The Fragility of Self-Reliance

For me self-sufficiency is a myth, as to play a full role in modern life - wear decent clothes, enjoy the benefits of any electronic device, use the most effective medicines etc - we rely on wider society. What many people mean by self-sufficiency is growing most of their own food, better expressed as self-reliance. We are happy to grow a small percentage of our own food: we have hens for eggs, and an allotment that provides a large proportion of our vegetables from say June to mid-October, plus beds in the garden for herbs and additional veg, especially salads. But we are far from self-reliant and certainly not self-sufficient.

The dangers of such a path have been emphasized this year by what has happened to our fruit harvest. The combination of a dry spring and horribly wet summer and early autumn, with frequent damaging winds, has left us with barely a fruit on our two cooking apple trees, nothing on the eater, nothing on the cherry, nothing on the pear. The cobnut bushes produced a less than exciting 100g of shelled fruit, made into pesto and long gone already. If we had chosen a true peasant existence we would be done for.

Nuts to Squirrels

We decided to leave our cobnuts to ripen a bit longer a week ago. Tactical error. Today I went to pick them and it was a rapid process. Same number of nuts as a eunach. There had been I'd guess about 3kg in total over four little trees, all nicely wrapped in little leafy bits. I was going to dry and blitz them to make cakes and bread, but that is a tad difficult now. Somewhere near our allotment there is a squirrel telling itself it's just a bit of fat for the winter, and grey always makes you look a bit bloated anyway. They are, as the phrase goes, rats with good PR.

At least we got four big Turk's Turban squashes, the other thing I was there to pick. And one tiny patty pan - lots of late courgettes too. In 2010 we grew loads of Jack-be-Little pumpkins, about 1/2lb each, perfect for adding to mash or soup or stews, but for some reason they failed totally this year. One Turk's T will make a dish on November 5, the others I will try very hard to use up before then as I am not sure how well they will keep. They look good though.