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

  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 c...

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 ...

A light hearted Guide by Sindy from Blue Garden Cottage . Hey there, fabulous folks of the internet!   This quirky council house homesteader is here to sprinkle some cheer and hopefully micro-homesteading wisdom of sorts into your day. Today, we're diving into the delightful world of romance and fairy tale cottage gardening. Picture this: you're in your cozy little cottage garden (council house or other), surrounded by chirping birds and the sweet scent of freshly picked herbs. You've got your gardening gloves on the table next to your cup of fresh herb tea, a twinkle in your eye, and a determination to conquer the world one radish at a time. That, my friends, is the essence of micro-homesteading; and that’s exactly what a suburban homestead in the UK is...micro. Micro-homesteading makes it possible for most of us who dream of a country life but are in the suburbs with a home/work/family life and budget that to a degree prohibits the reality of living in the country a...

  Homesteading in Social Housing  Is It Possible? Council housing and why they had gardens... For a long while now, I’ve been interested in the culture of social housing as far as gardening is concerned. What the general guidelines were for garden space and why, for building local council housing where the local council provided housing for those who were homeless or their finances couldn’t afford them private rental and other situations of need. Social housing and housing associations date way back to at least the year 1235 according to the National Housing Federation website where it gives a history of housing associations and council housing. The only relevant snippet I could find on another site was as follows: ‘ On most estates, houses were provided with a generous size garden to encourage the tenants to grow their own vegetables, a privet hedge at the front and an apple tree at the back.’ ( https://fet.uwe.ac.uk/conweb/house_ages/council_housing/section3.ht...