Wild Food/Foraging Courses - Please see here for more details. Or see The Guardian website for a review of the walk.

SELFSUFFICIENTISH.COM the birth place of the Selfsufficient-ish Bible.

Welcome to our corner of the internet. We have been bringing you advice and information on everything Selfsufficientish since April 2004 and decided that is was time for a spring clean. All of your favourite articles are still available, some might have different names and some of the ones you did not like should have gone for good.

If this is the first time you have been here then Hello. We are selfsufficientish, a website for anyone who wants to be a little more selfsufficient - ish. See our philosophy for more details on what selfsufficientish means. We call it the urban guide to almost self sufficiency, a sort of urban home steading site. In fact the worlds first urban home steading site.

Our writing team of 3, Andy and Dave Hamilton and Nev Sweeney will be writing a little bit more on here so expect many more new articles over the coming weeks and months. In fact if you look closely enough you might find some extracts from our most recent book. To find out how you can buy this then click on one of the adverts for it. I am afraid that we can't sell it directly as the warehouse is empty! So get a copy quickly before it sells out everywhere. We are quite proud of this book and it is a years work each for myself and Dave. It is packed full of ways to not just save our environment to save you much more than the cover price in money.

Use our search over to the left to look for advice on anything from growing stuff in a small space to foraging for food. Or if you want to join in and have a chat with thousands of other people just like you then please do join our forum.

Wild food - Foraging Courses

We will be offering day courses in foraging in the Bristol area in October and November to book a place, find out costs and other information please email us Click on Contact US. Places are being snapped up quickly so please do book early to avoid any disappointment.

Other NEWS

December is rapidly approaching and this means that time is running out on our very easy and free to enter competition. This is your chance to win a truly unique copy of the Selfsufficientish Bible, everywhere that I (Andy) stopped on my 677 cycle ride from Bristol to Aberdeenshire I got people to sign a copy of the Selfsufficeintish bible. This means that it is the only Self sufficient ish Bible signed by myself, Dave, my Nan, Mum and Dad two of the moderators and a whole host of other wonderful ishers and people that I met on the way. To enter the competition all you have to do is join our forum and post your top two tips. That really is it and you could win probally the most valuable copy of the Self Sufficient ish bible in existance.   

We understand that many of you might be a little short of money this Christmas and so we decided to help out as much as we can with our new budget living section.There are only a few articles there at the moment but keep checking as we are going to write at least one more a week in the run up to Christmas.  

November also marks the month to reflect on the years successes and failures in the fruit and vegetable garden. We have a dedicated thread (click here) on our forum and we want to hear from you - did your courgettes struggle or did they thrive, did your potatoes and tomatoes suffer from blight or was everything all right in the vegetable patch?

Seasonal Recipe For November

Parsnip and Leek Soup

Serves 3-4

Ingredients

• Three large parsnips
• Two medium potatoes
• 2 Leeks
• 3 Cloves of Garlic
• Enough vegetable or chicken stock to cover
• Some oil or butter
• Black Pepper
• Optional Ingredients
• Pinch of Nutmeg
• Fresh Parsley
• Teaspoon of mustard
• Two tablespoons of cream

Method/Procedure

1. First soften the leeks in a little butter or oil. Add the crushed garlic about half way through.
2. Peel the potatoes and chop them
3. Wash and chop the parsnips but don’t peel them
4. Add to the pan and allow to soften for about a minute
5. Cover with the stock and bring to the boil
6. Reduce heat and simmer adding the remaining ingredients except the parsley and cream
7. Chop the parsley and add towards the end of cooking
8. Serve and add the cream and a few sprigs of parsley
9. This is just a loose recipe and can be adapted with what ever you have. Parsnips have a strong over-riding flavour and will drown out the taste of most other things so it is not necessarily worth adding expensive vegetables or prize crops to the dish.

The selfsufficientish Bible

Welcome to the New'ish site! It is still evolving (just like a garden) some things will change and extra features are being added all the time by our wonderful web fella John. 

Are you creative and in Bath? - Have a look at one of my mates site, it needs some input. oh and go to the forum.

Interested in comedy German techno? What to see what else Dave does with his time? - Visit here or here