How self sufficient are you ?

[oldwheels]

Does not work with tomatoes though: those I find we must plant earlier, under cover of course, to give the tomatoes a chance to ripen before our days get shorter (from August onwards here).
The amount of green tomatoes in gardens and allotments I see at the end of August in my area is plentiful

We usually got the very last of our tomatoes on Mull at the end of October when we came back from an annual business trip.
The advice was really for outdoor plants rather than under cover and agree they probably would not ripen outdoors but ours were in a polytunnel.

 

[Andy in Germany]

We're all interdependent on each other,

...

Other people with other skills contribute massively to my life, and to the wider society in which Im lucky to live...

This is what I realised when I was on a Permaculture course, which is why I decided to work in other things like carpentry, bike maintenance, and Storytelling; areas which are helpful to other people who can grow food much better than me, and which can work in a simpler and more localised economy.

 

[mudsticks]

This is what I realised when I was on a Permaculture course, which is why I decided to work in other things like carpentry, bike maintenance, and Storytelling; areas which are helpful to other people who can grow food much better than me, and which can work in a simpler and more localised economy.

Food wise we're probs 65% self sufficient, from what is produced here.

Another 10% of it is barter for other people s produce, game etc


And I pay myself, the mortgage electric council tax etc from produce of this land.

But I still need other people, and their skills for things I can't, or haven't got time to do..

I'm not really a fan of this unrealistic idea of 'running away to the country' to some kind of 'Good Life' idyll..

In many ways towns and cities are better ways to live as you've realised, if they could be designed better, to be nicerer for humans, with more food growing going on, in or near them.

A lot of permaculture is (in my slightly cynical view) old indigenous wisdom, methodologies, and common sense resource efficiency, repackaged and sold back to the disconnected .

Not harmful as such , but it does often seem to be a white dude in a plaid shirt spouting stuff that his more underresourced granny would have done as a matter of course..

Of course I love permaculturalists really.
.. Just couldn't eat a whole one, nor swallow the herb spiral..

 

[Andy in Germany]

A lot of permaculture is (in my slightly cynical view) old indigenous wisdom, methodologies, and common sense resource efficiency, repackaged and sold back to the disconnected .

That's pretty much as it was presented, to be fair. The general theme was "There's nothing new about any of this, we just seem to have forgotten it. Also, here's the science we now know to back it up".

I don't sit well with living in a town, but I have lived in a couple of intentional communities for about five years in total, and I could envisage returning to something similar; a community model based on specialised skills would be entirely sustainable and pleasant to live in, but I think there's an upper limit to how many people can be part of it before it either just becomes another village, or communal decision making becomes political or top-down.

Unfortunately the local "Eco community" has made such a mess and caused so much local anger there's little chance of local governments allowing it to be repeated.