Hi Forum, I have just found you all and am overjoyed that the movement has gained such momentum here in Hungary.
I would like to join in any discussions but sadly am lacking in the language department, so I thought I should introduce myself and reveal my intentions,
I am Peter and I have a partner and 2 boys and we have moved just far enough out of BP to feel in the country but just close enough to visit grandparents regularly and we are beginning a new and exciting venture to become as self reliant as we can which in reality for the moment means 75% home made and 25% from Lidl until the shit hits the fan and food prices skyrocket and we give up chocolate, sugar, exotic fruits, shop bought bread and the other few items.
We are in our infancy with plans scratching our heads and reading the landscape as to where to place the food forest , best area for sheltered pasture, water catchment from the buildings and all of those elements that a short permaculture course in the UK bombards you with and fills the head to the brim with ideas, and you know you have to wait and observe before getting stuck in
I have been on a course, bought all the books, scribbled loads of ideas and plans and continue to watch jealously all the guys on youtube doing their thing with huge abundant harvests and am nearly ready for spring and the start of building my paradise.
I am not an expert at anything and am having the damndest time remembering the names of plants and whether they need shade or alkaline soil or spread like a weed so what i am doing here isn't for kudos or education purposes but hopefully just like you to be as self reliant and as unplugged from the system as possible.
My areas of interest are straw bale building and clay plastering I attended a short course and assisted in the building of 2 houses in the UK and last year built a bale extension on the side of my house to create a room for my boys and this year plan to build a barn using the infill technique as I have bureaucrats here that will not allow me to build with compression and could pull it down (so they say) so I will put up a pole barn with some volunteers and neighbours then insulate with straw.
I am interested in perennial food forests, I love the idea of grazing as I work amongst the trees and bushes and have grown tired of the same varieties of veg you buy in the shops and of course the quality. I will also have raised beds for annuals and areas for larger potato onion and pea crops etc .
I will copy a few designs for an aquaculture set up and plan to have a polytunnel containing containers of fish and beds of hydroponic toms and chillies for solar drying.
I feel like a runaway train as I continue to write on my ideas and plans so really what i am looking for is a sounding off board such as this forum to be able to unfill my head with all of the topics and focus on 1 at a time.
And I would like to ask is there anyone out there who would like also to bounce off a few permi ideas??

Hey Pete,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I could totally hear you as you were describing how overwhelming all the information could be and on how many different aspects of the story we need to focus on to be able to achieve some sort of self reliance or community reliance. We are somewhat in the same shoes. Finishing courses, reading books, and when it comes to implementing the ideas in real life, it is a whole different story. We have bit more than a hectare and it really took us over two years to finally get to a point of being able to see what the land can offer, what we can give. It really took us two years of observation, experimentation to get an idea of how to improve that particular soil, where we can plant a food forest, windbreaks, where to build a pond, how to orient our buildings and how different parts of our farm and life are related and connected. Our main guiding ideas: what is functional is beautiful and how can we minimize work. It's not that we don't like to work, but there is so much time in a day, and why not avoid unnecessary trips to different parts of the farm. We are taking our baby steps, slowly and gradually. Learning how to draw, how to use mapping devices and google sketchup, and study project management. Gathering tools to make our actions more efficient. At the same time figure out how to preserve foods, bake bread, and of course not to mention learning how to work with soil and plants. I realized that there is absolutely no need to push anything, because this knowledge sweeps into you as you stick your hands into the dirt.
Thanks goodness, we don't ever have to go to lidle and such supermarkets. We shop at the local farmers market and also through a network of local farmers and producers and at our neighbors. We buy clothes and kitchen stuff second hand. In fact that is our first choice in pretty much everything, unless it is not possible to find the required item at a second hand store. Well we have an unbelievable abundance of thrown away German stuff from the 80's and 90's, which often are way much better quality than the brand new Chinese.

Focus is not an easy thing in the beginning, it is very tempting to become the little child who wants everything and wants them now (I think David Holmgren said that about our culture). Over the years we realized that the only thing we can do is to do our best at our own pace. I think if we focus not only on our very own life but also on creating a supporting network with friends and neighbors then the transition to the declining energy society will be much smoother. I can not believe that we will be able to learn in this lifetime everything we need to know to sustain ourselves, but we can get much farther if we do it in a community. Especially building on the knowledge of the elders, who know the land better than we might be capable of since we spent much of our life in a chair sitting and listening to an authoritative figure.
This summer we will be continuing or straw bale experiment, building a proper roof and plastering our little building. The past two summers have shown us for example how we need to mix dirt to get proper plastering material. Dirt is different everywhere so we need to experiment with what we have.

So much for now. Welcome on the forum and good luck on your endeavors. Can you somehow translate the Hungarian content for yourself (google translate?)?

Hi Pete,

I am sure you can use this in the future.

www.geofflawton.com/fe/62716-cold-climate-future

Cheers

Greg