The real ‘good life’ - part 4

An experiment in sustainable living, by Amy Rhodes

Amy Rhodes lives on a smallholding in Chulmleigh, and along with three generations of her family is on a journey of sustainable living. They aim to produce all their own food for a year, only buying sugar, flour and salt.

The last couple of months have been busy, beginning with my sheep lambing. We had three sets of twins and one single. It is so much fun letting them out into the field and seeing them skipping around. Sadly one of my oldest ewes Tess died when her lambs were just 3 weeks old, so we have been bottle feeding them since then. Now they are bigger than all the others!

We had managed to survive the storms in late February/early March largely unscathed, although we were without mains electricity for 5 days. Happily my house is also self sufficient, and we could keep the freezers going thanks to being off grid with our solar panels and batteries - otherwise it could have been a disaster losing vital food we had frozen.

I have really got going with sowing seeds and have everything from chillis to cabbages coming up in pots in the polytunnel. It has still been below freezing some nights, so there are only onions, broad beans, peas and carrots outside so far. Some new potatoes are just coming up, and I have to watch them and cover the shoots with soil to prevent them being killed by frost.

We are starting to get worried about having enough to eat through the ‘hungry gap’. The potatoes are all sprouting, and there has been some mouse damage to them and the parsnips. We may end up cooking and freezing some to prevent them deteriorating further. We have lots of purple sprouting broccoli at the moment, but soon we will be more reliant on frozen produce, some spinach and salad until greens like broad beans and peas are ready.

Cattle out on the spring grass

Although grass growth hasn’t been great so far, the ground is dry and all my animals are outside which is a nice feeling. I hired a skid steer for a day to clean out the barn, spreading the muck around the fields and saving some for my garden. As we go through April and into May I look forward to the signs of life it will bring. You can follow Amy on Instagram: @keepitselfsufficient