the daydream fund challenge thread

Rummer

I have spent a small fortune with very little return over the last few years however a lot of the things I have added to my garden will mature and produce more over time and as that happens I will spend less so I hoping that it will all balance out in the long term!

rhiwfield

Lmac,
Cost is going to vary according to circumstances and, as far as land is concerned, you probably need to exclude the cost of the accommodation and only count the cost of productive land.

For Veg:
For a half allotment (125 sqm) you'll be paying a rent of say £30 pa. There is a one off investment in tools (say £100) seed trays, twine, stakes and pots. If you freecycle you could get most of these for nothing. Then there is an annual cost for seeds, compost and fertiliser, again it is possible to reduce costs by composting, seed swaps and seed saving. Useful output will depend on the individual but I'd expect at least full payback of annual costs and upfront investment in year 1. For a full sized allotment the payback should be even quicker.

For fruit:
If you want soft fruit and tree fruit then there is an investment in plants, bareroot being cheapest and a wait of say 1-4 years before they crop depending on fruit. Payback will vary from say 2-8 years but cropping will continue for many years therafter. So often fruit will be an investment in a long term residence or a smallholding. Training techniques allow you to shoehorn trees into small spaces so the land cost is very small unless you want to produce surplus for sale

Smallholdings and animals
Dedicated agricultural land averages say £4,000 per acre and if you want to extend self sufficiency to animals the upfront and ongoing costs are much higher. I'm no expert but I would be surprised if animal husbandry proved much cheaper (if at all) than buying from Mr T or a farmers market. I'm happy to be shot down in flames on this!!

Energy:
For the most part I'm unconvinced on the economics of going off grid, with long pay back times on solar and windpower. Our location is marginal for windpower, there is no river nearby and the house is badly aligned to take advantage of solar power. But through much improved insulation (plus more intelligent controllers and appliance upgrades) our heating costs are down by over 30% and electricity costs down by 40%. The bulk of this saving was via insulation which had a 2 year payback and gives huge ongoing savings.

As you said, its circumstance dependent and also whether you want to be partly self sufficient or go the whole hog.

LMac

Wow, very informative answer, thank you! I hope to own the land, rather than allotment (closest ones now are 40 min bus journey each way, but there is rumours of some opening 10 mins walk away in 2013)

Its very interesting about solar power etc. I did read somewhere that at max efficiency, solar panels can pay for themselves in less time than double glazing does, but like you, remain unconvinced. Amazing savings on fuel and electric, but is the fuel one down to using alternative sources or just better insulation?

For fruit and tree training - do you mean like the way you train trees up walls in a fan shape, like in victorian walled gardens? I think they look beautiful and would love to try.

As for animals, I literally cant bring myself to kill a fly, so at best itll be chickens for eggs. Dont know what Id do once they stop laying. I struggle to prepare raw meat - touching it brings me out in a cold sweat - so def no butchering here. Doubt DD would be happy with a veggie diet tho, so at best, Ill be self-sufficientish til dd leaves home (shes only 6, so quite a while yet!)

ixwood

Air Source Heat Pumps are possibly worth it. They actually take heat from the air, so are more efficient in terms of energy produced to energy consumed.

Shame they can't heat water too. And of course they still require electricity to run, so aren't a proper off grid solution. Still combined with a stove with a back burner, you'd be laughing!

choille

The best & most effective thing you can do is use loads of insulation, that way you need less energy.
A wood burner if you have a ready, free supply of wood makes sense.

Solar panels aren'r really economically viable as yet, but a lot of technology is moving forward & prices will come down on those & other stuff.

rhiwfield

LMac, savings on heat are nearly all due to better insulation, we've calculated usage on oil litre equivalent. In fact we had a wood burner put in and this is less economical currently than our oil ch, but much better for the soul

For fruit trees I espalier them ie horizontal branches every 18" up the stem and soft fruit are mostly in narrow beds.

I like meat but the one time I kept chickens I couldnt kill them when they stopped laying, what a wimp I am

Ixwood, yes, I'm watching ASHP as a logical next step to supplement the woodburner, may also consider a biomass boiler. But for the moment, we'll continue to use oil ch as our system is fairly new and oil is cheap atm. FWIW Nottingham energy partnership currently rank oil at 3.38p per kwh and ashp at 4.56p per kwh. Mains gas online is 3.91 and wood 3.83. Those poor souls using leccy online pay 11.41 p per kwh, 3 x as much :eek:

choille

I don't kill the hens, but I do the young cockerels as it gets ridiculous. Once you've been shown how to do it properly it is fine - really not bad at all.
I don't pull their necks, but OH holds them & I give them a shot in the head with a powerful air pistol as he holds them over a bucket of saw dust.
The hardest part I find is the plucking, but they are so tasty.
I just let the hens live out their natural life.

bonsibabe

Good evening or morning all!

Massive apologies for not being on in ages ... lots been happening here. Arguments with council about our kitchen and traipsing to the doc for a referral for an OT assessment which is needed before the council will sort out our kitchen ... it will cost them a new bathroom as well so hey ho!

To top all that off, hubby is looking at a diagnosis of PTSD as well. And then as the final straw, we've had 3 deaths in the family in as many weeks. My auntie died 3 weeks ago, then on sunday my great uncle passed away, then on monday hubby's gran collapsed and died. So its been a sh** couple of weeks. Hopefully things will get better soon.

Air Source Heat Pumps are blooming expensive!!!! That's what we have, the kind that sucks all the hot air out of the kitchen and bathroom, and recycles it to heat the water and the radiators. The only problem is it uses massive amounts of peak electricity to run. Our bills are on average £200 a month! Considering that in our last house we paid £70 in total for gas and electric and were always in credit. Now we are in debt to the electric but they gave us a new account and are letting us pay up the debt at whatever we can afford to spare towards it.

We had the council guy out to look at it and he did not have a clue how it ran, let alone how to make it more efficient. He then told us our loft insulation is insufficient but that was 3 weeks ago and no word on when they are coming to sort it out. I have decided that they can knock the fireplace back in (they boarded it up and plastered it over before we moved in, when they took out the fire). I told the guy that I wanted it re-opened so they can put in a woodburner. I'm going to ask if they can link the woodburner to the heating so it takes the excess heat from that and shouldnt need so much leccy to run it then (??). Plus the amount of free fuel thats just lying around on the local nature reserve and in the forest on the other side of the city is unbelievable and we wouldnt have to buy too much fuel! That alone would keep hubby busy and get his fitness up!!!

But we have been foraging in the nature reserve and tomorrow morning I'm going to finish up with my homemade bramble jelly!!! Well its more like seedless jam but we managed to forage 1 kg of brambles, about 4 kg of crab apples that are huge! and 2kg of hazelnuts!!!! So just got to find something to make with the hazelnuts as hubby is going to make some apple pies with the left over apples! we are keeping the pips and are going to plant them and then when the seedlings are big enough, plant them in the nature reserve to put back what we took out!

Love this thread!!! Hope you are all well.

Choille, sounds like the weather we have been having here as well. xx

Lotus-eater

choille wrote: »

I don't kill the hens, but I do the young cockerels as it gets ridiculous. Once you've been shown how to do it properly it is fine - really not bad at all.
I don't pull their necks, but OH holds them & I give them a shot in the head with a powerful air pistol as he holds them over a bucket of saw dust.
The hardest part I find is the plucking, but they are so tasty.
I just let the hens live out their natural life.

I think you'd find it much easier to pull their necks if you worked out how to do it.
Air pistol is messy and a bit dangerous, neck pulling is quiet and safe, very simple.

choille

I've used both methods & a shot is instantaineous, much less stressful for the bird - like lights going out.

Edited to add: It's not messy, nor dangerous. Takes two of you though. OH holds the chicken over the bucket. The pistol is placed right against the head - instant - sorry to anyone who is squemish.