My solution to feeding myself

Following assassin's suggestion ,I have written this account of what I have done to produce much of my own food. Due to one miss placed step I now have difficulty bending,however there is often a solution to most problems ,this is mine.
My rear garden is approx 20 x 60 ft . The soil is very poor. To bring it up to decent fertility would involve a lot of hard work which I would find very painful .This is what has worked well for me.

Discounted using my garden soil & have covered entire garden with a heavy duty membrane .(cost about £ 40 & guaranteed  for 30 years) .Make sure you get the right stuff ,its made from the same material as the 1 ton bags. This eliminates all the hard manual work ,digging weeding etc.

You now have a totally clear area . In my first year I bought a 1 ton bag of loam from a local builders merchant  £ 45.  Everything is now containerised.  Buckets from DIY / Builders merchants
£ 1 each (remember to drill drainage holes in all containers) In these I grow potatoes 2 per bucket
carrots 40 per bucket etc.
Troughs , a couple of quid from discount stores or make your own from timber if you have a cheap source. Everything else is in pots bought on ebay for the best deals. Thats all you need to get started.

The pros as I see them, are that as I endeavour to produce the most I can .Space becomes important.
For example if I were to grow a row of lettuce in the conventional way ,once a plant is harvested the place it occupied then stays empty until the whole row is harvested. On the other hand if I harvest a lettuce from a 6 in pot . That pot & space becomes immediately available .

The cons,  the only one that springs to mind is watering, containers do dry out quickly in hot weather so you may need to water at least twice a day in hot weather, I now have a sprinkler
so its no longer a chore.

I bought a 8'x12' greenhouse .Its glazed with polycarbonate panels so its double glazed and safe around children .I managed to keep it frost free over winter just by making and burning a 100 hour candle ( 2 if its really cold).
Thats how I got started  & have continued to progress from there learning all the time,and today I have a chest freezer full to the brim & buy very little .

If anyone is interested in doing something like this ,drop a post in this thread.

I feel this is a good start Dave, and you should progress with some of the issues and benefits you found to relate these experiences and actual wisdom to those looking to do the same.

You cannot beat first hand knowledge and personal experience.

Very impressive DI

Since the start of this thread and now ,the world is now a very different place.
It appears severe food stortages are coming.If you have not started to prepare,
now would be a very good time to start.
whilst i have bought large amounts of dried foods from wholesalers via ebay,there
are many things you can obtain for free or at low cost.
In this post i will just concentrate on dehydrating, with this method you can store
dried what would take up a lot of space in its natural state.If you dont have a
dehydrator you can use an airing cupboard .

A few examples ,ONIONS I bought a couple of nets of these from a farm outlet.
i sliced ,dried and powered in a blender ,those 2 nets condensed into a couple
of jars.and of course will store far longer than when in their natural state,all thats
removed is the water.
NETTLES are one of the most nutritious plants around ,as above use the leaves
these can then be used like any vegetable or for tea.
CARROTS .I bought carrots from the same farm outlet (they were for horses ,only
a couple of quid per net) they are sold that way due to damage whilst being harvested
treated them the same way as the onions.
PEPPERS & CHILLIES can be done the same way.(i went a bit mad last year and grew
so many chillies i have enought powder to last years)

Get out into the countryside there is so much edible & medicinal stuff there,use
Youtube ,so many vids on this stuff.
Remember if things really continue the way they are going .your own food stocks
and ability will make all the difference to your survival.

assassin wrote:You cannot beat first hand knowledge and personal experience.

Too right, as I have found on many an occasion.

Just to add to my post;
If or when shortages come , where do you want to be ? there will be looting
on a massive scale or at the very least huge queues for very little.Is that where
you want to be? or away from all of that. Just remember when people thought
there would be a shortage of toilet rolls & then multiply that several times over.

If I can offer some advice Dave.

Watering is easily done and I use old cotton clothes in the poly tunnels, I have TIG welded up the edges of the aluminium type trays which form the benches and I cover them with several layers of cottton, I stand my troughs on them so they sink into the cotton and this waters them. I stand a couple of buckets at each end of the bench and make cotton rope by twisting layers of old cotton T shirts together and running them from the bucket of water to the underside of the cotton in the trays, this wicks water up and keeps them wet and I place layers of cotton strip from tray to tray to ensure they are all wet.

I currently use four 2 gallon buckets for my long benches and these last about 4 days between filling up from my water butts and by remaining wet the troughs can draw up water continually and the heat evaporates some of the water off and raises the humidity and cools the poly tunnels.

i am now foraging for food ,medicines etc. Here are a couple of things i
am now doing on a regular basis.

Laundry soap; 80-100 english ivy leaves torn up a little,add 1 ltr water ,
boil gently for 15 mins ,i then leave overnight . strain into a container.
use 1 cupfull per wash ,works great ,available all year round .

Wild plantain , the whole plant is edible. I also made a salve from the
dried leaves. really great for bites and stings .I have been stung twice
this year ,so just applied a little salve a the pain stops almost instantly
and after an hour i could not even locate where i was stung.

Its a bit cheesy but look on YT for 'Home is where our heart is' lots
of good tips there.

I think most of us here are aware of what will very likely be comeing.

A few suggestions ,Rocket stove & portable wood burner. I have both
fortunatly i had a fabrication business. but its amazing how efficient they
are and you only need a few dry twigs.
Dehydrator, At the moment mine is going everyday. £30-40 on ebay.
used to dry leaves etc ,nettles,plantain,dandilions ,yarrow amongst many others

I remember many years ago an episode of Bush tucker man where during the war
a bomber crashed in the outback and the crew all died of starvation whilst
surrounded by food.
Stop for a moment and imagine no more food in the shops ,ask yourself
what am i going to do.
I will admit my efforts are starting to move from a hobby to a bit of an
obsession, but having said that ,i know i will survive with ease.
A good example being my neighbours are all complaining about the large
amount of doves and pidgens around and want then delt with. I look upon
them as a food source if needed.
Take a look around Youtube for foraging vids .You are surrounded by good
food but dont know it.
My aim for next year is to see just how little i have spent on food & i'm
confident it will be very little.

This has credibility because of the rise in bio fuels and the recent introduction of E10 petrol which uses crops which are basically fermented to make the bio element.

Interesting story: last week I filled up and the RAC man was at the filling station and I sat alongside him while waiting for a pump to become empty, as I got out to fill up he approached and asked if I knew if my vehicle was suitable for E10 petrol, I told him he was incompetent because it has a large diesel engine and he should know this as I was sat alongside him and if he didn't know the diffference between petrol and diesel engines he needed sacking.

There is currently a world food shortage and only the richer countries can afford this food, hence why poorer countries growing the food are often starving as they have to sell it to richer countries rather than feed their own people as money is more important then life in many of these countries If we turn over more land to crop production for fuels it means even less food for the world and even more starving people so is electric the answer:

Interestingly NO, two of our professional bodies had surveys done and in both 68% of those interviewed said they wouldn't have an electric car in the next 5 years and other professional bodies said if 50% of the UK's population went over to electric cars in the next 3 years we couldn't cope as we simply couldn't supply the electricity. Scottish Power let it slip that they were introducing variable tariffs which they could change at will and without you even knowing it, they would hike your electricity prices during peak periods and lower them and with most electric cars being charged at home, overnight the peak period would be 21 hours per day.
Then we have a severe shortage of charging points and already we are seeing the Tesla superchargers advertising misleading people with their 150KW chargers, but hold on a minute, if they produce 150KW of charging power then fine for one vehicle but they have four outlets and with all four connected to vehicles each vehicle only gets 37.5KW of charging power, oh the misinformation continues. Already we have claims firms in London dealing with claims where people are tripping over charging cables and this is the next "no win no fee" money making scam for these firms as they take 35% of your claim as their bonus, then there are the massive thefts of charging cables in London and this will be echoed countrywide.

In short it is all coming together now, electric cars will be no cheaper than petrol or diesel cars to run as variable tariffs will see to that, electricity will be the total power used for your home and this equals only one thing CARTEL.

People need to grow their own and I am self sufficient in food as I grow all my own and preserve a lot of it for the winter, I also produce my own electricity at 14.6KWH and what I dont use goes back into the grid and they pay me for it. My freezers will always run despite any power outages and I have plenty of food and electricity.