So here is where the story starts

So the challenge for 2009 is to stay away from the big supermarkets as much as possible.
We will be sourcing all of our meat from a local farmer where we have seen the animals as they grow.
So far our meat supplies include 12 chickens, 6 ducks. There is also quite a lot of pheasant from this years shooting season.
A mincer and sausage maker is on order so hopefully our diet will be varied by some sausage and mince.

We are hoping to be self sufficient in fruit & veg, although this will take some time to build up. We have secured 3/4 acre of farm land and will also be using a big chunk of our back garden. The plan is to use half of the farm land for cereal crops (we'll give wheat a try this year). This is probably totally crazy - what what the hey!!
The immediate plan is to buy all of our fruit & veg from the local market.

There is so much to learn and so much to take in - I can imagine that most "non-working, awake hours" will be spent trying to find information.

Although it's only the 3rd January we have made quite a bit of progress already in the last 3 days:

- Lots of shopping (Earthway seed planter, 4 raised beds for garden, sausage and mince maker, breadmaker & 4 apple trees). The apple trees we have opted for are 2 Queen Cox and 2 Egremont Russet - all of them on the dwarf M9 root stock so hopefully they won't take up the whole garden.

- Made our own pasta for the first time with a hand cranked pasta machine. It is so easy to do and the taste is fantastic! Received the pasta maker as a Christmas present.

- Cleared out garage to make way for trailer that will be arriving in the next 2 weeks. I suspect that the trailer is going to become a very well used item in the near future.

- Built a bonfire in the back of the garden to help clear way for the raised beds.

- Rotivated the back garden area where the 4 raised beds will go.

- Brought back 16 bags of compost from the garden shop to start to fill the raised beds when they arrive. Also bought 12m X 2m of ground cover for areas in between raised beds.

Right, well that's probably enough for now about the start of this project. Who knows where it will go and how it will pan out...