How Self Sufficient Are You?
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Category: General Chat
Forum Name: General Chat
Forum Description: For mums, dads, parents-to-be, grandparents, friends -- you name it! And you name the topic you want to chat about!
URL: https://www.ohbaby.co.nz/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=22897
Printed Date: 02 October 2025 at 11:57am
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.05 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: How Self Sufficient Are You?
Posted By: MissAngel
Subject: How Self Sufficient Are You?
Date Posted: 02 December 2008 at 8:49pm
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So my vege garden is in full swing - the only veg we need to buy (at the moment) is potatoes - and I still have to buy apples and pears. I make my own bread now too yum yum! What do you guys do at home to help cut costs with food? I've ordered half a cow as well which will come before xmas yay! Now all I need is chickens. ------------- Alex, Thomas and Lily http://lilypie.com" rel="nofollow"> 
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Replies:
Posted By: peanut butter
Date Posted: 02 December 2008 at 8:54pm
| we have a little vege garden in pots...only producing lettuce at the moment but hopefully will give me carrots, cucumber, tomatoes, beetroot and zucchini. I'd love to do more but we havent got the room and are renting. did buy 1/4 beast the other day....cant call that self suficiency but definately got us great meat at a better price.....or did you buy half a living cow?? |
Posted By: MissAngel
Date Posted: 02 December 2008 at 9:08pm
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Well it was living when I bought it, but it's not now :P ------------- Alex, Thomas and Lily http://lilypie.com" rel="nofollow">
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Posted By: kebakat
Date Posted: 02 December 2008 at 9:55pm
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The vege garden is DH's project, and what do ya know, we are getting nothing from it at the moment because he doesn't spend enough time in it. He goes out to it once a fortnight *rolls eyes*
Meat though, we get that free from my parents farm |
Posted By: Daizy
Date Posted: 02 December 2008 at 10:00pm
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We are shocking. I am trying to get better at it, finally sorted out my vegie garden in the weekend - now to atcually get something to grow.
I am also trying to make more food from scratch, have yet to perfect my bread but its getting there 
I would love to be able to make more of my own and the girls clothes too but that would require finding time I dont have right now. ------------- 
 
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Posted By: Rackhell
Date Posted: 02 December 2008 at 10:01pm
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Don't have vege garden at new house yet as not organised enough (and section is all downhill) but curiously have been diligently buying paknsave foodstamps throughout the year and will be buying bucketloads of the green for xmas
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Posted By: Konagirl
Date Posted: 02 December 2008 at 10:22pm
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Lots of stuff for us, we have 3 large veggie patches all producing stuff at the moment, a tunnel house and 12 fruit trees. We get meat and eggs off friends. We also happily forage for stuff and are still eating blackberry jam from last Autum and have lots of elderflower cordial and champagne in the fridge. Yum, yum, yum...
We also use a breadmaker, I bake all our biscuits and cakes and make muslie. I bottle and make jams and chutneys. Um, that is about it I think ------------- Angel babies Mar '04, Oct '08 and Sep '09. |
Posted By: mylilmosaic
Date Posted: 02 December 2008 at 11:05pm
Ummm we do a little bit, our vege garden is being planted up now and hopefully will have some greens for Jan. My chooks keep us and other members of my family in eggs. And most of our meat comes off the farm and so does our milk - straight from the vat.  And I do have a breadmaker but have yet to use it  ------------- http://lilypie.com"> 
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Posted By: Bobbie
Date Posted: 02 December 2008 at 11:38pm
We don't have room for a vege garden but our lovely neighbours down the back give us the surplus from theirs 
I don't make my own bread but we do a lot of home cooking/baking. I go through a bag of flour every 2-3 weeks. -------------  
 
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Posted By: Glow
Date Posted: 03 December 2008 at 7:31am
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Garden & orchard give us fruit & vege. Most stuff I make from scratch. I use a yoghurt maker. I blanch, freeze & preserve as much as I can. Bread I bake occassional. Most our meat comes from the butcher but we have been known to have a sheep in our back yard. Id like to have chooks & pigs of my own, we just dont have the space. The InLaws have chooks, sheep & cows so we get eggs & some meat from them.
I compost, reduce, reuse & recycle ------------- Mummy of Two Boys B: 2004 K: 2007 |
Posted By: hooper
Date Posted: 03 December 2008 at 8:15am
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we have a huge veg garden d/p is so proud of it. ------------- Desiree 
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Posted By: Snappy
Date Posted: 03 December 2008 at 10:57am
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Wow Im impressed!
Um... I sometimes make my own bread.. And I make Jacksons food, and do alot of baking. I must start on a vege garden though by the sounds of it. BTW - how much cheaper is it to make your own yoghurt? Is it expensive to buy the equipment etc? ------------- Mummy to two beauties... Formerly Kaiz. |
Posted By: Mum_mum
Date Posted: 03 December 2008 at 11:34am
We have a huge vege garden that is mainly hubby's. he loves spending time down there! We aren't getting too much from it at the moment only cos the plants are still little but give it a few weeks and we will be eating from there loads. It usually saves us buying veges for about 4 months of the year which is pretty damn good 
We have about 10 chooks so get lots of eggs, tho we don't really like eggs that much anymore after 5 years of chooks. We give most of them away to neighbours. The other thing is DH's boat - now its summer he has been going out most weekends for paua and crays and fish! ------------- http://lilypie.com">  http://lilypie.com">
 Angel baby - May 2008
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Posted By: Paws
Date Posted: 03 December 2008 at 11:43am
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We have a vege garden going...well it's all in pots and troughs but you get the idea. Growing silverbeet, lettuce, tomoatoes, more lettuce, cauliflower, broccolli and cabbage and we have a cucumber plant too.
Yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! ------------- http://lilypie.com"> 
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Posted By: Jay_R
Date Posted: 03 December 2008 at 11:49am
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Nowhere near as self-sufficient as I'd like to be.
My dream is to live on a lifestyle block and have chickens and sheep and cows and a huuuuuuuge vege garden and fruit orchard. But at the moment I bake all our bread and biscuits and have a small vege garden. |
Posted By: xLUCKYx
Date Posted: 03 December 2008 at 12:54pm
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We have our own lil vege patch - currently enjoying our lettuces and we have green capsicum, brocco, cauli, tomatoes, eggplants yet to come :) Cant wait! We have our own herbs too and we look forward to extending our vege garden - we don't have much room but have used the old auck city recycling bins too which are great and hey its recycling!!
I am really interested in making my own bread - does it work out to be cheaper? I used to make my own yoghurt - might start doing that again cos it's YUM! I didn't find it much cheaper maybe a lil bit but I used to buy the flavourings to go in it too so adds up :) |
Posted By: Jay_R
Date Posted: 03 December 2008 at 2:43pm
| I've worked out that if you buy the flour in the 5kg bags (Homebrand) from Foodtown it works out to be .37c per loaf for standard white bread. It lasts us about 3 days, so .74c a week for bread is pretty good I reckon! |
Posted By: McPloppy
Date Posted: 03 December 2008 at 3:59pm
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We have our own vege garden with salad greens, radishes, capsicum,herbs carrots tomatoes (which I will turn into relish) and peas...about to put in Potatoes for Feb and do another row of carrots for later also. We recycle but have not yet started a compost...actually not sure if we will as the new bins will be arriving soon where we can put food scraps in. We also feed our neighbours worm farm and get some worm juice in return. Do not have a breadmaker but hoping santa will deliver one for xmas. ------------- http://lilypie.com"> 
http://lilypie.com"> 
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Posted By: mummy_becks
Date Posted: 03 December 2008 at 10:17pm
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This year I am not. Very sad as I usually am. We just don't have the climate here to grow anything. Last yeah the only thing fruit and verge wise I had to buy was banana's over summer. I also traded my veges for stuff last year. ------------- I was a puree feeder, forward facing, cot sleeping, pram pushing kind of Mum... and my kids survived! |
Posted By: lizzle
Date Posted: 04 December 2008 at 7:06am
| due to small people "helping" me garden I have aton of random veges in random places. lettuces are growing the cracks of the concrete. So one I figure out what the veges are, we can eat them! |
Posted By: TraceyA
Date Posted: 04 December 2008 at 9:30am
We are striving for the self-sufficient lifestyle and moved to a 6 acre rental before taking the plunge of buying the real deal. So far in the last 4 months here we have become self-sufficient in eggs (although only 2 of the 6 chooks are laying so the other 4 are going to get the chop, as is 1 of the 2 roosters, is it ok to kill the older birds, will they work for normal chicken meat or should I just use them for stews & soups do you think?). We also introduced a male duck for our two white ducks and had a clutch of 11 ducklings that is now down to 4  the Hawk ate the others before we could protect them, but we do plan on eating any of the young that make it to a good size and we want to find a gander for our 4 geese.
We are totally self-sufficient in leafy greens, broccoli, zucchini, beans, peas and soon we will have tomatoes, corn & potatoes ready to eat. We are also starting to grow sunflowers, quinoa and amaranth (sp?) plus loads of other things. Once we have all the gardens sorted we will think more about getting some other animals for meat production. I'm so excited to see this topic here
We are also trying to preserve, freeze and bottle our excess. We purchased a load of strawberries and made loads of jam, dug up all the beetroot and made chutney, burger beetroot and dip, I made organe, lemon & a mix cordial a few days ago (it's sooo easy). I used to make my own bread, sour dough, but I have trouble with NZ's low gluten flour (we always strive for local and organic before other options), and back in Oz we used to buy fresh yeast blocks not this dried stuff, anyone know what I'm talking about? I "make" my own yogurt in that I have an esiyo maker and get the powder, but I would prefer to do the old fashioned way of taking a tablespoon from the last batch, anybody do this and do you do it in your esiyo still? Here is a link to my blog if anyones interested, I'd love to see anyone elses if you have one. http://craftingahomestead.wordpress.com/ - Pioneering on the home front Link ------------- TTC #2 |
Posted By: xLUCKYx
Date Posted: 04 December 2008 at 11:30am
| I am sooo gonna be asking Santa for a bread maker! |