Table Of Content

002-003_Title.indd 2 23/04/2018 16:27 THE NEW COMPLETE BOOK OF SELF-SUFFICIENCY JOHN SEYMOUR WILL SUTHERLAND WITH FOREWORD BY HUGH FEARNLEY-WHITTINGSTALL 002-003_Title.indd 3 23/04/2018 16:27 Contents Foreword by The Illustrated Index of Vegetables, Goats 206 Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall 7 Herbs & Fruits 57 Pigs 208 Prefaces to the 2019 Edition 8 The Edible Parts of Plants 58 Sheep 215 Prefaces to Earlier Editions 10 Roots 62 Poultry 220 Introduction 12 Stems 64 Rabbits 226 Leaves 66 Bees & Honey 227 CHAPTER 1 Flowers and Vegetable Fruits 74 THE MEANING OF Seeds and Pods 76 CHAPTER 4 SELF-SUFFICIENCY Fruits 80 FOOD FROM THE FIELDS The Way to Self-sufficiency 18 Green Manure Crops 88 Clearing Land 232 Humans & their Environment 20 The Cultivation of Vegetables 89 Draining Land 234 The Natural Cycle 24 The Cultivation of Herbs 143 Irrigating Land 236 The Seasons 26 The Cultivation of Fruits 155 Making Use of Woodland 237 The Urban Garden 28 Caring for Fruit Trees 178 Hedging & Fencing 240 The Allotment 30 Vegetables through the Year 180 The Working Horse 244 The One-acre Holding 32 Winter 182 Horse & Tractor Power 246 The Five-acre Holding 37 Spring 184 Preparing Land & Sowing 247 Early Summer 186 CHAPTER 2 Late Summer 188 Harvesting 250 The Cereals 252 FOOD FROM THE Autumn 190 GARDEN Wheat 254 The Greenhouse 192 Milling Grain 255 The Food-producing Garden 42 CHAPTER 3 Oats & Rye 256 The Deep Bed 46 FOOD FROM ANIMALS Barley 257 Sowing & Planting 48 Growing under Cover 50 The Living Farmyard 196 Maize 258 Protecting from Pests 52 The Cow 198 Rice 259 Pests, Fungus & Diseases 54 Beef 204 Growing Crops for Oil 260 004-005_Contents.indd 4 19/04/18 4:59 PM Growing Root Crops 261 Making Jams & Syrups 314 CHAPTER 10 Grass & Hay 268 Cakes, Biscuits & Puddings 316 CRAFTS & SKILLS Meats 317 The Workshop 354 CHAPTER 5 Fish 318 Building 356 FOOD FROM THE WILD Vegetables 319 Springs & Plumbing 359 Game 274 Knots & Ropework 360 CHAPTER 8 Fish & Sea Foods 276 Basketry 362 Plants, Nuts & Berries 280 BREWING & Pottery 364 WINE-MAKING Mushrooms 282 Spinning Wool & Cotton 366 Brewing Basics 322 Dyeing & Weaving 368 CHAPTER 6 Malting Barley 323 Spinning Flax 370 IN THE DAIRY Making Beer 324 Curing & Tanning 371 Making Wine 328 The Hayshed & Cowshed 286 Making Bricks & Tiles 372 Making Cider & Vinegar 332 The Dairy 288 Working in Stone 374 Making Butter & Cream 290 Working in Metal 376 CHAPTER 9 Making Cheese 293 Building & Thatching 378 ENERGY & WASTE Scything 380 CHAPTER 7 Food for the Garden 336 Working in Wood 382 IN THE KITCHEN The Dry Toilet 338 Household Items 386 The North-facing Storeroom 298 Managing Waste 340 Making a Pond & Fish Farming 388 Harvesting & Storing 300 Saving Energy 342 The All-purpose Furnace 389 Making Bread 302 Power from Water 344 Becoming a Self-supporter 390 Preserving 306 Heat from the Sun 346 Glossary 400 Freezing 308 Power from the Sun 348 Index 402 Bottling 310 Fuel from Waste 349 Resources 407 Making Pickles & Chutneys 312 Power from the Wind 350 About the Authors 408 A NOTE ON THE TEXT: The text in this book was first written by John Seymour in the 1970s. DK has republished his words with only minimal changes. However, some of the references to pesticides and chemicals Seymour recommends in the book are no longer recommended or readily available, and the publisher has made every effort to identify these by inserting asterixes throughout the text. If you are in any doubt about these or any other recommendations given in this book, in light of today’s changing world, please seek current advice. The publisher does not accept any liability for any damage or injuries resulting from the use of pesticides or from following any of the advice in this book. 004-005_Contents.indd 5 17/05/2018 11:45 THE NEW COMPLETE BOOK OF SELF-SUFFICIENCY 6 006-007_Hugh_Foreword.indd 6 19/04/18 4:59 PM Foreword Foreword I have been a fan and a follower of John This book isn’t only for those who are determined Seymour’s writing for many years. He has long to go off-grid (although it will be invaluable if been an inspiration to anyone seeking a more you are). It’s for anyone who shares Seymour’s sustainable way of life, and although he died in view that the current tides of industrialisation, 2004, his work remains relevant and important globalisation and monoculture are dangerous, – not to mention incredibly useful. alarming and foolish. The principles he espouses This iconic book is at the heart of it all. Part here have meaning for all of us and can be manual, part manifesto, full of vigour, energy applied at many levels: nurturing the land, and sanity, it is a brisk but joyful declaration that personal responsibility, the value of simplicity, the good life is not just possible but necessary. the concept of having enough. He didn’t expect everyone to up sticks and start Dip into this book and it will soon start tilling an acre in the country. But he did believe to influence the way you shop and cook, grow that, faced by the ever-encroaching influence of and live. You might simply decide to start industrial food and farming, we could all find a growing your own herbs instead of buying simpler but much richer path, rediscovering our weedy, forced specimens from the supermarket. own strengths and skills, and growing and eating But even such small gestures are significant. better, fresher food. Seymour both encourages us and enables us to Before you even put to the test the practical do more, of course: to plant a veg patch, some worth of John’s words – his sound advice on the fruit trees, to keep a few hens, even a pair of growing of strawberries or the brining of hams pigs. With his guidance, I have managed to do – there is the sheer pleasure of reading them. He these things and they have brought me and my writes with a verve and clarity, and a wry and family great joy. self-deprecating wit, that keep you glued to the However we decide to cherry-pick the page far beyond the pragmatic paragraph you wisdom laid out in these pages, we can all be originally sought out. Look up “bread” and you’ll part of the exciting journey towards greater be on to “bottling” and “brewing” before you self-sufficiency. This, Seymour explains, does not know it. represent “going back to some idealised past” Having said that, you may also wonder, on but going forward, towards “a new and better first perusal, if the book is really for you. sort of life.” Seymour sees no limits to the resourcefulness Seymour lived the life himself. He put in the of human beings and is happy to discuss the graft and the sweat and enjoyed the sweet construction of quickthorn hedges or compost rewards, and that’s why this book is as toilets as projects no less feasible than planting authoritative as it is accessible. I am absolutely a row of peas. If your deepest foray into delighted that this new edition will introduce it self-sufficiency so far has been growing a few to a fresh crop of readers. And I’m sure they will radishes, such ideas seem impossibly daunting. be smudging its pages with blackberry juice and But don’t worry about the long-drop loo for now. good soil, as I have done, for many years to come. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall 7 006-007_Hugh_Foreword.indd 7 19/04/18 4:59 PM THE NEW COMPLETE BOOK OF SELF-SUFFICIENCY Prefaces to the 2019 Edition Will Sutherland I first met John Seymour in 1991. I had just resigned from Now, so many years later, John has sadly passed away – my job in the City of London as a Senior Management in 2004 at the ripe old age of 90. We buried him on his Consultant and was organizing a conference on old farm in Wales and fortunately, with help from alternative political ideas where John was one of the Dorling Kindersley, we were able to improve and expand main speakers. I had previously discovered John’s The Complete Book of Self-sufficiency with The New Complete Book writings and was immediately attracted to his common of Self-sufficiency in 2003. So John’s work lives on and, sense, wisdom, and wide knowledge of the world. John’s indeed, has probably never been more important. His message was direct and simple – people (like you and ideas may have seemed marginal or even outlandish me) can change the world by changing what they do in when they first appeared in print but they are now their own lives. We don’t need to wait for Governments rapidly entering the mainstream. or giant Corporations to tell us how. The only problem Of course my own journey did not end at Killowen. is that most of the skills and knowledge we need to do I realise now that this was only the beginning of a new this have been lost in the consumer frenzy that and better way of life. In 2001 Angela and I were has dominated the last 50 years. The Complete Book of married and we now have two grown up children who, Self-sufficiency, published by Dorling Kindersley in 1976, in true self-sufficient style, we educated at home until was, and remains, John’s answer to the problem. they were teenagers. In 2010 I left Killown to live in After I had attended the first UN Earth Summit in Rio France but I continued to run the annual series of self- I decided it was time for me to explore the book’s sufficiency courses which we started with John over 20 philosophy for myself. I will never forget that first trip to years ago. Today I run these courses in a beautiful old visit John and his companion Angela. The blackest of Victorian kitchen garden in Northumberland. It is winter nights swallowed up my old BMW motorbike heartening to find that now, in 2018, there is much as it lurched onwards more serious interest in what people (and even unsteadily through a governments) call “wellbeing” rather than a continuing remote Irish farmyard mad rush to acquire more consumer goods. There are knee-deep in cow also many more courses on growing and gardening! slurry. With all the Most of those who come on self-sufficiency course studied objectivity of are already highly successful in conventional terms. The my old days as a one thing they have in common is a feeling that some Whitehall civil servant, I key ingredient in their lives is missing. Busy business weighed up the prospect people want to take back control of their own lives. of ending my first trip to They want healthier food and closer contact with the Ireland lost in bottomless natural world. They have a belief, a dream if you like, manure! But the fates were that they can do this by getting out of the office, out of kind, the slurry released the town and into the air. Dreams can, of course, easily me, and a kind Irish family become nightmares as many a popular sitcom has redirected me to the smallholding at Killowen. Supper shown! It is the aim of this book to give you the was delicious, the stove was warm, and I found myself knowledge and some gentle guidance to ensure that part of a totally different approach to life and living. We your dream does not become a nightmare. If you are had eaten home-reared beef, drunk home-brewed beer, wise you will not be hasty. Don’t be surprised if your and supped extraordinarily delicious home-made ice desire for change takes you in unexpected directions cream. Over a whisky after supper John took out his – it is the unexpected, after all, that gives life its accordion and Angela sang songs. sparkle. So pick up your spade and live! 8 008-009_Will_Anne_prefaces.indd 8 19/04/18 4:59 PM Prefaces to the 2019 Edition Anne Sears It was not what you might call a normal childhood, with good friends and neighbours, and follow our growing up in the household of John and Sally individual creative pursuits. Seymour, and early on I realised that we were following Although written over 40 years ago, my father’s a different path to the consumer-led mainstream. methods and ideas are still relevant. Inevitably some However, as time went by, there was increasing interest practices are dated, as times and opinions have in how my parents had chosen to live. It was a puzzle changed. A lot of insect and disease control and animal to me that people were drawn to the so-called “Back to feed that he advocates using are not seen as organic, or the Land” movement. I could not really understand at all desirable, and others not even legal any more. why there were visitors beating their way to our door Some, such as using peat, are not sustainable or ethical. having read The Fat of the Land, as much fun as it was to In my own garden I use netting as a barrier against have them to stay. When The Complete Book of Self-sufficiency cabbage root fly, cabbage white butterfly, and carrot and was published, there was a new wave of interest which onion fly, and it works against birds too. Other people brought us a modicum of fame. A stream of film crews might prefer an approach more in tune with and reporters and more visitors came to meet our permaculture principles. After all, “weeds” and “pests” family and experience the exciting and fulfilling are life forms too – just living in the wrong place self-sufficient life. In my world as a teenager, in the according to homo sapiens. As we learn more about 1970s, one was supposed to be famous for artistic what keeps us healthy, our eating habits are changing, or literary endeavours, bold bravery by handsome with a modern take on age old methods. Sourdough heroes – not growing food. But of course it was so bread and other fermented foods including sauerkraut, much more than that. kimchi, and kefir have become popular. They are As far back as I can remember there was always a delicious and easy to digest, and are said to have feeling of abundance and purpose on the farm. Ours enormous health benefits. was a life consciously chosen by my parents, with a will John worked tirelessly to raise awareness of the to continue age-old farming practices and to integrate damage that we are inflicting on our environment. He new ideas and technologies into our life. It was an saw that there was a much simpler, more satisfying way informed decision to live a moderate, worthy existence to live, working in harmony with nature, not against in a world of increasing extravagance and waste. her. Always practical and outspoken, he inspires Working together, and for the right rewards, was a confidence and self-reliance, enabling people to realise pleasure. John and Sally didn’t see physical work as any their ambitions and giving them the courage to follow kind of hardship. One of John’s maxims for a happy life their dreams. His books are light-hearted and accessible, was to “...sit down to your meals hungry and go to bed but the underlying message is urgently serious, to be tired”. I clearly remember John and Sally discussing the ignored at our peril. John would be delighted to various different ways to tackle a job, combining their see how parts of the establishment are now embracing individual skills or finding out the best methods his ideas and those of his friends and like-minded through trial and error and sheer determination. All peers, including Fritz Schumacher, Leopold Kohr, the family lived every minute of the story as it unfolded, and Satish Kumar. Local communities are working the struggles and triumphs, and the rewards. There is towards sustainable food systems, energy, and transport nothing to equal the sense of achievement felt by all – environmental awareness is increasing. We are who have worked towards the common aim of bringing being encouraged to take responsibility for ourselves fresh food from the land to the table. We had nutrient- and our planet. rich vegetables, happy animals and a healthy soil, and John said, “Live simply with nature and find pleasure, we made time to celebrate the passing of the seasons comfort and true civilization in simple things”. 9 008-009_Will_Anne_prefaces.indd 9 19/04/18 4:59 PM THE NEW COMPLETE BOOK OF SELF-SUFFICIENCY Prefaces to Earlier Editions FOR THE NEW COMPLETE BOOK OF SELF-SUFFICIENCY (2003), John Seymour This book first came out sorry scheme of things and then remould it to our over 25 years ago, created by hearts’ desire,” as old Omar Khayam had it. Dorling Kindersley, with a To allow ourselves to be dependent on some vast little help from me, but Thing created by the Merchants of Greed is madness. It published by Faber and Faber. is time to cut out what we do not need so we can live It is now being delivered more simply and happily. Good food, comfortable into the new millennium clothes, serviceable housing and true culture – those kicking and screaming! Since are the things that matter. The only way this can happen I first wrote it the book has is by ordinary people, us, boycotting the huge THE FIRST EDITION (UK) certainly got about. I have multinational corporations that are destroying our The cover of the UK 1st edition published in 1976. travelled in at least dozens of Earth – and creating a new Age – an Age of Healing in countries since I wrote it (to place of the current Age of Plunder. say nothing of four continents) and in every one of I would like to acknowledge my fellow self- them people have come up to me with their copy for supporters, Will Sutherland and Angela Ashe, for their me to sign. I have been delighted to find wine stains unfailing help over the last three decades. They have on the wine-making pages, and good honest dirt on shared the trials and labours as well as the joys of this the gardening pages. I have indeed updated it for the way of life, and have come into partnership with me to new millennium, but have not sacrificed any of the start a school of self-sufficiency in Ireland, to which all techniques and tips that have stood me well all that honest men, women, and children are welcome, time and continue to do so. provided they can find the fees! Since I first wrote the first version of this book Of course, I have learned a lot since I wrote it (when back in 1975 I now think there is a far more urgent you cease learning things they take you away in a box), reason for it. Very few people today can fail to see that and I continue to live a pretty self-sufficient life. There the present course that man- and woman-kind is are very few processes described in this book that I embarked upon is unsustainable. We are changing have not performed myself – albeit, perhaps, some of our atmosphere with frightening rapidity – we are them ineptly. I have embarked on many an enterprise altering the world’s climate – we are burning up the without the faintest idea of how to do it – but I have Earth’s enormous stores of carbon as quickly as always ended up with the thing done and with a great possible. We are utterly dependent on cheap fossil deal more knowledge than I had when I started. fuels, so any interruption in supply would bring Would I advise other people to follow this lifestyle? disaster. Imagine trying to feed and service our I wouldn’t advise anybody to do anything. The purpose huge cities if the fuel ran out! It is now urgently of this book is not to shape other people’s lives necessary to dismantle the whole fabric of world but simply to help people to do things if they decide trade and replace it with a far less fuel-hungry, less to. This way of life suits me – it has kept me fighting polluting, less dangerous arrangement. fit and at least partly sane into my 88th year, and Most people know all this, but they are afraid that it has prevented me from doing too much harm to our their quality of life will decline if we change course. poor planet. Well, the purpose of this book is to show that this is I would offer this advice: do not try to do everything not the case. We could live without pillaging our at once. This is an organic way of life and organic planet – and live very well indeed! We have allowed processes tend to be slow and steady. I would also like ourselves to get where we are because of the “blind to offer this motto: “I am only one. I can only do what workings of the market”. But we are not blind, so we one can do. But what one can do, I will do!” Happy must now start using our good sense to “break this grub-grubbing! (Better than money-grubbing any day!) 10 010-011_John_Schuh_Prefaces.indd 10 19/04/18 4:59 PM