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Tag Archives: self sufficiency
The Sustainable Smallholding End of Year Roundup
2009 was another busy year at the Sustainable Smallholding, with changes to the management of my bees, an increase in the number of chickens, and hives, the addition of ducks, the creation of swales, and lots of experimental growing. This included growing tobacco, manuka, eucalyptus, acacia, small scale wheat growing etc. So I thought that I’d do a short summary, and a look forward to my plans for next year.
Sustainable Watches
My Mother’s generation, growing up during World War Two, had to learn to make do. Growing up poor, we also needed to save, money. My Mum hasn’t forgotten those times, and remains ‘careful’ with her money to this day. Yesterday she taught me another lesson in economy.
My mum is a car boot, and jumble sale fanatic. As a pensioner, she gets free bus travel, so I often get her to look out for stuff for me. It gives her a good reason to get out of the house. Yesterday I asked her to check whether or not any of the Jewelers shops in the local towns, still sold wind up (non battery) watches. I have not worn a watch for some time now, and dislike digital watches. Many of them are so cheap that people throw them away, instead of replacing the battery. I wanted a watch that didn’t need a battery, but wasn’t sure if anybody sold them any more. My mum listened carefully whilst I explained what I was looking for, why I was looking for it and so on. She then said “I buy old watches from the second hand shops for £1. Do you want me to look for one for you?” It turns out that she has bought non-digital watches for less than it costs to change the battery on a new one. How messed up have we becomeas a society? We pay more for a plastic watch, that will always need replacement batteries, than for a second hand mechanical timepiece, that should last a lifetime. Whoever did the advertising for that must have earnt a fortune. Imagine the advert. “Why spend your money on a watch that will last a lifetime, when you can buy a piece of plastic, that will need you to keep spending more money on it, for the rest of its life?”. Yes, I know, I bought them too, but it’s time for a reality check. Sustainability isn’t just about the big things. It’s about all of the little changes that we all need to make. For me, a new (old) watch is one of them. Secondhand clothes are another. I recently decided to avoid all artificial fibres in my clothing and told my two shopaholics (wife and mother) so, and that I needed some jumpers, preferably wool, but cotton would do. My wife did what she does, and bought me a new woollen jumper, for about £20. She doesn’t always get it!. My mum turned up with two jumpers from a charity shop. Total cost £2.25. Pure wool. I had already bought two for myself, total cost £2.50. One looked like new, and I wear as ‘decent’, but all of the others I wear to work in. I’m wearing one at this moment.
After asking my mum to look out for a watch for me, I tried to tell her that she needed to check that they were still working before she bought one. I needn’t have bothered. She said that when she finds a watch that’s she’s interested in, she winds it up, and then leaves the shop. She then goes back another day, and if the watch still shows the correct time, she’s happy to part with her pound. There’s a lot that we can learn from our mums.
Deano
Smallholding Daily Routine
Whilst the work that needs doing on any Smallholding will vary, I thought that I would give an example of a fairly typical day here on The Sustainable Smallholding, so that those of you who might be considering a move towards Self Sufficiency could get a feel of what daily life is like. At the end is a little dash of my own philosophy, for anybody who is interested in the mental aspects of what a smallholder’s life is all about.
Tuesday night I finished assembling brood frames (beehive parts) at about 2200hrs(BST), grabbed a bottle of Red wine, and headed up to the computer to check this blog, and my Scything Blog Scything Blog, The Grinning Reaper. After dealing with the days e mails, I hit the sack at about midnight, having finished the whole bottle. I woke up at 0630 hrs, with a slightly fuzzy head, to the sound of two cockerels having a crowing competition under my windowsill. Yes, I’d forgotten to lock them away the night before. A quick cup of tea followed, and then it was time to walk the Greyhounds, feed them, feed and water the chickens, collect eggs, throw broody Silkies out of the hutch, and then time for yet another cup of tea. I guess for most smallholders, and other livestock keepers, animal husbandry is quite often the first of the days’ chores, with the duration dependent on the number and type of animals. I also grabbed a few photographs to add to this post.
My next chore is watering plants. This is quite tedious at the moment, as we had no significant rain until this afternoon. As I start almost all of my plants off in modules, there is a lot to do. It takes me up to an hour and a half, less if it has rained, as then I only need to do the plants under cover. This doesn’t include plants growing out in the beds. Later in the year this could add another hour to the task. I could save time by adding a watering system, but it goes against what I’m trying to achieve here. If I’m honest, and I am, using all of the plastic (pots) isn’t sustainable in the long term. Some of the modules that I use are made from recycled plastic, but I hope that as I develop the growing area to include mainly perennial plants, my need for this annual round of seed sowing and watering will reduce.
Yesterday was a root day, so I sowed radishes, carrots, beetroot, celeriac. I then planted out some garlic, lettuce, rocket and herbs, that had been growing in modules, freeing up some more trays. I also shifted trays of plants around, to make some more space available, and to start hardening off the next batch of stuff to be planted out. Tomatoes were potted on, and I managed to fit in a little bit of weeding, but probably not enough. In the middle of all of that gardening work, at about midday, I realised that I had missed breakfast, and grabbed a couple of pieces of fruit.
Bees were next. The field of Oilseed Rape next to me is just starting to show some yellow, which means that the flowers will be opening soon. I have been feeding one of my hives, to get them to draw foundation in a second brood body, which I put under the rest of the hive last week. The idea was to give me enough brood frames, already drawn out, to allow me to split the hive at the end of this month. Alternatively, I can try one of the methods of queen-rearing, which uses the removal of frames of eggs from a lower brood body, and placing them in an upper brood chamber, separated by a queen excluder and at least one super. This is how one of my hives is currently configured, but without the excluder at present.

Beehive Skyscraper
This is how it looked before I started. I then added three supers on top of this lot. If it were any higher, I would have needed a step ladder. The picture was taken at about half past eight (0730 GMT), and the bees were already busy. I spotted my bees on Flowering Currant, Blackthorn, and Wild Cherry. Many of the books that I’ve read suggest that bees do not forage close the the hive, but this picture of a bee on Blackthorn, was taken about 8 metres from the hive, and the tree was full of bees.

Bee on Blackthorn
The late afternoon chores were the standard feed corn to chickens, walk and feed dogs, followed by more Tea. I spent the early evening, putting more frames together, and cleaning hive parts, so that I have spare hives assembled, ready for when the bees decide to start swarming. Either to house any swarms from my own hives, or to use for other swarms, lost by another beekeeper.
Finally I remembered to eat, and then my typical 24 hours ends here at the computer.
The thing to realise about running a smallholding is that you never ever finish. If I were to find a list of ‘Jobs to Do’, written nine years ago, many of those jobs would still be outstanding. It is possible to put in eighteen hour days, every day of the year, and burn yourself out. I have been there myself. Now I am more forgiving of myself. If I get it done, I’m happy. If not, that’s just the way it is. Not only is life too short to worry about the little things, but I believe that it’s what you do day by day that’s the most important part of life. It’s great having a plan, and a list of things to do, but we live our lives day by day, minute by minute, and those minutes are your life. I’ve heard it described as ‘if life is a journey, it’s the traveling that’s important, not the final destination’. I couldn’t agree more.
There are things in life that are within your ability to influence, and then there are the things that no matter what you do, they’re not going to change. Things like the weather, time, and most animals seem to do what they want, not what you want them to do. Concentrate on the things that you can do. If it is too wet/cold/muddy/windy/hot/dry/late to do the job that you had planned, there is always something else to keep you busy.
Finally, always make time for people. Your friends, family, fellow smallholders, beekeepers, are your support network, and you are part of theirs. If I think back on all of my ‘happy moments’, I cannot think of any where I’m on my own. Without people to share them with, they’re never as good. I guess what I’m trying to say is that you need to balance your needs as a human being, with a never ending list of things that you could be doing, and my point of balance has moved away from the chores, and closer to me.
Take Care
Deano
Ryeland Rams To leave The Smallholding
Well they’re finally going. The last of the flock, my two Ryeland rams are leaving the Smallholding.They are being collected tomorrow lunchtime. This marks the end of a three year foray into keeping sheep, and marks the beginning of a new phase in the building of a sustainable future.
When I stopped racing Greyhounds, I had about three acres of grass that were not being utilised. We had re-homed most of the dogs, keeping seven. I had been growing vegetables and fruit for some time, and was already scything the fields, which took some effort. We needed to do something to utilise the available space on the smallholding, and I thought that we could keep sheep. They would eat some of the grass, I could make hay, and we would have plenty of meat for the freezer. I checked out the different breeds, and thought that the Ryeland would make the ideal sheep for a smallholder. I still feel the same way three years later. This link will take you to a the Ryeland Flock Book Society website’s page that describes the breed.
http://www.ryelandfbs.com/ryelands.html
We bought six ewe lambs, and reared them, then a ram, and we lambed for the first time a year ago. It could have gone a little more smoothly, but it worked. We sold the ewe lambs, and one of the young tups, for breeding, swapped one ram lamb for half a pig, and put one ram lamb, and a barren ewe into the freezer, in November. In the interim, I had stopped eating meat. That decision meant that I was doing quite a bit of work, for no personal reward. I had also come to realise that whilst I could be self sufficient in food whether I kept sheep or not, I couldn’t be self sufficient in fuel if I kept sheep. They eat the trees. So the ewes were sold, and I was left with my ram, and his companion (son). Nobody wanted to buy him, and for a while, nobody wanted to take them for free. Luckily that has now changed, and they go tomorrow, to a friend.
Was the decision to keep sheep a good one? Well, judged financially definitely not, but not everything should be judged by it’s monetary return. Keeping sheep certainly helped to steer me towards vegetarianism. I ate very little meat anyway, and I found it increasingly difficult to justify the taking of a life, to feed myself. Each sheep had their own personality, came for a scratch, and having worked so hard to keep some of the lambs alive, it didn’t seem to make sense to then kill them. I also read a couple of books from the Krishna Conciousness Movement, and their view that every creature has a soul struck a chord within me. How could I hope that my dogs would have an afterlife, and not think that sheep might also have a soul?
I have also learnt a lot about keeping sheep. Whilst I don’t expect to do it again, if there is ever a need to show people how it’s done, I can help. I guess that the best reason for giving it a go would be to avoid the “What if?” question later. I try to do everything that I fancy having a go at, just so that I have few regrets. I don’t regret keeping sheep, and I will not regret stopping. A friend of mine, and fellow smallholder, said that most smallholders keep on taking new things on until it all gets too much, and then cut back to what they like the most. Without trying them all, we have no way of knowing which of them we’ll enjoy.
So I’ll miss the sheep, and my ram, and will be a little sad to see the last two go, but it was the right decision to get them, and the right one to let them go. Now I can look forward to planting trees. Too late for this Winter, but it gives me time to refine the plan, and to use permaculture principles in the new design.
Love and Best Wishes to you all
Deano