http://www.blagger.co.uk Self-sufficiency, growing vegetables, keeping chickens, recycling and re-using Tue, 05 Aug 2008 18:14:34 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Following on from yesterday's post on fuel price hikes, a story about the local taxi drivers campaigning to increase their rates caught my eye this morning. Taxi fares in Britain are regulated by the councils in whose areas the drivers work. So, if they want to increase their rates they have ... http://www.blagger.co.uk/transport/shafted-through-double-counting/ A day before trumpeting profits to rival a Bond villain's ransom, British Gas announced it was putting up its prices by 35%. That caused uproar, but it seems it was only half of the story: the 35% figure was a national average, with our region - the east - shooting ... http://www.blagger.co.uk/shopping/why-self-sufficiency-matters/ We've been eating the lettuce for quite a while now and it's been very nice. Great in sandwiches. We had really been growing it to make salad, but of course it's raced ahead and beaten the tomatoes, peppers, beetroot, cucumbers and chillies by weeks. Now, though, we're starting to see the ... http://www.blagger.co.uk/in-the-garden/salad-days/ There's something quite magical about being up and about before the rest of the world, harvesting your vegetables in the warmth of the early sun. Even better when you can bag yourself two bumper buckets of beans in the process. We've had a few meals off the plants so far, but ... http://www.blagger.co.uk/in-the-garden/harvesting-the-beans/ A little later that promised, perhaps, but this is what our finished apple jelly looks like. The colour depends on both the variety of apple used and the length of time you boil the mixture. As we scrumped our apples from a tree down by the river we have no idea ... http://www.blagger.co.uk/in-the-kitchen/the-apple-jelly/ We finally got time to make jelly with the apples this weekend. They were the ones we gathered two weeks back, from the tree we'd found down by the river when we were looking for elder flowers. Since then they'd been sitting in the outhouse, and despite the fact it's ... http://www.blagger.co.uk/in-the-kitchen/how-to-make-apple-jelly/ Self sufficiency doesn't all have to be about growing your own vegetables, keeping chickens in the garden or screwing a solar panel to your roof. Sometimes it's the smallest things that make the biggest difference. Since switching energy providers to a green tariff, which came bundled with a free electricity usage ... http://www.blagger.co.uk/at-home/self-sufficiency-made-easy/ Broad beans We had our first proper harvest at the weekend. Three types of beans: French, runner and broad. Not a huge amount of any variety, but enough to cook ourselves a three-bean risotto for dinner. Our totals for each crop, which have matured quickly in the last week, were:  French beans 20g   Broad beans 80g   Runner ... http://www.blagger.co.uk/in-the-garden/three-bean-risotto-recipe/ We had a bumper picking session yesterday, and the most prolific crop wasn't even one we were after. We headed out to find some more elder flowers so we could make a second batch of champagne, having bought a crate of plastic bottles with screw tops so we could release ... http://www.blagger.co.uk/in-the-garden/a-hedgerow-harvest/ Shredded bottle cap I think we're going to give up with this first batch of elderflower champagne and put it down to experience. It's far too dangerous to use in its current state, and we've come to the conclusion - reluctantly - that even if we carried on with it for ... http://www.blagger.co.uk/brewing-winemaking/decanting-the-elderflower-champagne/