Freshly baked sourdough bread and homemade almond croissants, on a cooling rack in front of a wood-burning range in a farmhouse kitchen
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Working Towards Self-Sufficiency: 10 Food Items I No Longer Buy

Are you trying to make more of your meals from scratch? Maybe you’re interested in producing your own food and eating more seasonally? Here on the smallholding, eating freshly prepared food, made with seasonal home-grown ingredients is the main objective! Home-grown, freshly cooked food tastes so much better, it creates very little waste and there…

A farmhouse kitchen. Dinner plates holding a home-cooked meal situated in front of a wood-burning range cooker.

Recipe: Vegetarian Fruit and Nut Burgers

Are you looking for a quick and nutritious vegetarian dinner idea? Are you looking to pack some extra protein into your plant-based meal plan? Then these delicious “fruit and nut” burgers are for you! One of the biggest challenges about going plant-based was finding enough nourishing replacements for the standard “meat and two veg” British…

compost bay full of organic waste

How to Make Your Own Compost

Are you keen to swap shop-bought compost for your own home-made blend? Here’s how to turn your kitchen and garden waste into black gold, and bring new life to your flowers and vegetables! Introduction Maybe you have lofty ambitions for your garden, such as self-sufficiency or prize-winning roses. Or perhaps you are just starting out…

Large pile of wood rounds, to be split and stored for burning

Moving Away From Fossil Fuels: Managing a Wood Store

Are you concerned about your carbon footprint and keen to move away from using fossil fuels to heat and run your home? Have you considered using wood for heating and cooking? Are you interested in the practicalities of relying on solid fuels such as wood? Here’s how we make wood burning work for us. Introduction…

A sheep in a frosty field at sunrise, looking out across a smallholding.

Progress on the Smallholding: Five Year Review

How much can a smallholder accomplish in five years? We have recently celebrated our five-year anniversary on the smallholding. So here’s a review of all we have done in that time! Chickens Once we had moved in, the first big objective was to get ready for chickens. We had previously kept back-garden chickens some years…

From above of wicker basket with vegetables and fruits placed in zero waste packaging with eco bags and glass jars with products on sunny day
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How to Cultivate a Zero-Waste Lifestyle

Are you working towards a more eco-friendly lifestyle? Are you wondering how to approach life with a zero-waste mindset? In this post, I outline the key tenets of the zero-waste movement. And I’ll explore the swaps you can make to minimise waste in every area of your life. What does “Zero-Waste” actually mean? The zero…

A father and child in a forest. The father is kneeling down to do up this child's shoe.

Free and Simple Activities for Toddlers

Are you wondering how to entertain your toddler on a budget? Are you looking for fresh ideas for activities that won’t break the bank? I’ve compiled a list of my favourite toddler-friendly activities that will fuel their imaginations, support their development and burn off some energy without cluttering your house with even more toys or…