Sallygardens Smallholding

The Most Eco Conscious Chistmas Presents Ever, Probably

If you are looking for a sustainable and environmentally friendly Christmas present look no further! The Sallygardens ebooklets are lovingly written in a bid to share what we have learned during our four years of smallholding in Ireland. They are designed to offer all the information you need to get going on a range of topics ; Rearing Weaners for the Table, Growing Vegetables for Beginners, Making Country Wines, A Beginners Guide to Keeping Chickens and Keeping Goats.

They contain all the information that we wish was handed to us on a plate, but instead spent hours, days and months researching the ins and outs of the various activities we wanted to undertake at Sallygardens. They make a lovely thoughtful gift for anybody who has an interest in practical sustainable living and are very reasonably priced. The ebooklets are emailed to you as an attachment, so there are no postage charges and no envelopes used. The recipient can view the document on their computer or choose to print it out. Perhaps if you are buying it as a gift you could bind it nicely and give it a personal touch.

Click on the Paypal Store on the top right hand column of this web page to order an ebooklet from Sallygardens.

Ode to a Compost Toilet

Last week I was invited by a friend to see their poo, in a compost toilet.  An earlier post here on Sallygardens about the possibility of using compost toilets and tree bogs got so much attention and feedback from readers that I thought I'd keep you filled in on my humanure adventures.

Many people have a compost toilet indoors which they empty every few days into an outdoor compost heap. This is the most efficient way for the composting process to work. Others build a compost toilet outdoors which is what my friend has done. He uses it as much as possible, even though he has a conventional indoor flushable toilet. As he explains, it's such a waste to flush away all those nutrients which are simply going to pollute the local groundwater via his 'legal' septic tank system. It makes much more ecological sense to reuse the household human waste by composting it aerobically which means all the pathogens are killed over the course of a years composting and when done properly does not contaminate groundwater or create any bad smells. It also saves enormously on water usage in the home, it makes no sense to use water in vast quantities which has been cleaned expensively to flush away human waste. He far prefers to take a dump outdoors in his tree bog, looking out on nature.

The outdoor tree bog of his type needs emptying out once every year or two and I was invited to come along to watch. I wanted to see for myself how human manure composts and see if it smelled at all. When it was prized open there were a few bits of toilet paper on the top layer, but no smell and there was no visible evidence of what one might expect to see. The entire pile was sweet smelling, earthy, dark and crumbly. It resembled peat moss in composition and was delightful in appearance and aroma, it was quite impossible to equate this lovely nutrient rich and moist (but not soggy) earth with its former appearance. I also immediately thought how infinitely more pleasant it is to deal with this sweet smelling compost than with the dreaded anaerobic stinking bath of toxic wretch inducing swill that fills our septic tanks and quite often requires unblocking and emptying.

My vote is for compost toilets.

Appreciating Resilience

One of the words that keeps popping up all through any permaculture book or website you'll dip into is 'resilience'. At first I didn't really appreciate the value of this word, and what it might mean for our own family, but as the economic downturn packs some serious punches the term is making a lot more sense. 'Resilience' isn't just a fashionable permaculture buzzword.

 

In a nutshell, whenever you look at your living space (indoors and out) you should always ask yourself the questions 'how can I utilise this space/item/object for more than one use?','if this breaks how will I continue ... is there an alternative source of water/fuel/food/shelter/cooking/travel etc?'. Whenever we add something to our life, our home or our garden I always ask how I'd cope without it, or what alternatives we could use instead. I walk around our house and garden and I look at how we've set things up. I ask all the same questions ... how would I water this polytunnel if the pump and automatic watering system failed, where would I source water if our water supply was to be cut off. Water is one of the first things to ask ourselves about. We are lucky to have a stream at the side of our property and a lake at the back, plus plenty of roof area to collect rainwater if needed. Another main area is fuel ... how would we heat our home if we couldn't afford oil, or travel to buy coal. Again, luckily we have a woodland plantation which provides us with heating fuel and so we rarely buy fuel these days. Cooking of food? What if electricity is cut off or we can no longer afford gas cylinders? One plan for this summer is to build an earth oven in the garden for such occasions. And as for food, what if the supermarket supply chain fails and there's no food on the shelves ... sourcing local markets or growers, and growing your own suddenly becomes much more than just a fulfilling pleasure.

Apart from being fun it also makes sense to build our resilience. With the global economic downturn I've suddenly felt the welcoming cushioning effect of all these little steps of resilience built into our lives, which up until now, I'd have barely acknowledged their presence. But they are there and we planned it that way, thanks to reading up on permaculture. At the very worst case scenario it boils down to survival, at it's current level it helps keep life on a steady and even keel. There is still food on the table and we know we have many of the resources we need on the doorstep in order to continue living the life we've been enjoying.

Of course we are far from self sufficient, but we've never aimed to be that. It's more about living sustainably, and building resilience into life is one little part of that.

Sallygardens eBooklet Store

At long last I've managed to create a Paypal store which will make it easier for you to purchase our Sallygardens eBooklets. Instead of having to email me first to request a Paypal invoice you can place a direct order via this store front. Of course you can still use the old way, this alternative just provides another easier option . Look to the right hand side bar to find the store. Come on in and have a look around.

Changing Seasons

It's all been very busy here lately and I'll fill you in on the reasons. First of all the last of our hard working wwoofers has left and we won't be having any more until the spring. With Christmas approaching Dan is now in the workshop making Hobby Horses for customers. He features in the November issue of Ireland's Homes, Interiors & Living Magazine and already has orders coming in through that. I've just been working on an Etsy Shop for him too but his order books are bound to be full quite soon.

We are also kept busy with running courses here at Sallygardens and because the subjects are varied we never get bored! Pig rearing for the table, goat keeping, keeping chickens, growing your own vegetables and a general smallholding visit are all becoming more and more popular, but with the way the economy is going I'm not at all surprised. With less cash in peoples pockets and rising prices the interest in providing for yourself, even on a garden scale, is getting more appealing by the minute. Luckily there's not too much to do on the gardening front here at the moment other than eat whats there, and there's still a lot. Dan planted about a hundred over wintering onions in the polytunnel a couple of weeks ago and we will also plant garlic before the end of this month.

Life is finding a new balance at Sallygardens because I've taken up a full time course which means I'm out of the house 'at shcool' five mornings a week. Our youngest started school too this September so Dan has the place to himself until after lunchtime. He says he gets loads more done without me around nagging him!!! The course I'm doing is Traditional Irish Music, I'm learning to play the fiddle as well as studying folklore, music theory and history ... and I LOVE it.

Working Horses on the Farm

A while ago a course in the organic centre brochure caught my eye 'Working With Horses'. I began to mull over the benefits of having a working horse on the smallholding, which was quite difficult as I had very limited 'horsey' knowledge ie absolutely no idea what a working horse  could actually be used for on a farm. It's funny, but sometimes when something crops up for the first time in my life it seems to keep coming up, when I've never thought about it before. No sooner had I started thinking about this previously unvisited subject in my head, I saw an article in Sustainability magazine about ... working horses. I devoured the article within minutes and read it over again and again. The facts and figures were fascinating. I got in touch with Sandra Schmid, the author, and she painted a realistic picture of the kinds of job a cob horse or donkey might be able to help with.

A horse would certainly fit in well with our long term plans for the woodland.  There are other jobs a horse could be used for too ... preparing vegetable beds, ploughing and planting areas in which to grow grain and fodder to feed the horse itself and our other livestock, perhaps even to go shopping in our local village. The benefits of using a horse instead of the car for short trips, or a tractor, is that we can (with it's help) grow it's fuel  requirements in the field, what's more the 'emissions' can be composted and recycled in the veg garden! On top of that a horse can replicate itself and make more horses for you to use or sell, I've not come across a vehicle that can do that yet.

In the meantime Dan went on the working with horses course and immediately became enamoured with the whole idea too, which was exactly why I sent him on the course rather than myself!

Jim Cronin and his son teaching the 'Working With Horses'  course at the Organic Centre, Rossinver

Of course there are expenses to consider; feed, housing, fencing, shoes, tackle, carts and vets bills. We will be doing some maths and thinking about the pros and cons, then we'll probably throw that piece of paper out the window and fall in love with some lovely little Irish cob and that'll be that.

Butchering Free Range Organic Pigs at Home

When your pigs get to slaughter weight you can take them to the abattoir and they'll kill, butcher and bag up all the meat if you wish. Of course after you've been through it all a few times you may start to get tempted by the thought of saving a few Euros, or simply be keen to have a go and attempt to do the butchering yourself. You can arrange with the abattoir for them to kill and gut the pig so you can collect the cleaned out carcass in two halves and attempt the butchering at home.

Amazingly (and you'll be even more amazed once you've tried it yourself!), a trained butcher can cut up a pig in little over an hour but don't use this as your guideline for completing a the job!  Allow a full twelve hour day with the help of at least one other person, preferably four keen workers. A second day will also be needed if you intend to make your own sausages and salami. Don't forget about freezer space, a couple of pigs will fill three or four drawers of an upright freezer.

Before you gather troops and collect the pig carcass it's vital you have a number of essentials to hand which should be organised  and lined up ready to hit the ground running a few weeks prior to the event. Invest in some butchers knives and a sharpener, ask your local butcher where he buys his own. Also buy a couple of rolls of plastic bags for packing and a good black permanent marker for labeling bags. It's handy to have a weighing scales for measuring out portions when bagging up too. 

If you also intend to make sausages ensure you have already decided on flavours and bought in the necessary herbs and spices well in advance, mix these the day before so they can be easily added to each batch of ground sausage meet as you work. Ensure you have sausage casings and a sausage maker ready to roll.  Buy and watch the River Cottage DVD 'Pig In a Day With Hugh & Ray', watch it several times and set it up in front of the table you'll be working on so you can play and pause the DVD as you make your cuts. We pool bought ours to share between friends.  Keep a well stocked first aid kit close to hand. Take regular breaks and eat well because you'll need to keep up your energy levels. Warn any squeemish, vegan or vegetarian friends and neighbours not to call in that day! Have some chilled beer and wine to crack open once you've finished to celebrate.

Again this is a fantastic experience for children to witness first hand. There is no mistake where their pork chops come from after seeing this. I'm all in favour of educating people as to where their food originates and if that results in my children choosing to become vegetarian then I'd be proud to assist them, we all eat too much meat anyway. I don't want them to be so disjointed from the realities of food that it comes as a shock that pork was once a living pig, or that their burger was a cow. So many kids (and adults) these days don't make the connection or never get the opportunity to, because meat is not packaged with any visual reminders of animals on the labels and our lives are so removed from the whole process. It's all too easy to mentally bypass the realities of life, death and animal welfare that is required for us to consume meat.

I've often had visitors to our home who meet our pigs and find them delightful creatures (which they are), then when I explain that they aren't pets but are for the table, the conversation usually goes ; 'That's so cruel, how could you?',  'Are you vegetarian?', 'No!', 'Do you eat pork from the supermarket?', 'Yes, but that's different', 'yes it is because our pigs are outdoors and free ranging, your pork has probably never seen the light of day and has been raised indoors', silent thoughtfulness then ensues. On the other hand I've had lifelong vegetarians stay with us who have decided to eat our meat because they see that the animal welfare issues that stop them supporting intensive meat production systems are simply not an issue here. Education and awareness followed by informed choice and less meat eating could improve life for a lot of pigs!

Best Green Blogs

Finding fantastic blogs on arts, crafts, parenting, cooking and business is fairly easy as there are a huge number of top class sites to choose from. Locating ecological and sustainable living themed blogs are a little bit more difficult to find. Once you come across one there's usually a host of links to like minded similar blogs, but there still just isn't the volume you'd find on other subjects. I've just come across something that makes it even easier to find what your looking for in the green blogosphere called Best Green Blogs which is a directory. I submitted this Sallygardens blog and was delighted to be notified that it's been elevated to Editor's Choice with a lovely little review. If you author a green blog why not consider submitting your site, it's free. If you are interested in 'green' subjects pop along and enjoy the variety of sites to choose from.

Guest Smallholder

I meet many like minded people who are smallholding in various ways around Ireland and I'd love to introduce some of them to you now and then. Each smallholder has their own way of doing things and a lot can be learnt from others. This is my friend Geraldine.

She and her family grow all their own vegetables and also keep chickens, goats and occasionally pigs. Both her and her husband work part-time giving them a cash flow and plenty of time to be at home with the children and tend the smallholding. They are in the process of converting to an organically certified farm. When I was visiting her recently over in County Roscommon I noticed an ingenious way of watering pumpkin and squash plants until they are established under a mulch. The system can be reused year after year.

Simple, effective and a perfect example of the re-use of otherwise waste materials before they go into landfill.

That's an awful lot of squash for one family! I'm hoping some surplus comes my way.

Meat Rabbits

When you first consider what livestock to keep on a smallholding there are a few usual suspects that always make an appearance but don't forget about the unusual ones too. Cows, pigs, chickens, sheep and goats are at the forefront of most peoples minds but there is an alternative option that requires only a couple of square meters grazing, if any at all. Even people in an urban environment can consider raising meat rabbits for the table.

The wild rabbit was first utilised for meat by the Romans who realised a single pair could produce an impressive 90kg of meat a year. Originally they were fenced into large areas, fed bundles of fodder and culled when required.  It didn't take long for rabbits to be housed in urban hutches for meat production. There still seems to be a strong tradition of keeping rabbits domestically for meat in Wales and much of the US. When I was a child I clearly remember skinned rabbits being sold on Moore's Street  in Dublin and my mother would often make a delicious rabbit stew. In France rabbit is still sold in the markets and even supermarkets alongside chicken and pork.

Consider the advantages; on a couple of meters you can keep a breeding pair with two enclosures. A female rabbit (doe) is capable of giving birth every thirty days but realistically she shouldn't be allowed to do this or she will lose condition. A good doe can have approximately nine kits at a time and they are ready to eat at three or four months of age. Tthe doe ovulates in response to the buck's presence. If there is plenty of food she will give birth to all the kits.  If food is scarce she can reabsorb some or all of the kits and give birth to the appropriate number to match available resources.  Outdoors she will breed during spring and summer but if housed indoors she can breed throughout the year by extending daylight hours with lighting. The disadvantages are that you will need to confidently cull rabbits yourself. There are some excellent books which talk you through various methods including Basic Butchering of Livestock & Game, by J. Mettler. 

There are a few excellent large breed meat rabbits that grow quickly. The most popular is the stocky New Zealand White, followed by the beautiful Californian. Sourcing a breeding pair or trio is relatively easy in the UK, just read the adverts at the back of any smallholders magazine. In Ireland it's possible to source them via an excellent poultry breeder in Co Leitrim.

I've been researching meat rabbits for about a year now and I've found it very difficult indeed gathering the necessary information. I hope to publish another EBooklet 'Breeding Meat Rabbits for the Table, A Beginner's Guide' very shortly which ought to save those new to this idea hours of research!