Sindy's Blue Garden Cottage - suburban homesteading and self-reliance content

  This Season's Woe and Wonder By Sindy Wakeham In the UK, just looking out of the window or standing outside, autumn has arrived and it doesn’t care about the human calendar. Nature decides what season comes when. The main season for almost two years has been autumn with days of normal seasons interspersed. Proper autumn is wonderful! I love all seasons in their place, but I’m not ready for autumn yet! My garden is nowhere near as fruitful as it used to be with lower light levels, cooler and wetter weather and fewer hot sunny days than normal. The garden’s far behind and only beginning to set fruit that should be ripening already. Urgency and Worry The main harvest season is upon us for all our fruit and annual veg which we normally put up for the winter and early spring. Even so, I have only been harvesting carrots, parsnips and garlic along with herbs. Summer harvests are done but there are still tomatoes to ripen. This time of year I’m normally already jamming (frui

    This year in particular in the UK (I’m not sure about other places), the evidence of way too much rain over a long time is obvious to the eyes with one glance around the garden. Even if you normally have fertile wonderful soil, this last almost two years have taken their toll. Even farmers have warned for two seasons of shortages and price hikes due to the availability or quality of food due to the weather even without all the other national and global contributing factors. Evidence in the yellowing leaves, some spotted, others yellow between the veins, some are reddish purple and its nowhere near autumn (the so called summer has been mostly autumnal and we are only a month or two away from what we normally call autumn). Some leaves are curled, dry and brown and it’s not been dry weather and there’re no signs of pest or disease. Along with the prolonged rainy season lasting for months, comes the lack of sunshine and warmth. At least there is light even if a grey hue.   I don’

  What Does Closed Loop Mean and is it Possible in Suburbia? By Sindy Wakeham What is a closed loop? I’m not talking about going ‘around the bend’ in a never ending circle. Though, we could go around the bend in a never ending cycle of guilt feelings and beating ourselves up for not being more ‘eco’ in our lives. The purpose of this article is to let you relax about your situation and be ok with making choices that best suit your own needs without punishing yourself for not having a perfectly ‘closed loop’ as far as resources go. As far as a home and garden are concerned, a closed loop is where nothing is brought in from outside and nothing leaves when we are talking about resources but it also applies to other things. It’s one of many principles in self-sufficiency. For example, I can now make all the compost for my garden from my garden without having to buy any in so I’m not letting any waste leave my property into landfill, either garden ‘waste’ or the bags compost comes

To keep or not to keep animals on a suburban homestead ...I’m pondering a few questions about keeping animals in a small suburban homestead in the UK. There’s too much information on the subject to mention here so this is meant to be an overview to point you in the right direction and give you an opportunity to check that it’s right for your homestead. This article is going deeper into the choice as to whether you want animals as a part of your homestead or not which is particularly important if you are a suburban or an urban homesteader.     Is homesteading without animals even homesteading? I have already explained what HOMESTEAD actually means and where the word comes from in my blog no.2.   Homesteading isn’t determined by whether there are animals on or in it anyway. There are many homesteads that DON’T include stock animals because it’s not suitable for them and I have seen a few vegan homesteads that do keep animals just because they love them and it has nothing

By Sindy Wakeham   You get it. You know WHY you may want to homestead, have a cottage garden, live the ‘good life’. But WHERE is the best place to do that? Here’s the thing; A homestead (garden and home working toward providing SOMETHING for you and yours), can be whatever you want it to be! Where depends on a few options and possibilities. If you’re in the UK like me and my family, your first consideration is cost. Let’s face it; land of any size in the UK is priced at a premium. No point thinking about it until you know what space you have. Location wise, all southern parts of England and Wales are famous for being the best places, but I have seen fantastic edible gardens as far north as north-east Scotland and even some in Northern Ireland. In my Observations blog , I cover how you can observe your location and situation to inform the type of garden you grow. There are different ways of living a homesteading life in the UK and I’m going to suggest a few options. SMALLHOLD