Who, What, and Where are we 

We live in Suffolk, near both the Norfolk and Cambridge borders. The dream is ten acres and a part time job so we can spend time on the smallholding, growing our own food and generally enjoy a better quality of life.  
Until then however.....  
We live in a residential estate, in a 2 bed semi-detached bungalow, with a small - average sized garden. We started on the road to self sufficiency a couple of years ago, mainly for financial reasons - I was out of work after being made redundant and bills were piling up. The idea of growing our own, good quality food for very little money, and foraging for FREE food was a huge draw.  We are complete novices, learning from books and advice from other people, and this has led many of our friends and family to think (probably with good reason) that we are completely and utterly insane.  

A brief history of the last few years.... 

2005: How it started..
We got some books and done some reading, but other than blackberries, apples and elderberries that’s as far as the foraging got, but it did give us a kick in the right direction. We devoted part of the back garden to veggies, planted potatoes, peas and carrots in pots, and planted a few strawberry’s. Then I got carried away and planted grapes, raspberry’s, blackberries, and loganberry’s, hops, and done 4 growbags of tomatoes. We got one of those cheap plastic 4 shelf lean-to greenhouse/shelving/staging things (don’t have room for a green house), and used it to propagate some seeds. We went picking for fruit, and the wife made blackberry jam (or sugary glop as she called it), and I made apple and blackberry wine, and used a beer kit (that I brought my brother 2 years before - he never used it and returned it too me - cheers mate) to make my first home brew.  

2006: We got brave and plunged in head first...
Added 2 more mini greenhouse things - for toms and peppers, planted more raspberries, watercress (in the spillway for my pond), extended the back garden veg bed, got 2 small trees - damson and cherry, and turned 80% of our front garden into veggie beds (although has led to my rather large pumpkins (never grown before and was rather proud off) being stolen, as anyone walking past could see what we were growing. We even got 1 free meal of crayfish from the river lark (even if it did cost a pack of bacon as bait!!).  That summer also saw the great menace of the cabbage white completely devastate our broccoli, cabbage, sprouts and even watercress!!! We regularly tried to remove as many of the little sods as possible in a vain hope that after the first frost we might salvage a few sprouts or a tiny sprig of broccoli.  Our biggest venture was to add 3 chooks. The original idea was a movable house, but after looking into the price of these I decided to build my own. I’m no carpenter and got a bit carried away. The house is fantastic, with doors in both sides, removable roof, perches, dropping tray and nestboxes. The chooks love it, but its 4ft wide, 4ft long and 6 ft high !!!!!. They also have a 5ft long run that attaches to the front and its raised 2 ft off the ground so they can get underneath giving them plenty of room to root around - altogether though it’s not easily movable, and has had to be sited in a permanent location. They will be let loose on any cabbage whites that dare threaten the garden again.  We also started to try and get more green/thrifty/eco friendly. During the summer I used some old bedroom furniture (from when I still lived with my mum and dad - it was about 12 years old!!!) to hammer together a very (very very) rough compost bin, and we put our first water butt in place. After spending 2 years buying compost and manure in those little bags from the garden centre, I was also given access to an 11 ton pile of well rotted horse manure.  For Christmas we made jams, chutneys, jellies and piccalilli, wine and hams for everyone’s gifts - and they went down a storm. Everyone still thinks we are a bit mad, but hey 'who aint', and at least our insanity provided them with grub 

2007 (upto March 15th and the start of this blog):
Home brewing is going from strength to strength (literally - damn it’s strong) with beer and wine constantly bubbling away in the cupboard (about 20 gallons of wine at the mo). Plans are in the making for curing bacon, the summer fruit crop, bartering with jams and eggs and making more experimental booze.  The chooks are now permanently situated by the garden fence, and provide free entertainment for all the passing school children on a daily basis, and has led to us meeting more people wanting to make the lifestyle leap - they see the chooks and front garden full of veggies and stop by and ask us how we do it - I’m a complete amateur, I never thought id be giving out advice!!! We have now even decided to extend the run and add 2 more chooks.  Shopping at big supermarkets is now only done for things we really need - mainly cleaning supplies, cat food etc, tinned foods etc. All our meat now comes from the local butcher who also does bags of local spuds, carrots, onions etc for a really good price. This is all supplemented by a smallholding we discovered in a nearby village who sell (either their own or from other local sources) fresh produce direct to the public - they even supply all my chicken feed and bedding at a bargain price!  I’m in the middle of moving our patio to make room for more growing space, and am learning to shoot (air rifle needs a new spring and/or seals at the mo) so bunnies beware. For the first time we have been planning out what we need to sow and where - up to now our plan has been, there’s a space, stick something in it - but this year we really want to try and get a year round supply, rather than just a period of glut, and have made our first attempts into this by letting onions, shallots and garlic over winter - they now have 5 inch shoots on some of them. The frost and snow finally put an end to the great cabbage white caterpillar invasion, and our struggling broccoli and sprouts have recovered enough to provide us a few good meals. The cabbages however where completely RIP'd - what the caterpillars left, the slugs took - I gave the sorry remnants to the chooks though, so at least some good came of it.  With the old patio moved, we have just put in a raised bed that I can net - hopefully this year’s brassicas will do much better. Hoping to fill it with manure this weekend. Wife has just taken to making all our own bread too - its great setting the timer on the bread maker and waking up to the smell of fresh bread - certainly gets me out of bed in the mornings. She has really taken to seeing what can be made in the kitchen, and her jams and chutneys are always in demand - im a huge fan of her chunky piccalilli. Our thrifty-ness has increased too - a far as possible all leftovers/offcuts of meat, veg and fruit, either goes to the chooks, the compost, a good stock or soup or even another complete meal - one of our proudest moments was when we done 2 meals (both for 3 people) with one pheasant (I must admit though - he was a big'un), and still made a cracking stock with the carcass- we weren’t stingy with the meat, we just used every bit of it we could find, with good accomplaments - there was a time we would have cut the breasts off and chucked the rest in the bin.  

Where we are now, and why are we doing this 

We have now firmly decided the self sufficient, green, eco-friendly, River Cottage-esqe, life style is for us. People wonder what we are on about - at one end of the scale are those who think it means you have to be a colourful, unwashed, vegetarian hippy (FYO - I have nothing against colourful, unwashed, vegetarian hippies), while at the other end are those that think we are against all forms of modern living. In fact we are a little of both (the hippie bit is washed however, and the modern part would beat you senseless if you tried to take the XBOX away), and the way we live is about taking notice and responsibility for what you do and how it affects the people and environment around you. For example: 

• To cut back on food miles, we try to grow some of our own food or buy local produce.
• I enjoy a drink (or several), so I save some money from brewing my own.
• We feed green kitchen scraps to our chickens, and compost other organic waste, so there’s less for the landfill.
• We recycle - not hard to do, but it does makes a difference.
• Use energy saving lightbulbs and turn things off - dont leave them on standby. Again, its easy to do and it does make a difference.

Hopefully this blog will give you an insight into our small smallholding, and what it means to us in our daily lives. If it inspires anyone to try something new, then thats even better.