The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Coffee Lounge => Topic started by: Bright Raven on January 23, 2011, 07:21:17 pm
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Following on from the carbon neutral thread. What are you stashing against harder times ahead?
I keep a few things that I feel are essential but would love to know what you folks stash.
Wood - to power my wood burning stove and hopefully one day my Wamsler 900.
Water - in bottles, I also try to harvest as much as I can.
Rice and Pulses.
Seeds, this year I will keep more back for storage. I have concerns about the infiltration of termination seeds.
Perhaps I should add other things to my list?
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Having just spent a month with no running water I have refilled the bottles now it's back, just in case we get another freezing spell. But unless it's properly sealed it won't keep that long, will it? I don't really collect anything except dogs lol
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i don't know if its on the same line, but candles & batteries
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anything I can get free.
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jams, chutneys, pesto, rice, pasta, tinned tomatoes, olive oil... - wish it was more! :&>
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We try to (and succeed if I may brag) stash a years supply of food!! I do soups,sauces, all preserves, veg,meat, freeze goats milk, dry herbs, bake all I can when eggs are good, goats cheese, breadcrumbs etc , nothing processed apart from an odd tin of beans here.I make breads so extra batches for the freezer. So we do stash makings ie flour etc
We also dig our own peats which supply the rayburn for cooking , water and heating. We make our own hay and silage for the year if that counts
We have a fishing boat so we catch our own fish, we have creels but not keen on crab and lobster!
Basically when you run a croft you work all summer to keep you for winter and prepare all winter for summer.
We have a properly done out well courtesy of the water board which is piped up but needs 'sorting' legally. Sewage is an old type sesspit thing, works well so far. We have candles but much prefer oil lamps.
But the best of all a good bartering system. It is amazing what you can get in return for my OH servicing a boiler.(heating kind!)
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I wrote my post in a hurry and meant to add, I seem to collect all sorts of rubbish then have a big clear out and throw things away, tins, pots, pans, trinkets, towels, clothing.....far too much really.....I am not sure why I can save old tins yet throw away electric stuff worth far more!!!
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We try to (and succeed if I may brag) stash a years supply of food!! I do soups,sauces, all preserves, veg,meat, freeze goats milk, dry herbs, bake all I can when eggs are good, goats cheese, breadcrumbs etc , nothing processed apart from an odd tin of beans here.I make breads so extra batches for the freezer. So we do stash makings ie flour etc
We also dig our own peats which supply the rayburn for cooking , water and heating. We make our own hay and silage for the year if that counts
We have a fishing boat so we catch our own fish, we have creels but not keen on crab and lobster!
Basically when you run a croft you work all summer to keep you for winter and prepare all winter for summer.
We have a properly done out well courtesy of the water board which is piped up but needs 'sorting' legally. Sewage is an old type sesspit thing, works well so far. We have candles but much prefer oil lamps.
But the best of all a good bartering system. It is amazing what you can get in return for my OH servicing a boiler.(heating kind!)
And if everything goes the way Russ thinks it will you'll have no electricity for the freezer ;) ;D ;D
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I know , that is the only problem, but we do have two generators on standby and some good insurance.
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Bubblewrap. We have acres of it ;D
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If Hermit isn't keen on the crab and lobster he fishes, I would be more than happy to barter something for them!!
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ffix. Hes a she. ;
There is a good saying up here... "It is better looking at it than for it" and I agree a good stash of stuff is worth its weight in gold.
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Sorry Hermit!!
I am on year 2 of trying to be more self-sufficient and to have ways of living without electricity/oil etc. Still just at the beginning with years-worth of wood for our heating and cooking already assured. Next is to grow and preserve without freezing our food.
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All the twirls from the tin of miniature heroes ;D ;D ;D
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I leave some veg in the ground all winter rather than freeze it. The stuff I leave in are parsnips, cabbages,carrots, leeks, brussels. You just have to make sure you dig out what you need before the snow !!!!!!!! I find only a few are frost damaged, it is worth trying in your area. We dont get as bad a winter as south cause of the sea so we are lucky in that respect. When the time comes to get ready for next planting, I have a soup making spree and all thats left goes to my mates piggies.
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Hiya, anything and everything gets stashed here....at the risk of the place turning into a scrapyard! the thing is that things eventually do find a good use. The pile of corrugated sheeting that sat for a few years married the skeleton of a nisson hut, and presto i have a fab haybarn!. Pallets get used for storing hay, as shelters for lambs, have been turned into wood storae shelters....the insides of loorolls for seedlings, newpapers for firebricks, twisted hazel for making christmas decorations,.....lordy the list goes on.
at the moment we are keeping all plastic bottles- OH wants to try to make a bottle greenhouse or plant shelter.
Emma T
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All the twirls from the tin of miniature heroes ;D ;D ;D
They're my favourite ;D
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at the moment we are keeping all plastic bottles- OH wants to try to make a bottle greenhouse or plant shelter.
Emma T
After a month with no running water and Scottish Water supplying me with 2 litre bottles, I have a stash of those, but I'm not quite sure how to go about building anything with them. Any plans available? Not sure I have enough for a greenhouse - and what do I stick them together with? Would need to be waterproof glue
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Just remembered, I kept coffee tins for a while, still got some and hate getting rid but not at all practicle!!!! off to landfil!!!!
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offer them on freecycle or freegle, I'm sure someone will have use for them, Sandy :&>
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OH is a builder so we gather all the leftover bits from jobs, old double glazing makes cold frames set on leftover breeze blocks, scaffold boards used as edges for veg beds and round pig pens to stop them tunnelling out/under, redundant windows have gone into our buildings replacing rotten ones, pallets for fencing, herding &temporary shelters. Spare wood goes into fencing & field shelters. Tonne bags get used for storing broken down huge round bales of straw, they make doors for arks. Scaffold poles for farrowing rails, fences, making post holes.
I also hoard toilet & kitchen roll inners for plant pots, bubblewrap, old gift wrapping paper, use old b'day cards cut up to make present labels or new b'day cards, odd socks make great dusters, plastic supermarket trays saved thro the winter for when i have my fruit/veg to harvest thro' the summer, crates (cannot have enuff of them) for storing apples, pears, etc and carrying plants from greenhouse to garden. Old feed/ seed compost/grow bags recycled as hanging basket liners, etc.
I have to be really strict with myself! :P or else we'd keep alsorts of stuff!
Foodwise we stashed enough apples for the pigs & us and we're just using the last of them now, we made oodles of tomato sauce for the freezer, my pal makes chutneys with the green ones and we store pumpkins & squashes.
Our other big no huge stash is of pig muck, winters muck heap becomes summers pumpkin & squash heap and afterwards into the veg garden, polytunnel & flower pots. ;D
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Annie, there was a link to plans on a topic a couple of months ago. it was for a greenhouse that had been built by schoolkids. I need to dash just now but ~i will look for the link.
ET x
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Annie, there was a link to plans on a topic a couple of months ago. it was for a greenhouse that had been built by schoolkids. I need to dash just now but ~i will look for the link.
ET x
I saw that,thanks, but I don't think I have quite enough bottles for a full scale greenhouse. Perhaps a monument to Scottish Water? I might get paid a lot of money if the Council decide to put it on a roundabout like the other stupid ones they have. ::) I've said it before, why don't they grow fruit and veg on them instead of putting silver mermaids and boys and girls on them.
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I quite like your silver roundabouts, Annie ;D They help me find my way down where you are ::) Would you pick veg from a busy roundabout?
I use water bottles for cloches on young veg :&>
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im another one for coffee jars, and the strings off feed sacks - theyr so handy for tying bin bags! ;D
plus stashed a few pheasants in the freezer, broad beans are still hiding there too!! ;D ;D
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Broad beans never seem to taste as good as other frozen veggies. Lots of brilliant stashing going on, I do collect all sort's of stuff that other people throw away. My OH always brings up the subject of Fire Doors when I see something useful going begging with my mantra of "Ooooh, ahhh, stop the car, now, now, I have seen something interesting." Before we moved from our last home to here I was told to do something about my collection of fire doors, somehow I had managed to collect about 6 averaging at one for every year we lived there. Never did use them but they were just waiting for a project. I had no land to muck about on back then, but how I could see potential in other peoples leavings.
Must be something deep in my psyche, to do with watching those government films Mrs Thatcher sent to all comprehensive schools that encouraged us to hide under doors and paint ourselves white to deflect the nuclear blast. ;D (or was that a subliminal suggestion by The Young Ones?)
The rest I blame on my mum's weekend idea of fun, chasing jumble sales with our elbows firmly out.
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I quite like your silver roundabouts, Annie ;D They help me find my way down where you are ::) Would you pick veg from a busy roundabout?
I use water bottles for cloches on young veg :&>
That's the point, Kerstin, they'd be fairly safe from being thieved. ;D The roundabouts all have names anyway. I don't think I grow enough veg to use them all - work it out - how much water do you think you use in a day. I reckon I have 20m + black bags with about 10 bottles in each, maybe more!
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sounds like you have enough for a greenhouse ;D ;D
you can offer them on freecycle, freegle - believe it or not we had a request for them here for exactly that purpose. :wave: :&>
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I meant 20 not 20Million :-[ :-[ :-[ So I reckon I have about 200 to 250 bottles, and a greenhouse needs 1500. I'd like to do something with them myself rather than give them away.
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I'm not that good with maths, Annie ::) ::)
no idea what else you can do with them! :&>
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im in process of building a greenhouse with bottles.im also hoping to do cold frames too.
people save bottles for me.also keep general 'rubbish' for 'crafts'
my o/h had pnumonia and in his fevered state dreamed i built an extension from rubbish but it looked like a manor house...which gave me an idea. for a lean to made from beer bottles ect and shingles made from plastic bottles
inhabitat.com/fizzy-bottle-roof-made-from-7000-plastic-bottles
i also collect jars cos there handy and people save veggy stuff for my wormery.
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I am tempted to try a cold frame- I think you might have enough for that Annie. Just something simple, but use the same principles as for the greenhouse.
Beth
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I am tempted to try a cold frame- I think you might have enough for that Annie. Just something simple, but use the same principles as for the greenhouse.
Beth
Yes I think A cold frame might be do-able, but what do i glue them together with?
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Don't know why but I hoard tins- biscuit tins/ sweet tins- all end up in the garage- i suppose i expect one day that they will come in handy to keep "things" in!!
Anybody else have this affliction??
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er no .... just you !!!! ::) ::) ::)
no, you are not alone in a way though .. My one is/are coffee jars . 200g size . Good for nails and screws , you can see what is in them , but also good for pickles , jams , rice , wheat , oats etc etc ...
cheers
Russ
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I'm going to start with seeds - most definitely. Wool for spinning (from my sheep) and warm winter clothing is next as we may well be heading for a few decades of cold weather - hotly(!) followed by used veggie oil (if we can get hold of any) for obvious reasons. ;D
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My dad used to nail the jar lids to the underside of the garage shelf and screw the jars up to them so the jars of screws etc were hanging from the underside of the shelf. Saved space and all on display with easy access.
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Hermit, your dad's idea is brilliant - makes we want to dash off to the garage with a hammer and jar of nails!
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I am tempted to try a cold frame- I think you might have enough for that Annie. Just something simple, but use the same principles as for the greenhouse.
Beth
Yes I think A cold frame might be do-able, but what do i glue them together with?
you dont glue them together .thread them onto bamboo poles and sort of squash them tight togther on a frame made of woodcut the bottoms off and stuff them inside each other .very rigid. bottm one gets turned upside down