Future Plans - A Years Food Self-Sufficiency

Something I've been wanting to do for a long long time is to try to see if I could survive just eating what I've grown here in a year. 

A question I'm often asked at talks is "just how self-sufficient are you?" And it's one where I probably give a different answer every time. The honest answer is "Not as much as I'd like". Life always gets in the way, running around after the kids, scouts, swimming, having to earn enough money to pay for everything. We do well in some areas though, our fruit is always good for example, but some years are far better than others. 

Self sufficiency has been my obsession for as long as I can remember. I often recount the story of my wife and mine first holiday together (at the tender age of just 20) to Cornwall for the week. I took with me John Seymour's Guide Of Self-Sufficiency and read it cover to cover. Twice. I had my own veg garden on the family farm and frequently used to do all sorts of semi mad food quests, tapping trees for wine, or fighting squirrels for walnuts. 

It's probably the way my mind works but I have to focus on something for it to work. Then it gets a lot of my energy (there's a fair bit to go round), I do have a habit of spreading myself quite thin. Having goals often helps me. 

So I've set myself a couple of semi long term goals, the first is for the aim for the garden next year, which will come in a later post. And the second is to try and have a year living on what I can grow or produce.

 I'm not sure whether this starts autumn next year or the year after. It will depend on a few things and how much I can get done towards some of the infrastructure I'd need to have in. 

I've had years here where I think I've produced the vast majority of the veg we've eaten, but I've always lacked in the carb department, and protein even when the going has been good. I've always thought I could provide for us should I have to. But it would involve more area under cultivation, strips of grains and other crops on a larger scale, potatoes and beans. 

So I'd need to make a few changes and get a few things into motion in the run up. Get some four legged stock back on the smallholding and ramp things back up a bit more to where I had them when I was a full time stay at home dad. Of course there is never enough hours in the day. But if my belly depended on it then maybe it could be a good driving factor. 

I'd also need to set myself some rules to work by. And for that I think I need some help from people that read my blog (I want to do a post on this soon). Things like would trades be allowed and to what extent, and where I could harvest food from, would foraging be allowed, what staples would I be allowed in (salt for a start)? I'm already sure I won't be able to produce the animal feed I'd need yet (let alone store it), but buying in animals just to consume should be allowed. 

It should make for a fun challenge. My wife has already said that her and the children are not taking part (hard with a diabetic as well to be fair - need to grow lots of hypo treatments), but also I tend to have more time during the day to indulge in this sort of stupidity, especially if I could cut back a little on my actual work (doubt I would though).

So let me know what you think? 

Would it be something you'd be interesting in trying? How would you go about planning it?

Do you think it could make for interesting blog posts and videos?

Think I'd tackle it okay? 

A friend I spoke to about it said I should just get myself to 20 stone before I start and then I'd be fine...