Living off the land

When my wife and I met in the early 1960s, aged 18, we somehow felt that we could do life better. We were soon married and living in a house in the middle of a field with no running water, no electricity, no mortgage, in fact nothing much at all except our two toddler sons and a clear determination to be self-sufficient.

As we both saw it, our progress was going to be something like Robinson Crusoe on his desert island. We would take from the best that was on offer – like Crusoe did from his foundered ship – and use it to create a new world.

Over the next 10 years we kept chickens, turkeys, geese, goats and sheep and, like every other go-greener of that generation, we built a wind turbine using bits salvaged from old cars. The pity is that, although we loved the life, we were forced by financial pressures to move out.

But now, 30 years later, we have just exchanged our townhouse for a place in the country, a tumble-down 1920s wooden shack with three acres of meadow and woodland. And what are we planning to do? Well, apart from putting in a wind turbine and a geothermal heating system, we’re aiming literally to live off the land again: developing a no-dig vegetable garden; bringing the orchard to order and planting more apple trees; keeping chickens for eggs, a couple of goats for milk and bees for honey; and maybe putting in a very large pond for trout.

The vegetable garden is already under way. When we arrived, the land was chest-high with weeds and overrun with thousands of rabbits – so many that we didn’t have to mow the grass. The first few weeks were a blur of activity. We got the biggest air rifle we could legally own (for the rabbits), hacked back overgrown hedges, ringed the plot with a rabbit-proof fence and covered the half acre of weeds with a plastic sheet and 6in of wood-chip mulch. Over the next few months, we’ll build frames for the raised beds and fill them with a good growing mix in a chequerboard arrangement of planting. The set-up takes time and money but it keeps maintenance to a minimum. All I’ll have to do is tickle the beds with a trowel or hoe, shovel up the mulch when it starts to rot down and pluck out the thin weeds that do make it to the surface. No-dig gardening may sound too good to be true but it’s not.

As for the orchard, we have had a wonderful crop this year. What we couldn’t eat fresh we bottled and turned into pulp, jams and chutneys. Next year we plan to sell surplus produce at the gate. Our self-sufficient friends tell us this works well. All they do is bunch and bag the apples, beans or spuds, price them per bunch or bag and leave them on a table at the gate. At the end of the day they collect whatever money is there; it’s not much but it’s something. Eventually we hope to grow many more types of apples too: Bramleys for cooking, Grenadier Orange and Ellison Orange for eating, maybe a couple of Sturmer Pippin for storing and perhaps some varieties for cider making. We reckon that if we plant three- to four-year-old, container-grown trees we should, with a bit of luck, have new fruit to harvest in two to three years.

As for the animals, we have just started fencing a chicken run and planning the coop. Last time, we ran into trouble with foxes and wild boars so we’ll be more careful with security this time. We hope to house 12 Plymouth Rocks and 12 Exchequer Leghorns, who will provide all the eggs we need for omelettes, quiches and crèmes brûlées.

The goats will come next, although we realise they can be difficult creatures – jumping fences and chewing and eating just about everything. Our first goat was named Nancy and we got her at a bargain price. But the first time I tried to milk her – setting her on a little platform, tethering her collar to a hook in the wall, resting my head against her rounded side like something out of a Thomas Hardy story – she waited until the bowl was nicely full then raised one back leg and stomped down into it, sending milk spilling everywhere. On my second attempt, the next day, I added an extra tether on the offending back leg but she still managed to hop on her free back foot and kick the bowl over. It took many more tethers and chains before we had milk to drink. So we have learnt our lesson. There is no such thing as a bargain goat and this time we’ll get them from a recommended breeder.

The beehive and the trout pond will probably be the last additions to our rural paradise. We’re novices on both fronts so plan to consult experts for advice. Beekeeping does seem like a rather daunting step but the prospect of fresh honey – wonderful on toast and stirred into porridge – should keep us going. One beekeeper we know reckons that the best way of getting to know neighbours is to keep them supplied with pots as presents. The pond is also at a will-we-or-won’t-we stage but, via the internet, we’re learning how we might go about installing one. We think we could eventually catch and eat 10 or so fish a month, which would nicely round out our homegrown diets.

You may be wondering why we want to be so self-sufficient when it comes to food. What with slugs munching our greens and foxes infiltrating our set-up, there’s no question the garden will be a challenge. Keeping livestock will be even harder work, a 24/7 operation on high days and holidays, come rain or come shine.

But against all that, we eat fresh food, spend much less on shopping and sleep like babies. Self-sufficiency has also changed our relationship with what we eat. If we have a glut of apples, greens or eggs or if a crop is wiped out by a pest, we go with the flow and shape up our meals accordingly. Would you believe we now know 25 ways to cook courgettes?

Alan Bridgewater is the co-author of ‘The Self-Sufficiency Handbook’ (New Holland Publishers, £12.99). To buy this book at a discounted price of £9.99 plus postage and packing, contact the FT’s ordering service, tel: +44 0870-429 5884; www.ft.com/bookshop