Aims

This is a work-in-progress where I’m going to pile up all the things we’re aiming to do and learn. I’ll update it as we go! 

Food

• Build up a store of 1 year’s supply of food that we eat. Try to ensure that we are storing the ingredients for food that won’t keep – e.g. store UHT milk to make short-shelf-life dairy products as required, ingredients for bread etc.
  • Work out what we eat in a year
  • DONE! learn to bake bread from base ingredients
  • learn to bake good, light, everyday bread!
  • learn to make basic pastas
  • learn to make and wax hard cheese - cheddar, parmesan and more
  • learn to make soft cheeses that we use – feta (soft and hard), mozzarella,
  • learn to make other dairy products that we use – sour cream, yoghurt
  • learn to preserve and store fresh food that we grow, or that is only seasonally available locally.
  • learn to make jam
• Find a network of  local producers and suppliers, and use them as much as possible.
  • reduce our dependance on supermarkets to less than 50% of essential food
    • reduce our dependance on supermarkets to less than 10% of essential food
  • reduce our dependance on non-local food – less than 50% of essential food
    • reduce our dependance on non-local food – less than 10% of essential food
      • remove our dependance on non-local food – no essential food from further away than 100 miles, 90% within 50 miles

 Waste

• get milk (and juice if possible) delivered in reusable bottles
• shop for a month with no plastic bags
• compost all kitchen scraps, so that all waste from the house is “dry” and doesn’t need plastic bags
• halve the packaging we use in year 1
  • reduce it by 10% every year
• Halve our general refuse in year 1
  • reduce it by 10% every year thereafter
• put in a compost toilet
• put in a greywater recycling sytem for all water from bath, shower, washbasin, washing machine

Growing our own food

• setup our aquaponics system
  • harvest fish from our aquaponics system
    • breed our own fish, thereby closing the cycle
• harvest winter vegetables from our own plot
• get an allotment
• grow 50% of our own fruit and vegetable requirements
  • grow 80% of our own essential fruit and vegetables
• keep chickens for eggs

 Energy

• work out how much electricity we use, and try to devise a plan to provide that by renewable means
• reduce our fossil fuel use by 10% a year
• store at least a year’s supply of firewood
• have a heating/hot water system that will work with at least two different fuel sources
• have a cooking system that will work with at least two different fuel sources
• don’t buy or use a tumble dryer
• retire our powered mower
• provide all our essential power needs on-site, for at least a month
• provide 50% of non-essential power needs on site

General Resilience

• provide 100% of essential water requirements on-site for 3 months
• provide 50% of all water requirements for 3 months.
• “live” within a bikeable radius (public transport if necessary)
• learn to sharpen tools

Community

• Join local allotment / gardening groups
• Get involved in Manchester FOE
• Go to Green Drinks
• Team up with other local growers to ensure that we can have some “cover” if we ever go on holiday.