in how to grow more in my garden (which is important but only one aspect of the picture for me) but also how I can become more self sufficient in other areas (eg power/ water).

For example I have been reading about a pot-in-a -pot refridgerating system which is totally independant from any power sources. Now having tried it I am very happy about it as I did not want to have a fridge for the one or two items I have at times that may need chilling.

I am also trying to use a solar garden light as a lamp fo my bath room for those moments where no light is really needeed but can still be handy to have -so far it is working allright. :-)

Roxy Hart > Silja Baer October 4, 2011 at 8:47am

Hi Silja, I am very interested to know more about the pot in a pot system you mentioned. How you make it? How you personaly use it?

Thanx

moggy January 12, 2011 at 10:49am

another thought, what about organic vs other methods of growing. probably could create a really hot debate there.

Richard Grevers > moggy January 25, 2011 at 2:36am

Well Moggy, both self-sufficient and community-sufficient imply sustainable, and sustainable tends to imply organic, since non-organic production usually depends on external resources. It's all about closing loops.

But note that organic doesn't imply self-sufficient, or even sustainable.
moggy > Richard Grevers January 25, 2011 at 4:05am

I don't think it is a simple case of organic methods being sustainable and other methods not. On our land, if I was to try the completely organic route, it would involve transporting huge amounts of organic material and horse manure for composting. The fuel costs alone for that are prohibitive and not exactly envionmentally friendly. our hydroponics invovles collected a small sack of nutrients about once every 3 months. All the pots and growing medium are reused, so waste is minimal. The waste veg that is grown is subsequently fed to the chickens and we get the eggs.

It takes thousands of years to build up a good layer of soil by natural formation, I can't wait that long.

Organic can also involve lots of external resources, it is unlikely you are able to make your own pyrethrum spray, and will no doubt buy it instead.

moggy January 12, 2011 at 10:48am

I would like to meet up with similar minded people in person. Wondering if deciding on a meetup etiquette would be good.

eg one person advertises an open garden, they provide nibbles or a meal depending on what people think is right. People who come look at the garden say don't so much bring a plate, but bring a bag of something from their garden, or maybe people would prefer to offer and hour to help in the garden, or something else.

Hosts maybe could either give away or sell seeds of their most successful crops (depending on ettiquette).

Another thing people might be interested in talking about, if they have a large garden is wwoofers. We make great use of the system and have had many positive experiences.

Becoming More Self Reliant

What should we talk about?

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