Growing Self-Sufficiency – Book Review

Enjoy chicken, eggs, fruit, veg? A simple way to grow your own

Review by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Growing Self-Sufficiency
Realize your dream and enjoy producing your own fruit, vegetables, egg and meat.
By Sally Nex
Published by Green Books September 2017
240 pages, paperback, 255mm x 205mm
ISBN: 9780857843173

Growing Self-Sufficiency is a practical and inspirational guide for both the beginner and the experienced gardener. It explains how you can enjoy the satisfaction and pride of providing food for yourself and your family, whether you have just a small balcony or back yard, a large garden, or a homestead or smallholding.

Learn how to:

• Enjoy fresh and tasty vegetables in season
• Grow delicious fruit for eating all year round
• Produce your own chicken, eggs and lamb, guaranteed free from harmful chemicals and additives
• Preserve your produce – from freezing and drying to making jams, chutneys and pickles
• Make your own drinks: juices, cordials, cider, wine and liqueurs
• Grow medicinal herbs and make your own herbal remedies
• Provide more food from your plot than you ever thought possible!

If you ever feel a pang of guilt as you look at the label on your food, realizing that it has traveled thousands of miles to get to your dinner table, then Sally Nex’s Growing Self-Sufficiency will inspire you to make the change and shrug off of the type of 'salad crisis' we had this winter when shop shelves were bare and produce was rationed.

But not only have your fruit and vegetables from abroad traveled long distances. Even the “fresh” fruit and vegetables that you buy at the greengrocers and which do come from the UK have first been heading from the farm to the large wholesale markets and then, via some other buyers, to the greengrocers in your city, town or village, even if the fruit and veg have been grown virtually next door. That is the way the market operated, unfortunately.

Then there is the thought of the additives that keep vegetables artificially fresh for so long. Now think how much healthier you will be and how much needless pollution you will prevent by eating the most local of food, namely that that you have grown yourself.

Sally’s unique three pot method will guarantee you a supply of tasty, inexpensive home-grown food throughout the year. Not just helping to save the planet, it will help to save money too and Sally has plenty of tips on how you can feed your family at only a fraction of the cost. She explains how you can:

• start a vegetable plot on your balcony
• create a herb garden on your windowsill
• grow a mini orchard in pots

This book deals with about every aspect of growing and raising your own food, as well as preserving the harvest, collecting seeds, etc.

The 240 page are jam packed with information on every aspect of home grown and the advice about growing in containers should be of interest to all those that do not have much of garden space, by way of ground in which to grow things.

Personally I almost exclusively garden in containers though my containers are all kinds of things, from tree pots and tubs of various sizes, all the way up to shopping carts, and everything else in between, such as window boxes, hanging baskets, and any other kind of receptacle that can be repurposed into a growing container.

"Taking control of your own food is one of the easiest ways to tread lighter on the earth: as easy, in fact, as planting a seed." Sally Nex

Sally Nex has been feeding her family with home-grown fruit, vegetables and preserves for the last 20 years or so, as well as eggs from a motley gaggle of hens and more recently, lamb from her small flock of rare-breed sheep.

It all started with a few beans in a concrete handkerchief of city garden in London, but an allotment, job change, house move and several rented fields later, it's probably true to say the 'hobby' is well out of hand.

In 2006 she left 15 years as a journalist on BBC radio, television and World Service to devote her time to horticulture. She is qualified in horticulture to RHS Level 3, and has a planting design diploma from Capel Manor College. Sally now writes, teaches and gives talks about veg growing and self-sufficiency all over the country and is a regular writer and columnist for BBC Gardeners' World Magazine, the RHS journal The Garden, Grow Your Own, and The Guardian.

As far as self-sufficiency is concerned we all have to bear in mind though that, to all intents and purposes, no one can ever be truly self-sufficient in all things, and that includes growing food.

© 2017

The myth of self-sufficiency

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Self-sufficiency is a dangerous myth. We need each other. Love your circle, cultivate it, and enlarge it. Share food you grow or make with your community, and encourage others in their food production activities. Community is never perfect and takes hard work, because people have such varied visions, ideas, and values. But do the hard work of finding common ground, and build community with the people around you.

While self-reliance, as I have said in writings many times before, is possible and desirable even (total) self-sufficiency is impossible and thus also a dangerous myth. Dangerous because some people believe that this can be achieved.

No man is an island.

The term self-sufficiency became used, I believe, as a substitute for self-reliance in the early days, such as in the early 1970s when Seymour and others wrote books on the subject of self-sufficiency. More or less it was an error in the choice of words. In due course, however, it was being adopted by other writers and advocates to mean not self-reliance but in actual fact self-sufficiency, of being able to do everything on one's own, not needing other people.

Even the Native Americans were not self-sufficient in that they, even as a band or tribe, would not do everything alone. They traded with others who had and made things that they did not make or have and the same goes for many other such indigenous peoples. For an individual or even a family total self-sufficiency, without trading with and getting help from other people is just not feasible, at least not in the long run.

Man was never entirely self-sufficient on his own. He always was in a group where some had skills that others did not have. No one can be a master of all trades, so to speak, and there are limits to what anyone, even as a nuclear family, can achieve.

Self-reliance is a different kettle of fish and that is achievable but it does not mean that you can do everything and live without the help and skills of others.

Why did I say that self-sufficiency is a dangerous myth and why call it dangerous?

It is a dangerous fallacy even to believe that anyone, on his or her own, or even in a small nuclear family, can be entirely self-sufficient. That, however, is a tale we are often being told by those who want to sell us this or that tool to make self-sufficiency easier for us. Hello! Let's try it again. Self-sufficiency cannot be achieved and all you do is throw your money at someone who is just out to make a buck to your detriment.

As said, we can be self-reliant and live with less, much less, but we cannot be ever entirely self-sufficient all on our own. You can have a self-sufficient – or almost self-sufficient – settlement or village but self-sufficiency for an individual or a family is something that is not attainable and the belief that it I can lead to fatal consequences. Hence me saying that it is a dangerous myth.

© 2015

Independence comes through making things

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Independence, true independence, comes about through making things, growing things and doing things for ourselves (and our community).

This is more than simple self-reliance and self-sufficiency. It is total self-empowerment and brings about independence.

The Mahatma said something along those self-same lines when he was leading his beloved India to home rule.

However, modern India has lost the course and is now making goods – as slaves almost – for the West rather than the way it should be, for its own people and is, once again, importing some consumer goods from elsewhere. But I digressed.

None of us are truly free and independent, as individuals and as people, if we do not have the chances and possibilities to make things, to grow things and to do things for ourselves (our community). We are but wage slaves and slaves to the system and to governments which lord it over us.

Often those that lord it over us are not even our own governments but unelected entities in foreign lands, as in the case of the European Union, the rising fascist European superstate, where unelected bureaucrats, who are accountable to no one, decide what we may or may not do, what crops we may or may not plant, etc.

Not that the USA and its people are any better off than those in Britain or elsewhere in the European Union when it comes to government meddling in what people are permitted to do for themselves.

The people can never be free and independent unless they can produce and grow what they want and to do things for themselves and able to, thus, participate in the market and run their own lives. Production must be local and primarily for the local community first and foremost and carried out by local people.

Even, or especially, in the majority the so-called free and democratic countries, and especially in Britain and the EU and in the USA, countries that claim to be the bulwark of freedom and democracy, people are not permitted to be free and independent as they need to be and should be.

While you may be able to make and produce a variety of things when it comes to selling craftspeople, etc., find restrictions and the need for government permits and licenses (and they cost money) and this even more so for smallholders and other growers. In addition to the the latter, now, since EU regulations put in place in late Spring 2013, can also no longer grow, and that even applies to home growers who only grow produce for home consumption, what they want and must use ONLY EU approved seeds and plant materials. Old varieties are are illegal to use and possess and the saving of seeds and the exchange between friends even also falls foul of those regulations. Tell me again how free we are!?!

this means that, to all intents and purposes, government controls what we may do, make and produce, grow and sell and even eat, and as regards to doing things for ourselves.

It is basically, in most EU countries at least, illegal to even consider using force to protect yourself, your family and your property and especially if you consider using any kind of weapon for this purpose. If you, for instance, are threatened by an assailant with a knife and you beat him with a stick (which you may have carried for defensive purposes) it will be you who ends up in court charged with a crime and not the punk you attacked you.

But, relying, as you are told to do, on the police to come to your aid – after he knifed you – is also not going to work as it is no longer officially, though the people were not told, the task of the police to protect (and serve) the public but to enforce the laws laid down (by the powers-that-be). Sorry, but would you ming mentioning again how free we are?

We need to change the system, not the government (in fact, the latter needs to be abolished) if we ever, as people, want to be free and independent and not slaves.

© 2013

Up until the 1920s, most Americans were almost self-sufficient

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Up until around the 1920s, most Americans were almost self-sufficient, and if not self-sufficient then at least self-reliant.

They made their own clothes, grew their own food and bought very little. They were producers and rather than consumers. And this is true also in other countries, such as Britain, Germany, Australia.

This, however, changed in the 1920s, when the growth of capitalism had created large corporations that could no longer prosper simply from World War I production, as the war was now over. They needed Americans, and all those others, to become consumers. And the rest, as they so often say, is history.

Advertising and marketing brainwashed the majority over time that they needed all those goods made by those corporations to be happy and contend and to live a real fulfilled life.

Before that there was also a totally different mindset, one of make do and mend and of making as much as possible for yourself.

It was also just after that time that big government began to enter the scene and people were brainwashed into demanding that government did this and that for them and, again, the corporations had their hands in the game here by lobbying and – more than likely – buying representative left right and center in the same way as they still do today.

People were thrifty back then and relied on themselves, and probably their neighbors, rather than on any government agency and life was still good back then, even though money was thin on the ground for many. In some places this life continued until about the advent of Second World War. After that nothing was the same again, not in the USA and neither in Europe.

And, talking about World War Two; that one started also, basically, because the corporations were looking for ever greater profit and knew that a war, especially a nice big global one, could guarantee them that for the stuff they could sell the people just did not generate enough profits for them.

And it was during and after the Second World War that the chemical industry went wild with all the fertilizers that were so good for us in that we could be producing so much more food and the mechanization of agriculture for the same reason.

No one, however, was looking at the fact that the use and the overuse of such chemicals destroys the soil structure and thus the fertility of the soil. While such fertilizers may be food for the plants they leach nutrients from the soil and more and more fertilizer is required to keep the results coming. More profits for the chemical corporations, obviously. And that is the very reason that they kept people in the dark and continued with the marketing ploys in the same way as genetically engineered foods are now being promoted. And that by the self-same companies, with Monsanto in the forefront.

They did the same with almost forcing us all to eat margarine, a chemical product, basically, that was originally, amongst other things, invented as (axle) grease for wagons and vehicles in World War One. The medical profession was convinced by the research that was, supposedly, backing up the claims of margarine (and its derivatives) being better for us than butter. Now we have come full circle back to the real stuff that is butter. And we now know how dangerous Saccharine and Aspartame are. But I digressed.

Before the 1920s and even the very early 1930s when most people in America and in other countries still were almost, if not entirely, self-sufficient the run on the resources did not exist and it would have never come to the state that we are in today had common sense prevailed and we continued to live in moderation, and that despite the fact that the world's population has risen.

People made their own clothes, as said, and other things and reused and repurposed everything until it not longer could be used and reused. No glass jar was thrown away and they were used for many different purposes and every scrap of paper was used. Food waste was almost unheard off and even that which was not fir for human consumption went to feed the animals and or the plants, later, when rotted down, by way of compost.

Everything was repairable and was fixed, often at home by means of DIY, because it could be done. In general things were only thrown into the trash when they no longer could be fixed or when there was absolutely no reuse possible for them. Today things get tossed after a very short time simply because a new version or whatever is about and the money is there also to buy new. And, if you are thrifty and don't throw away and mend and make do with what you have and reuse and upcycle, and don't spend money all the time you are, by the governments especially considered a domestic terrorist even as you are not helping the economy to grow.

Economic growth is not possible on a Planet whose non-renewable resources are finite and almost exhausted and we need to look at a new form of economy, one not based on constant growth.

The most important thing, for us and the Planet, is that we all learn (again) to live within our means and the means of Mother Earth and that means to go back to the ways of the old ones, before 1920, and live a life that is more self-reliant than today, by making things ourselves, growing our own food, and by living and working in a different way.

The good thing is that it can be done and that we all can be part of this and we can do things for ourselves. Each and everyone can do his or her little bit and the changes would be tremendous, regardless of whether we live in the city or the countryside.

First of all get rid of the brainwashing device called a television. Don't just unplug it and use it less; get rid off it. Turn on the good old radio, or wireless, as they call it in Britain, read a book, a real book.

If you really must keep up to date with TV then on the Internet you can watch television on demand and chose the channels and programs that you want to watch for their quality, as long as you have a fast enough connection. You also get less in the way of commercials that way and thus less brainwashing.

As nowadays in most cases there is no longer any analog television but only satellite and cable, which costs a good deal too, you will also save a great deal of money if you cut this umbilical cord. And you can use that saved money to either get a better Internet connection or use it for other things.

Use and reuse, upcycle, make things yourself as much as possible, live more locally, and that includes buying things from local sources.

Every little step helps to make our world better and will help us to preserve the Planet and also make our lives better by way of quality. Grown your own food and eat this and food from (other) local growers and let us slowly get back to the good life.

© 2013

Government says country should not attempt to be self-sufficient in food

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Britain must not bury its head in the sand over food supplies, warns the environment, food and rural affairs committee

Britain should grow more crops to avoid global food crisis, MPs of the environment, food and rural affairs (Efra) committee, have said.

However, in the same breath they stress, that Britain should not try to become food self-sufficient because that could make the country even more vulnerable to supply shortages. A single disease could devastate staple foods and it might be seen as to exemplify an "every country for itself" approach, said the MPs.

Any attempt for the country to attempt to be self-sufficient in food would be detrimental for us all, they say but somewhere along the line this does not compute in my eyes. I mean I may be stupid but self-sufficiency should, in my view, be the goal, before we ever think of exporting food.

While I see the reasoning as to disease, and the Irish potato famine, caused to some degree by (late) blight is a good example, it is also a lot of hogwash as the country does not rely, unlike the Irish poor did, on one source of food.


As to importing: well, that is a different story. Sure we will, as long as we are able, I am sure, import the fruit and vegetables from abroad. We should, however, leave foreign meat where it is, especially the likes of American beef that is mostly raised in the horrible feedlots and also the like of the Brazilian beef that is raised in the destroyed Amazonian Rainforest.

On the other hand the same MPs said that the UK could do far more to improve homegrown food production: "Only 10% of the fruit consumed in the UK by value is grown here. Apple orchards have reduced by nearly 33% in just 10 years and less than a third of the apples eaten here are grown here".

What they do not seem to say though is that most of our apple orchards have been grubbed out over the last couple of years, especially the great English eating apple varieties, because of too much cheap imports from abroad.

When it comes to the notion of more homegrown food one can but agree with those people in this committee and that is the same reasoning that I have been employing for years now. However, my reasoning is, primarily, that the country should look after itself before we think of exporting.

That, however, is not what those people want, for at the same time those members of parliament in this working group called for more research money, particularly into GM and other hi-tech food production.

A minister denied that they want to start intervening in telling farmers to grow what where and how, the truth, however, is a different one, methinks.

The same minister also said that people should primarily eat vegetables and salads and should rethink their protein intake from meat. Oops, here we go!

I think we can all see where those people are coming from. Their interest is the GMO farming industry and one can but wonder how much money this “think tank” is getting from the likes of Monsanto, et al. I call into question the independence of those – and many other – think tanks and quangos. Many of them seem to be in some big organization's pocket.

The real fact that this country, and it does not just apply to Britain, must become self-sufficient, as self-sufficient as possible, in terms of food and everything else possible. This is what helped us to win the war against the Hitler Fascists in World War Two.

We do not need GMOs that are untested as far to human consumption and neither do we need those to feed livestock as, once again, we do not as yet know what this may do to us, as humans. GMOs also may contaminate other crops and hence we should reject that method of playing G-d.

I rest my case and leave the reader to come to his or her own judgment here.

© 2009
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