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Growing Potatoes in Royal Mail Sacks!

2/10/2016

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Not much is tastier than your fresh home grown veggies dug out of your garden.  This is especially true is potatoes!

We had actually forgotten that we had planted some chitted spuds in Royal Mail sacks along the side of the out-house, and today we were wondering what we could have for supper - hey presto, faster than a first class delivery, we had a decent haul of fresh spuds. ​
We have found that the postie or the local sorting office are all too happy to give you their old and worn out sacks. Royal Mail sacks (and other similar sacks and bags) are ideal for filling with soil and planting the chitted potatoes when you have filled your ground.  

​The sacks are breathable, allow water to drain out freely and the sides can be pulled up as you earth up around the potatoes.  
​

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Once the potato plants have died back, the postal sacks are easy to tip out, the spuds collected through and sorted into relevant sizes.  Big ones for mashing and jackets, small for boiling and average size for roasting.  
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LIFE WITHOUT THE FRIDGE

12/8/2016

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We had a moment of revelation on a perfectly normal Tuesday lunchtime.  There was nothing special about this particular Tuesday, nor anything amazing about the lunch that we had.  But, as I was putting a bottle of tomato sauce back into the fridge, I noticed the light bulb flicker on in this cold cupboard.  This in turn sparked a flash of an idea as I had a light bulb moment.  

Why was I putting tomato sauce in the fridge? Because it said I should on the packaging.  Now surely tomato sauce was created by the Italians to preserve tomatoes long before the refrigerator, hence the reason it is ladened with salt and vinegar.  

I delved my head deeper into the icy abyss and pulled out a few jars, none of which needed to be in there, and also found some food that should have been eaten several days prior.  Why were we using electricity to cool things in a cupboard that didn’t need to be kept cool?

We, as a couple and as consumers, have been convinced that we NEED to keep these condiments in the fridge, we have also been conditioned that we need a fridge!  I questioned where my logic was leading me, I even thought that my thought was barmy!  

What if. . . What if I turned the fridge off? Would our world come crashing down around us? Would we be social rejects for not powering a fridge that we don’t use? I pushed the switch.  It was off.  And it has stayed off for the past two years!

Our nans had pantries, cool cupboards where they kept their food and would not dream of paying good hard cash for electricity to keep it cold.  They had developed natural methods of keeping food fresh, be it buying smaller quantities more frequently, preserving it by methods of pickling, drying, smoking or using a dampened clay flower pot to wick away the warmth from an item.  
​

This fridge incident caused us to question so many aspects of our lives.  It caused us to look at the things that surround us as really question if we need it.  In many cases, we don’t.  Items are marketed to us in such a way that the companies create an artificial need, that we “must have” or we will be outcasts of society.

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our new eco toothbrushes

10/8/2016

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One of the points in our mission statement is that we want to be as eco friendly and as environmentally sound as we can be.  We have therefore looked at many of our everyday items and reevaluated what we need, and what alternatives we have available to us.
 

We think that the less we send to the landfill the better and identified plastic as being our number one enemy. In an attempt to purge ourselves from this man-made material which takes anywhere between 450 and 1000 years to decompose we noticed that the one plastic thing we can’t do away with is a toothbrush. As my dentist is always reminding me, I should change my toothbrush every three months - that is over 300 toothbrushes that I would expect to send to the landfill in my lifetime!

So what are the options?  Short of not brushing our teeth, we needed to find a toothbrush that was 100% natural and disposable in a suitable way. After a little looking and researching we finally chose an environmental bamboo toothbrush. It is fully biodegradable, quickly renewable and costs about the same that a plastic toothbrush does! And it comes in a biodegradable packaging too!

​Everyone's a winner!
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how bright are oil lamps?

10/8/2016

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Ohhh how exciting.  Our two new old oil lamps have arrived, and they look good!  

We have yet to test them, but we are really interested to see how bright they will be.  One of our concerns is the brightness of oil lamps, and if they will be strong enough to read and knit by.  

Tonight will give us the answers! 

Six hours later and wow, the light is so cosy and warm! The light from a single oil lamp fills the room casting dancing flickers into each and every corner. Verdict is in: one, maybe two of these lamps is definitely enough to carry out most evening hobbies, however, care will have to be taken with some night time activities as to not topple the lamps over!
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Homestead or Smallholding?

10/8/2016

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​Homestead or Smallholding?

As we are launching ourselves into a new way of life, we have been using google a lot to gather information that will help us along our journey.  Although we are not ones for nestling into labels, knowing the keywords to enter into a search engine to gain the information is pretty important.

​
There are two terms that I feel are relevant to us, one term is British and the other is American. Normally, I would always use the British version (It’s a tap, what the heck is a faucet?) Homestead or Smallholding - which is most accurate?

The homestead

A homestead is the American version of a smallholding, but to me, a homestead embraces much more than using land to grow your own produce.  A homestead is more about the home, the old crafts that are carried out within. 

​With American homesteading, there seems to be a large amount of time and effort dedicated to making, cooking, preserving, canning, sewing and self sufficiency based around all of the homely skills. By definition, the term homestead is “A home, especially a farmhouse.”

The smallholding​

A smallholding in Britain seems to have quite an ambiguous meaning, and is defined as “an agricultural holding smaller than a farm”. How big is a small farm, and where do we draw the line between a vegetable garden and a small holding.

The feel I have towards a smallholding is that of the land and not the home, it is about the range of goats, pigs and sheep that you rear and not about the meals you cook from them nor the wool you spin and the hides you tan from the animals. ​

Our conclusion

My view is we are better looking, searching for smallholdings for the things we do with our crops, garden, fur and feather, simply because our breeds of animal; and our climate is far different from our friends across the pond.  

Yet, for all things internal I have found that searching for homestead gives us far better results for the information that we want. 

​
My overall view is that  we are a homestead with a smallholding!
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  • Home
    • About Us >
      • First Time Pregnant
    • Contact Us
  • Wine List & Recipes
    • Banana Wine Made Simple
    • Blaand
    • Blackberry Mead
    • Christmas Pudding Wine!
    • Chocolate Wine
    • Easy Rhubarb Wine
    • Gorse Flower Wine
    • Gutsy Ginger Wine
    • Liquorice Wine
    • Mead Making Made Simple
    • Melon Wine
    • Mint Wine Recipe
    • Mushroom Wine
    • Nasturtium Leaf Wine
    • Nettle and Mint Wine
    • No Boil Rhubarb Wine
    • Orange Wine
    • Lemon and Ginger Mead
    • Pear Wine
    • Pine Needle Wine
    • Pumpkin Wine
    • Rose Hip Leaf Wine
    • Red Kidney Bean Wine!
    • Rose Petal Wine
    • Rhubarb and Apple Wine
    • Seaweed Wine
    • Spiced banana wine
    • Sticky Toffee Pudding Wine
    • Turnip and Red Cabbage Wine
    • Wine Making 101
    • What is a country wine?
    • ​Can I use bread yeast to make wine?