Most of us know how much fun (and useful) gardening can be, especially things like: raising or planting-out seedlings and facilitating the beginnings of life, harvesting those crisp vegetable and fruit crops fresh from the backyard, selecting those fragrant herbs, or pruning and admiring those ornamentals strategically positioned around our home. However, gardening isn't all
Introduction Cauliflower belongs to the brassica (botanical) family, which happens to be the largest vegetable family in the world and includes other vegetables like broccoli, cabbage, and even bok choy. I sometimes think about the origins of vegetables (I'm a Pisces) and wonder who was the first person to find and try this vegetable? I'm
September means spring in my part of the world and at spring time no matter where in the world you are one of the best plants to grow is the strawberry. As we all know, strawberries are a divine and decadent fruit but they can be pricey to buy from the markets so I grow
(This post was updated on 13th May 2013) Ever since I first started jogging seriously back in my high school days (around 1985/86) when I was preparing for a career in the military, I’ve always needed music on my runs. Whenever I’ve had to run/jog without music the experience for me has been less enjoyable.
This article was revised on 14 December 16 (a video I created was added towards the end of the post below – this gives some extra information on growing cucumbers and also how to ferment/pickle them). Cucumbers, the phallic melon which takes pride of place displayed proudly in the fresh food section in supermarkets around
Updated on 4th Dec 2017 A review of a cruise ship, namely the Sea Princess, is a tad unusual for a self-sufficiency blog… I admit that – but, this is no ordinary self-sufficiency blog. And, since a large readership of our website are nature lovers, retirees, people approaching retirement from the workforce, and also people
This article was updated on 28 Nov 2015 I‘ve known people who have given up and given away their chickens simply because they felt chickens were too much trouble to look after. In fact, we’ve even benefited from people asking us if we could take their birds off their hands for free because they were
Article updated on 04 June 2016 The question, will my olive trees flower and fruit in a warm climate with a mild winter? Is answered! I love eating olives and olive oil so when we finally moved to our acreage one of the first trees I planted was a Manzanillo olive tree. In fact, for our
Yes, you can keep ducks and chickens together is the short answer but there are some special considerations to be made if you plan to keep both of these beautiful poultry breeds side-by-side. Therefore, in this short article I’ve selected the most important areas to consider when keeping ducks and chickens together pointing out where
If you want an easy, no fuss, fruit tree to grow, then the Meyer lemon tree would have to be without a doubt in the top ten list. No matter if your gardening skills stink you will be able to grow this tree and produce one of the most famous and popular fruit known to
Today, I planted about 23 new gazanias in our garden adding to our ever expanding gazania collection. My main gardening passion is food and I love all types of food plants but over the past few years I have been paying more attention to ornamental plants because I have realised how growing ornamentals (particularly flowering
Incumbent governments worldwide are under increasing threat of becoming one term wonders due to the desperation and anger of struggling families trying to meet their ever rising household bills. People are venting their frustration at the ballot box and this in turn is making the overall situation worse economically due to the instability constantly changing
When people mention poultry for backyard suburbia the first bird which comes to mind is the chicken. And why not? I mean, the humble chicken is easy to look after, there’s lots of information out there about keeping chickens, and everyone is familiar with chicken eggs. However, say the “quail” word and most people have
Self Sufficient Me is a blog about self-sustainment by growing our own produce (plant/animal), and self-fulfilment by looking after our health (physical/mental) through exercise and slowing life down a little.
