Feeding The Birds

All animals have to have their place on this homestead, if they don't they have to go. Luckily I love watching the birds in the garden, in fact we all do.

I treated the girls to some new feeders for the birds the other day and I was going to buy a big bag of bird food until I looked closer and saw that it was mainly wheat with a few sunflower seeds! No chance! Instead I brought a bag of sunflower seeds and mixed it with the wheat I keep for the chickens (I get that for free from my father - lucky bugger that I am). 

This with some stale bread and an old apple or two should keep the blue tits happy! 

Who else loves feeding the birds? Which garden bird is your favourite?

New Zealand Yam Harvest

Last year I grew some New Zealand Yams (Ocas), I've only just got round to harvesting them as it's been so mild I had no risk of the frost killing them off, they do say to leave them in the ground for as long as possible but I might have taken that to the extreme!

I brought some from the Real Seed Company and Dawn From Doing It For Ourselves In Wales also sent me a package with them in. It was really good because it gave me a good amount to grow and a good mix of red and white ones as well.

They all grew well over the summer and the leaves were a great snack in the garden, but I didn't realise how well they were growing until I came to harvest them.

White ones

 The girls and I have dug up no end of these. It's been a fun game for them because it's like finding buried treasure, a little shining red or white grub like tuber in the mud, lots of cries of "There's one!" and giggles as they get stuck in the mud. 

Red ones

Getting stuck in! It's pretty muddy here! 

Full builders bucket and that's not all of them! 

We had a full builders bucket of red and white tubers, plus a good few large pots full as well. I cooked them for the first time on New Years Day and they tasted really nice just roasted with the rest of the veg.

I think that these are a great backup crop to have in the garden, a relativity trouble free source of carbohydrates, unaffected by blight, and is meant to store quite well. Another advantage is that very few people will recognise the crop while it's growing. 

Who else has grown these? Any good recommendations for cooking them and storing them?

Belly Measuring

I was more than a little disappointed the other day.

The girls decided to measure our bellies. My wife is 9 months pregnant and lets just say the results weren't what I was expecting!

We were measuring the widest points, not our waists by the way! 

Nine month pregnant wife measuring in at 110cm (43") round the widest point! 

Mine was 106cm (42") around the widest points 

The girls wanted in on the fun! 

Together they were still less than either of us! 

I'm a fairly big guy, 6ft and weigh 15 stone, but I'm not fat ( I wear 36" trousers which are baggy on me!)!

I guess it showed me how much smaller my wife is than me normally if she's only just slightly bigger than me when she has another person inside her! Doon;t worry I'm not going to ask everyone to do a widest point belly reveal on here - You can keep that to yourself! 

My Nine Self Sufficiency Goals For 2015 - How Did I Do?

In January I wrote a post with nine self sufficiency goals for 2015, they were pretty ambitious. 

So how did I do?

Increase my growing area - Well I certainly did this. I created a whole new veg garden and although I didn't keep on top of it as much as I would have liked, it produced loads of produce with some food still being in the ground in there now (as well as 150 young apple trees growing on).

I also made some new raised beds in my main veg garden to grow more unusual veg.

We also rented an extra ten acres of land next door to our homestead so this has given us more opportunities to expand in other directions!

Produce more protein on the homestead - With the purchase of 32 sheep and lambs I think we've certainly hit this target, even if we've not tasted any of it yet! We also ate a few cockerels and I grew chickpeas (that the mice ate!).

Improve my composting and "loop closing" - Well I tried on this one but I don't think it was a total success. I made some great compost bins back in March but I haven't used them to their full potential yet and I need to rotate them more often.

Look at experimenting with growing staples - I did a lot of research into this area and read books about growing grain on a small scale but I'm not sure I did that well. I did grow a lot more potatoes this year and New Zealand yams, which are both a great source of carbohydrates. I also grew some chickpeas and sweetcorn but neither crop were successful. 

Increase my number of herbs and spices - I did manage to buy a few more herbs that we now use and grow. The best was the Vietnamese coriander which I'd like to grow each year now as a great addition to curries and salads. I also grew papalo but was somewhat disappointed with it, it was hard to germinate and then the taste wasn't what I was expecting as a replacement for coriander. 

Improve my food storage - This I have done in spades! I've done loads more preserving and also started to learn how to can fruit, My dehydrator has been on more this year than for any I can remember and although the dried apples don't last long the girls enjoy them! I have jars of raspberries to use in cakes and cookies as well. Maybe this year I'll buy a bigger one. 
I have also sorted out a dedicated area to keep the produce that we grow but more on that another time. 

Seed Saving - I said I wanted to save much more seed and start keeping plants apart to do this. I have saved quite a bit of seed from plants that we already grow but done little other than research for selecting plants and using biennials, I have brought two books on the subject and learnt a lot but I'm yet to put it into practice. I might keep my best parsnips from this winter and try to get them to go to seed this year to have my own seed that I've selected. 

Firewood - I increased the willow coppice this year and planted lots more varieties. they've all grown and done quite well but are a while off being firewood yet! My brother and I did pollard some trees and produced a lot of firewood from them as well as cutting up storm damage. I should have done much more with seasoning it though! We've certainly got enough for this winters firewood and some of next years as well, my job helps with firewood as well. 

Baking - Well I've baked more last year than ever before. The girls and me have baked dozens of cakes and hundreds of cookies and I managed to start and use a sour dough culture for the first few months of the year. Since my wife brought me a bread maker we've been using it most days and buy very little bread now, I love having fresh bread each day and can't imagine going back to buying it like we used to. 

So I don't think I did too bad with my goals although there's always more I could do and areas to concentrate on. I think this year I'll do goals to do with our home life as well, improving the house, the extension being a big one! 

What areas do you think I should concentrate on going into 2016?

Happy New Year!

We've had another great year on our little homestead and I'd like to thank all of you for sharing it with us.

Face paints for Christmas means we all get painted! 

The next 12 months bring another load of exciting opportunities:

A new baby due any day now, 

Going back to full time work for the next nine months (still self employed), 

The eldest starting school,

Our first lambing here with our flock of 30 or so sheep,

An extension that's definitely going to start this year,

And of course trying to become more self sufficient and self reliant. 

I hope you all keep reading in the new year, I'm sorry I've been a bit irregular lately with postings but I've been trying to finish a job before the new baby comes, so hopefully it'l all be back to normal soon (or as normal as life will get with a new born and two young girls!).

Happy New Year Everyone!