Kate Downham

I think I read somewhere that tagasaste (tree lucerne) can be a complete food for rabbits.

I agree about needing to think about washing and drying clothes (although I’d never use a laundromat). I can never wring out clothes as well by hand as a front-loading washing machine could, so it’s important to allow more drying time and drying space for hand-washed clothes.

We use a typical 40 litre/10 gallon laundry tub. Works fine. A good thing about washing clothes by hand is that you don’t end up accidentally shrinking woollens by getting them mixed up with the machine washing, we can just throw everything in together.

In Australia there’s a kind of outdoor clothesline called a hills hoist. We have two of these for our family of 9, and it’s almost enough. In winter, we have a big clothes rack that goes near the woodstove, so we just bring the almost-dry washing in from outside and finish it up inside, takes a while to get it dry enough to store, so sometimes I think maybe a third line would be great, and then we could possibly wait until a very dry day to bring it all in.

I think it’s important in house design to plan ahead for the space to dry clothes indoors. There are roof-mounted “pulley-maid” type things that would work well when space is limited, because they don’t take up floor space, plus, being up in the warm air, they will dry clothes more quickly than a normal clothes rack.

This washing and drying clothes stuff were things I didn't really think of when we moved off-grid (electric clothes dryers are not that common here). I figured our washing machine would work with the system we started with, and it either broke when we moved house, or would not work with the system, I'm not sure what happened, but the end result was the same, and switching to hand washing was not the end of the world.

Firewood is also something I didn't put huge amounts of thought into. It takes time, and effort, but it's worth it.

I am not quite sure what to make of the OP’s claim that tiny solar electrical systems will leave you “very disappointed, cold, hungry, and in the dark.”. IMO it’s never a wise idea to rely on solar electrical for cooking or heating. There are way more efficient ways to heat and cook, using homegrown wood, solar passive design, or electricity-free solar cooking. Once you get rid of the need to heat water, heat the home, and cook, you don’t need electricity for much. We have 1300 watts of panels and that is enough for two chest freezers, laptops, grain mill, stereo, and lights.

We have not brought in any propane or butane for years. Wood is the best fuel source and it’s possible to rely on it 100%.

M Ljin wrote:Not going to suggest crops so much as strategy…

As far as I understand no one has been able to have no inputs without fallowing, or food foresting.

The figure I have heard (maybe Will Bonsall said it?) is that cultivating more than one fourth (give or take) of the land at a time necessitates inputs—the rest being perennial something that goes into a composting (or animals). As a goat farmer the latter option seems wise! It’s also possible and possibly beneficial to rotate the cultivated area and leave the rest fallow.

So the goat manure and bedding go to making compost for your beds, which take up only 1/4 or less of the entire land (about a quarter acre per person— 9/4=2.5 acres). Turnips, say, could be good crops, and other roots—greens and vegetables could be gathered from the forests and fallows.

I also would include the forests and non-arable land into the food calorie equation because they can be excellent sources of all sorts of food—mushrooms, greens, some kinds of shade tolerant berries, etc. Especially if there are nut trees. And since they cannot be cultivated they need little input.

I would always emphasise foraging because it is so reliable and doesn’t require us to take up space in our own land.

I wonder if John Seymour's approach for 5 acres would work well, but scaled up a bit.

On 5 acres, he ploughs up half an acre every year and sows it to a crop rotation, and then it stays in crops for 4 years before being returned to pasture for 4 years, so he has at any time 2 acres pasture and 2 acres various crops such as grain, fodder roots, potatoes, beans, etc. It sounds a bit more intensive than Bonsall's one, but it has animal manure and Bonsall does not, so that could make up for it. Pigs could potentially do the ploughing, if we had enough food for them.

Right now it's peak planting season, and the weather forecast for this week says minimum 5ºC (41ºF) to maximum 19ºC (66ºF). It will heat up more in December, January, and February, but generally it still gets pretty cool at night, and rarely gets above 30ºC (86ºF).

Thom Bri wrote:Is it typically foggy/cloudy (my ignorant conception of Tasmania) or do you get plenty of sunny warm days?

Different parts of the island get different amounts of fog. We get pretty much no fog at our place, and a mix of sunny days and overcast, but enough sun to rely on solar power and be able to grow tomatoes, zucchini, and other shorter-season summer crops outdoors.

Great ideas... This thread is making me hungry!

Sometimes I've sprinkled a little coconut sugar over the top, along with a bit of salt. Whole cane sugar or brown sugar would work in the same way.

Usually on the day we get beef, I’ll cook up some of the best steaks right away. I get the pan really hot, with a tiny bit of lard, then add the steaks, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and do not move them until juices are running off the steak and onto the pan. Flip over, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and cook that side until juices rise to the top, and that works out medium-rare and delicious.

Some of the things I do when we get half a beef:
I usually cut the blade roast into chunks, raw pack it into jars, and pressure can it right away. I have two jars of beef barbacoa done this way left from last time, so I might do plain diced beef with just a little salt this time around. I’m not sure what blade is called in other countries, it’s a good cut for slow cooking.

I cook with the short ribs early on. They take up a lot of freezer space, plus we really enjoy these and look forward to them every time. I slow cook them in broth or water, drain them (reserving the broth), and then bake/broil in a sweet sauce. I used to always use homemade BBQ sauce, but lately have been doing a mix of browned onions, ginger, coconut aminos, and honey.

I make bone broth and tallow on the first day too - saves more freezer space.

We have around 10 acres of land that can be easily cleared, the rest is steep forest.

I want to provide for all our needs and all our animals needs without a feed store, tractor, ongoing inputs, or power tools.

Rainfall is around 40 inches a year, mostly in winter and spring. Zone 8 or 9.

The permaculture handbook recommends a diet of around 1 million calories per adult per year to provide enough food for an active lifestyle, so for a family of 9, we want to produce around 9 million calories of nourishing food according to that estimate.

If this were your situation, what would you choose to grow and raise?

Timothy Norton wrote:My first half a cow, I was excited for a bunch of roasts and neglected to think about how much ground I would receive. Living with just one other person, it is difficult to find a time to use up a nice big roast!

My next go around, I will be trying to get a better amount of ground out of it. I do like my stew beef as well so it is a balancing act.

Sometimes I cook large roasts for the leftovers as much as the hot roast meal.

Some of the cold leftover beef can be thinly sliced for sandwiches, I like to serve it with grainy mustard and sauerkraut. Other leftover roast can be made into cottage pie, curries, beef stews, or anywhere that you’d use beef. It’s already cooked, so it just needs reheating - saves time and fuel.

I’ve also cut leftover roast beef into tiny pieces, put it in jars, added bone broth, and then pressure canned it, for shelf-stable pie meat. You could also do this in any pressure canning stew or soup recipe instead of using raw beef.

I really like getting heaps of ground. If we run out of roasts, we can have a meatloaf instead of a roast. If we run out of stir fry steaks, then I can use ground in a stir fry. For a lot of meals I have a vague idea that we’re having meat of some sort, so having lots of ground, and lots of recipes to use it in makes it easy to just grab a packet out of the freezer at night and figure it out the next day.