Redoak's off-grid life.

[LittleBrownFrog]

Your crops look amazing, the very best to you and your ambitions!
I wonder how many of us would like to do the same, but dare not!

*holds hand up* Me! (nearly did ... but that's a story for another day).

[Americanlady]

Hello! Nice pictures of your garden. Anyone can see the tremendous amount of work it has taken. You seem to be kind of a perfectionist? I have nothing but respect for all that you have done. Best of luck in your business -- and in sorting out what kind of home you will eventually have. Looking forward to your next message, Redoak.

[ChrisG]

Everything is so neat and tidy - and those cabbages are something else!

So what do you do for 'amenities'? Do you use gas for lighting and cooking? Bit mundane, but do you have toilet and shower facilities nearby? Or perhaps you have rigged up your own in the woods?

How much of the ground is currently under cultivation? And are you using powered tools (eg rotovator) or doing it by hand?

[redoak]

Thanks for your comments folks.
A little more info.

Cooking is bottled gas, not calor but a cheaper alternative. Heating likewise, with a small cabinet heater. As I'm heating a small space I really use very little gas. About 4 bottles a year in the heater which cost £20 each. Cooking probably about the same again.
Lighting is all low voltage electric, mainly from 12volt batteries. A couple of small caravan florescent tubes and a few small led lights in odd areas. Batteries mainly charged by 4 PV solar panels. In the summer months and when the sun shines well in the winter I am self-sufficient in power. This includes powering the laptop for about 2 hours a day and charging phone batteries, razor, rechargeable dry batteries for torches, radios etc.
Dull days in the winter do see me a bit short of power, so I do occasionally run a small petrol generator for a hour or two. I'm intending to get some more solar panels and/or a small wind generator this year which hopefully will almost cut out the need for the generator.
I could do with more battery storage, and keep looking out for some forklift or milk float batteries. At the moment I have a motley collection of heavy-duty car batteries and some leisure batteries. Unfortunately with the increase in the demand and price of scrap, ex-foklift batteries are quite a lot of money. (like maybe £600 even for old ones)

Toilet is a rudimentary homemade compost one. Emptied onto a long-term compost heap which will eventually be used on non-edible crops. Showering is not well organised at the moment. Fine in the summer, camping shower in an external cubicle surrounded by camouflage tarpaulin. In the winter I'm down to strip wash and and occasional visit to my sister's for a shower or bath.

Ok, brain and fingers getting tired now so that's it for today.

Marc

[silverback]

I wish you every success Marc, you deserve it

[julie62]

You certainly do deserve it - you're doing what so many of us dream about but to turn that into reality and the hard work and sacrifice that must involve .. fair play to you

[rhubarb93]

Really admire what you are doing Keep the updates coming - those of us who aren't as brave as you can at least get to fantasize a bit!

[MissEllie]

It's fascinating reading about your life Marc, thank you so much for sharing it. Your crops are amazing.

[ChrisG]

Marc, this is all so exciting. I wish I was doing what you are doing. At least, I wish I had actually done it about 20 years ago. I sometimes feel I am too old to start from scratch like you are doing, but we have our hopes for a plot where we could build a house (saw a great programme the other day - the house was built in 5 days flat, by a German company called something like Hufhaus). Once the house is in place, the rest will follow, we hope.

You are doing a fantastic job. I wish you every success. You remind me of Nick Weston (and others) and I wish you every success Next time I'm in Sussex (father lives there) I shall ask for a guided tour!

[LittleBrownFrog]

There is a Huf Haus quite near us - amazing how quickly they put everything together!

[redoak]

Thanks to you all for your lovely comments.
I am finding it very hard at times, particularly when things aren't going well for some reason or another, or when I've been working here for days and not seen anyone.
At the moment I'm doing a bit of outside work to top up the bank account. Winter/spring is always difficult as there's not been much produce to sell over the winter, and then in the Spring all the materials, seeds etc need buying, so the bank balance is under pressure. I was offered some work by a guy that I used to work for, and it's a good rate of pay (compared to growing veg) so I'm doing a few days for him.

I have about an acre cultivated now. I have 3 rotavators in fact, 2 hand ones and 1 for the tractor, but unfortunately the tractor one is broken at the moment.
I do still do quite a bit of hand digging even so. I'm still trying to get into a rhythm with it really. I thought the tractor would make the cultivation straightforward but it's not proven to be the case. Because I grow lots of different things there are always small areas that need turning over to replant or just keep weed free, so I end up needing to hand dig various bits all the time.

I haven't yet settled into exactly what to grow and where to sell the produce. I started thinking that I would sell to wholesale, which I did the first season (and still do to an extent)
There's a quite useful wholesaler in Brighton who loves my stuff, but the prices are generally not very good.
I have picked up a few local customers, which is great but not really enough to be very useful financially. Last year I started selling at local boot sales and I was quite pleased at the interest and prices that were achieved. Some things selling for 2 or 3 times the price I get at wholesale.
I'm still learning and developing, it's surprising how different things are each year, even though I've actually done quite a bit of commercial growing in the past, for some reason I seem to need to keep learning it all over again.
Anyway, it's good to have some friends to share it with now

Here's a couple more photos from the 2010 season

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo290/ss145/HB10_072sml.jpg

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo290/ss145/squash_small250.jpg

Marc

[Lillia]

Thanks for the photos. You are living the life we would love to live.

[Spreckly]

Marc, you have such a lot to be proud of, and your posts are amazing.

[ChrisG]

Wow, those crops are amazing! Have you thought of selling the more unusual ones to restaurants? They often pay good prices. And if the restaurants are a bit iffy (like they're not sure what to do with whatever it is you have brought them), then you could give them a recipe (from a 'posh' restaurant, of course).

An acre of crops looks huge; it must keep you very busy. I am assuming you are organic?

[MissEllie]

Fantastic looking crops Marc. The car boot sales sound like a great idea
It must be a huge amount of hard work but it looks well worth the effort.