A Years Hair Care Sorted

        

     

A mystery parcel arrived the other day.

At first I was baffled, and then I remembered a short email the other week telling me that I had won one of the prizes offered for filling in a short vegan survey.

My prize was a years supply of Faith in Nature shampoo and conditioner.

Brilliant, that's something else we won't have to buy for well over a year ... we both have very short hair so each bottle of shampoo will last us well over a month each.  And as I rarely use conditioner one bottle of that should last to go with each of the three shampoos of that 'flavour'.  Meaning I can sell two of each flavour conditioner at the next car boot sale we do and use the money I get to buy me a couple of boxes of hair dye ... a very necessary expenditure  ;-)

With selling in mind I went on the Faith in Nature website to have a look at how much these shampoos and conditioners retail for and was astonished to find it is £6 a bottle!!  Then I checked with Superdrug and found that they usually sell them for £5.99 but at the moment they are on offer at £2.99.  Whichever way you look at it I have done very nicely  :-)

So that's us sorted in haircare for at least a year, and another thing we can't produce ourselves ticked off the list.

Sue xx

Self Sufficient In - Strawberry Plants

The strawberry plants that live in the tyres by the front doors of the polytunnel are running rampant with runners this year.  It's a good sign that the plants are happy in their environment and want to multiply and who am I to stop them.  I've found out from experience that virtually everything likes growing in tyres, we always ask to keep ours when the vehicles need new ones  :-)

Once you have a few strawberry plants it's very easy year after year to keep yourself self sufficient in new plants rather than going out and buying some more, and it's so easy to do, in fact you barely have to do anything the plant does most of it for you.

The long leggy runners that come off the plant are the plants ways of reaching out for fresh soil for it's babies and all you have to do is direct them into a bit of spare ground or if they are container grown into more containers.

I  have plant pots dotted all around the tyres ....

... and a long trough with lots of fresh compost.

You simply direct the end of the runner to the soil you want it to root in.

Mine have rooted very quickly, so quickly in fact that I didn't even get round to pegging them down, which it is best to do to help the end of the runner stay under the soil and develop a good root system of its own.

You can make little pegs out of snipped off wire, or do as I usually do and find some forked ended twigs and hold them down that way.

Then it's simply a question of waiting for nature to do her stuff and let the little runner develop roots to hold it in it's new home.  Once it's got a good root system and a little tug no longer dislodges it from the soil you can simply snip through the long runner a few inches away from the new plant.

These last three photos are from Google Images.

And there it is a lovely new little baby strawberry plant ready to put somewhere sheltered before planting into a new bed with others,  or adding to your existing strawberry bed for next year.  And if you can be brave for their first year and not pick any of the berries off your new plants you will find that in their second year of growth you will have a bumper crop, one that will be well worth waiting for.

We have been self-sufficient in strawberry plants for about the last three years ... one more tick on the list on our journey to self sufficiency   :-)

Sue xx

New Birds - Self Sufficient In ... Eggs and Chicken

This is another in a series of posts about what we are, or are on our way to being, Self Sufficient In  ...

Saturday evening after tea we went to pick up four new birds to add to our now slightly diminished chicken flock.  With this year's natural deaths we were down to just sixteen birds, one cockerel, Jack and his fifteen wives, a couple of which are now barely laying due to their age.  

We don't cull our birds when they have stopped laying at the moment. but we have discussed this long and hard and from now on most of the birds we buy will be dual purpose to give Lovely Hubby a few chickens a year as home reared meat.

With this in mind we set out to purchase four Light Sussex hens which are large dual purpose hens exactly as we need.

(both these photos are from Google Images, I will photograph ours soon)

But then I got tempted by the Calder Rangers ... aren't they just a glorious colour, so we got two of each.

We are just in the process of setting up a schedule of buying four birds, once or twice a year to bring fresh laying capability into the flock and ease out the sparser laying older girls.  I have to grit my teeth and go along with this as it makes much more financial sense and will seem a bit easier to me than rearing a whole flock of birds separately that will all go to meat after a few months.  We also do not currently have the space to keep two flocks on the go at once as they couldn't live together, birds being bred purely for meat are on different food to those that are egg layers.

I sat and worked out our entire chicken keeping journey in financial terms the other day to see for myself how 'self-sufficient' we actually are in eggs, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that including our purchases of the five hen houses we have had over our lifetime of chicken keeping, adding back in the proceeds from the sale of two of them, the cost of the birds, the food, the vet bills for Daisy and all the other paraphernalia involved in hen keeping we come out nicely in the black .... just!!  It helped to balance the figures when we had our large flock of rescued free-rangers, and sold masses of eggs to regular customers at Lovely Hubby's workplace and also at the Farmers Markets we had monthly stalls at and the regular car boot sales in between markets.

Now we sell a lot fewer eggs but there was enough in the chicken kitty to buy the new girls and pay for feed for the next couple of months ... and of course there are eggs here still waiting to be sold.

So I can hand on heart say we are Self sufficient in eggs ... and one day, hopefully we will be self sufficient in chicken meat*.  

Sue xx

* Chicken meat will be supplemented by Lovely Hubby culling the rabbits on our hillside ... it's supposed to taste pretty similar, or so I've been reliably informed by the man himself, so he will use this in lots more of the dishes he currently uses chicken in.

The Orchard - Self Sufficient in ... Fruit and Nuts

This is to be part of a series of posts about what we are, or are on our way to being, Self Sufficient In  ...

Everywhere is greening up nicely now, so much so that I am going to start calling the spot where the chickens are currently living The Orchard.  After all according to Wikipedia -

 'An orchard is an intentional planting of trees or shrubs that is maintained for food production.'

 Which is exactly what this is, although with the trees appearing to be no more than spindly little sticks until this last few weeks, I was loathe to give it such a 'posh' title. 

So in The Orchard we have:

3 Damson trees - Merryweather 

3 Pear trees - Doyenne du Comice

3  Cherry trees - 2 Stella and 1 Morello 

3 Apple trees - 1 Bramley, 1 Braeburn and 1 Cox's Orange Pippin

3 Plum trees - Victoria

And at the top of the hill espaliered on the fence is another unknown variety of Pear.

All the trees used to have identifying labels on them ... but the chickens have very helpfully removed most of them, it's a good job I have a little notebook that reminds me of everything that we have planted!!

I have temporarily moved the Blueberries out of the Net Tunnel to stand by the back door of it.  The wind has been much calmer recently and as a reader commented recently (thanks for the reminder Kris) they do need to be pollinated by the bees.  It was okay while I was working in there with the door open each day but I have had no reason to be in there for the last week and I doubt many bees would be able to fit through the mesh of the tunnel so (to quote Nellie Pledge) they are stood standing  outside for now.

At the front door of the polytunnel, this week's sunshine and warmth has brought the transplanted strawberries on a treat and at last we have flowers.  The strawberries in the tall galvanised planter on the right of the tyres have now been joined by the start of the Jerusalem Artichokes that also live in this tub.  That's the first one coming through that you can see in the top righthand corner of the tub.

 As well as the fruit trees in the Orchard and the strawberries here in the old tyres and planter, we have the nut trees in Nut Wood, four Walnut, two Almond and two Sweet Chestnut.  This is our wildlife area and also has wild flowers and lots of Borage to encourage the bees.  In the Rhubarb patch there are now four rhubarb different kinds of rhubarb alongside some more strawberries that were hiding when I moved the others.  There is also a hanging basket of strawberry plants in the polytunnel and a tray of Cape Gooseberries that have over-wintered nicely.  

Dotted regularly down the fence of the hillside we have our red, black and white currant bushes and by the Rowens at the bottom of the hill are the four Gooseberries.  All of which were cuttings taken from our neighbour Mary's lovely bushes last year and they're doing really well.  And I mustn't forget the old Belfast sink near the back door that is absolutely full of lovely flowering strawberry plants.  

And of course over in the original Chicken World there are the Plum and Cherry trees and the huge old Bramley apple tree that absolutely dripped with huge apples last year, many of which are still residing in the freezer, sliced and in crumbles and pie bases.  Over by the man-shed there is another old eating apple tree of unknown type, all these were here when we moved in and although we do not know the type we do now know the flavour and that is very good.

So I have my fingers firmly crossed for another decent fruit yield this year, with the amount of blossom that is on all the trees it's looking hopeful.

So one day we will be Self Sufficient In ... Fruit and Nuts

Sue xx