I thought I'd make this thread offering a few suggestions about how to become self-sufficient in terms of food. There seems to be an idea that self-sufficiency means scrimping and scraping and having a thoroughly unpleasant experience, but there are many ways we can live abundantly without buying into the system.
I would be greatly pleased if this thread could turn into a place in which people share their ideas and experiences, and also where people propose new ideas and those with experience are able to guide those seeking it. If we pool our experiences and know-how, there is very little we can't do :-)
- Plant fruit trees. They might not fruit for the first few years (depending on the stage of development at which they're purchased). Fruit can be grown as plants like strawberries, raspberries, etc., but I find trees more efficient since they usually take no looking after. I have quite a few fruit trees of different types and a few nut trees as well. The harvest from them all is very large and so I'd recommend it highly. A little brewer's yeast is a very good way of dealing with the excess; just press out the juice and innoculate with the yeast. Vinegar can then be made from the country wine by innoculating with acetobacter bacteria.
- Grow bushes. Bushes which fruit are very useful. I grow blueberries, red, white and black currants, gooseberries, tayberries and gojiberries. I also have raspberries and blackberry bushes, but I tend to allow only a few stalks of them because of the way they propagate; they send large stalks upwards until they bend over and reach towards the ground, at which point they start growing roots into the ground. You can avoid this by allowing only a few stalks to grow and then using canes and strings to train them to grow in the right direction (i.e., to stop them touching the soil). They produce an awful lot for their size.
- Grow Vegetables. Vegetables are very easy to grow and given only a little care and attention they will produce large amounts. For things like beans, the plants can be harvested many times before they stop producing food. When they are approaching the end of their productivity, allow them to go to seed so that you have beans you can plant for next year. Be careful about 'choking' the soil with hay; it will prevent weeds but it will attract rats.
- Use your compost heap. Your compost heap is a very useful way of getting rid of all the uncooked garden waste and any uneaten (and uncooked) vegetables, fruit, etc.. The compost heap is also the perfect place to grow fennel, which requires no attention whatsoever. Throw a few fennel seeds on your compost heap and in no time at all you'll have huge fennel hearts ready to eat and what's more, any you don't eat are in the right place ;-)
- Use your walls. Many people forget about their walls when they are thinking of where to plant their crops, but many plants thrive when grown against a wall and their usefulness can be maximised. The elder is considered a weed, and in structure falls half way between a tree and a bush. It grows a few central stems which give it the appearance of a willow which has been copsed. These stalks can be trained to travel along trellises in such a way that they can be made to cover a wall the way ivy covers buildings. This flexibility makes it a very useful plant, since it can turn an otherwise unused wall space into fruiting canvas. The flowers can be used for making country wine and the berries can be used for wine, syrups, jams and jellies. The tree is poisonous, though, so the fruit should be heated before it is used (heat breaks down the poison). The berries are very good as a health tonic because they contain components which inhibit viral replication, so made into a syrup either on their own or with other tonics like Rowan berries (Americans, read Mountain Ash berries) or rosehips they are a great way of bolstering one's defences during the winter months. It has become a common thing now for me to make elderberry, rowan and rosehip syrup in the autumn and distribute it around my family and friends and it's the perfect way to sweeten and flavour porridge.
- Don't be afraid to be decorative. I often encounter the opinion that any space that isn't used for vegetables is wasted space, and so people will be disinclined to plant decorative flowers. If you are of this opinion, you can in fact have the best of both worlds. Plant sunflowers around the house and any other buildings on the land up against walls for the protection and support it provides. When they mature you can collect their seeds, set a few aside to grow more next year, and use the rest as a healthy snack. Try planting roses on trellises as archways over paths for both their decorative purposes and for their edible petals. They can brighten up a salad, be used in confectionery, or dried and used sprinkled amply in wardrobes and clothes draws for the natural smell.
- Don't be scared of weeds. Some weeds are only weeds because they're prolific. Others are only weeds because people have decided they don't like them. Do the lawns of your gardens really look better for being uniformly green? I enjoy looking out over the gardens of yellow during the summer when the dandelions are in full bloom. The flower heads can be used in salads or made into wine, the leaves can be used in salads, the roots can be roasted and ground into a coffee substitute and the stalks can be split open and wrapped soothingly on sore or burnt skin much more useful than grass. Nettles too provide quite a good array of vitamins and minerals. Held since ancient times to be a blood cleanser, it contains hefty amounts of iron and vitamin c, making it a great food for those with anaemia (the body can't absorb iron without vitamin c, making most 'just iron' supplements ineffective). They can be fried up with onions, shallots or garlic (or a combination) and purιed to make something which is great as a garnish, as an addition to soups and also just great spread on dry toast.
- Don't be scared of keeping animals. Most people aren't blessed with the space which I am lucky to have, but most people do have enough space to keep a few animals. Overlook this if you're offended by the thought of using animals for meat. Rabbits can be kept for their meat and over a few generations they can provide a great deal selectively breed those rabbits which mature the quickest and which fatten up the most and your rabbits will produce a lot of meat very quickly. If you do not think you could bring yourself to prepare the animal for food, reassure yourself that your rabbits will have had great lives with you and will have lived free-range lives. Never kill anything you intend to eat in front of the others they do notice and it's not fair to alarm them. Rabbits can be fed with vegetable surpluses (if you are gardening right, you'll run a surplus nearly all the time). Keep chickens for their eggs and also for their meat. Chickens can be fed on the seeds of whatever plants you are growing. Pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds -- even the seeds of the dandelions come their time (they take little gathering). I haven't yet branched out into keeping my own animals, though my cousin has and I relay here his experience. When it comes to chickens, a single rooster is necessary to breed the next generation (he should be removed from the chickens for the rest of the time so that the eggs do not develop). Since a rooster's work is minimal, quite a few self-sufficient households can share a single rooster. If you make use of another's rooster, it might be nice to contribute towards his food. To get your chickens and rabbits, speak to somebody who already keeps them or buy them new and breed them yourself. Once you get into the swing of it, it won't seem half as hard. My cousin is considering also taking on ducks, but remember the larger the bird the more space you'll need. They will take an initial investment in terms of creating their enclosures just remember that any enclosure should be as good at keeping things out as in.
- Buy some good books. Buy books which talk about free food. There are many places in the country where you can get food for free. These books are obviously specialised to certain regions; what is good for the UK probably won't help an American and what is good for the US probably won't help a Briton, and so on. You can find many books online pointing out where to get food for free, such as what wild plants are edible (and which parts) and where to find them. Then there are books like the Vicomte de Mauduit's "They Can't Ration These" a WWI era book written by a French nobleman with a forward by the Prime Minister David Lloyd George which details various recipes using free food, talks about how to prepare caught animals for cooking (such as skinning and gutting), gives recipes for a few different country wines and even cosmetics such as making soap, shampoo.
- Make good use of fire. Fire is a useful way of reinvigorating soil with nutrients. When burning fires for the purpose of nutrients, make sure to burn only natural things logs, wood that's only been naturally treated, etc.. When the fire has burnt down the ashes can be mixed into soil or added to the compost heap as a way of raising the PH of the soil and increasing potassium content. You can also create tar by smoking wood and using this as a natural way of protecting your wooden fences against rot and rain.