Follow Max's 100% food self-sufficient journey for a whole year.
Max Cotton is a British television journalist who has worked as a reporter at BBC News in Westminster since 1995. In 2012 he left the world of politics to spend more time on his smallholding in Glastonbury but still occasionally writes and presents news and documentaries on Radio 4. He is best known for his work on BBC1’s Politics Show between 2003 and 2012.
Now adapted for BBC Radio 4 documentary series 'Growing Solo'
Love this series. Could you tell me which variety of wheat you sowed please? (I think you might say at some point but I've forgotten already). Cheers from Derbyshire.
ahh sad to have finished the series. I have thoroughly enjoyed watching this thank you for porducing it and for all its nsightfullness, sensitivity and thought provoking content. I live in Bridport not far from sommerset and close to Monkton wyld which features in this episode. I've connected with so much that has been shared, I'd love to say I live by it but I am not there yet! Beautiful and quite emotional to watch..thank you...I am sharing with everyone I know who would love it just as much!! so glad its had radio 4 coverage otherwsie I would not have known about it. PS what is the cafe called in sommerset please?
Found this recommended on a upf free group. What a delight. Found your year very inspiring and wish it had been publicised more! I've bingewatched the whole thing while on holiday. Such a delight - well done!
@MaxGrowingSolo Hello again Max, almost a year since you completed this stupendous project! I was searching for "NO MiLK TODAY" and all that turned up was ancient music clips. Your brilliantly apropos title and theme music appear to have been expunged. I suspect a petty copyright tussle. I can't believe that this series didn't go viral in the past year. It's almost as though people prefer to do their foraging down a Tesco's aisle and not be called to account for their disconnection from responsibility for their own sustenance. I've recently acquired another cow at last, the lovely Jersey Rosie, who obligingly stands to be milked in the paddock, and has propelled me into making about 7 kg of fabulous cheese each week. I've raised about 60 roosters that require pressure canning. Any minute now I should be inundated with enough eggs to eat and preserve in lime water to see me through the next dearth. Winter is waning and the garden year begins again. Lambs frolic about, and the grass began to grow last week. Every new year brings so many optimistic resolutions and enthusiastic plans to make this the best season ever. I wonder how you have fared since your adventure, and about the new project you hinted at. Here's hoping we soon hear more from you!
Loving this and Am really inspired by how ur drawing attention to our modern food system. Even if we don’t all do what u have done we can think more about what it takes to produce our food and where it comes from 😊
Ditto, Max! Love that book. Our soil looks similar, One year, I felt like a potter moulding my garlic cloves into the soil! I try not to dig at all, à la Charles Dowding.
How lovely to see happy cows! I used to worry about my goats escaping into the village but my concern was they might run across a road and cause an accident. Caused me a great deal,of anxiety, bloody things!
We always prune our olives “too late” but although some of the trees don’t have that typical conical shape, they produce plenty of olives. Just so much work! We will prune as we go, this year.
A joyous and thought provoking series. Came directed from the condensed BBC Radio airing and I’m glad I stuck around for the ride . Well done to everyone involved, thank you!
So sad to be reaching the final episode of this series! I too spent my childhood endlessly turning the pages of John Seymour’s guide to self sufficiency. As a 28 year old in London I still have it open on my coffee table now. So inspiring to see you connected to the land and living well, I hope to do it myself someday. Lots of people seem to say you’re mad for doing this, but I think it’s the most sane thing I’ve seen anyone do in a long time
Thank you for this wonderful and enlightening series - we loved it so much we rationed ourselves for the last few episodes. What you did was so important and the messages you gave about eating with the seasons, taking care of animals, enjoying simple quality food, etc gave us even more food for thought. Please don’t stop sharing your wise words - even though your year of self- sufficiency has ended.
I've just watched the complete series - absolutely loved it. Thank you Max for teaching us so much about self-sufficiency and practical wisdom. You've inspired me to grow more food and get some more chickens...maybe some goats.
Hi Max, I live not far from you in Rimpton. I've perfected a no-knead, slow fermentation sourdough loaf that is ridiculously simple to make. If you're interested I can come over and show you. Can't guarantee it will rise as much as one made with high protein level flour but it will still rise a fair bit and have a decent crumb. It lasts well, also.
I am absolutely determined to get on top of the whole sourdough thing this year. No corn until the autumn but I am really looking forward to it. Thanks for your message. Max
I feel quite bereft now I've watched the last episode! What a wonderful series! I found it having heard Growing Solo on R4 and then Googling Max. In my 20s I was sure I would have a smallholding and read and re-read John Seymour. I finally have one, but with 2 very wet heavy clay acres , 3 horses and a full time job, I have limited myself to a few chickens and ducks and growing a small amount of veg. I've loved experiencing the full self sufficiency experience through Max! Please make some more!
Wonderful series and I thank you for creating "No Milk Today" ! Your series meant a great deal to us because we truly understand the smallholder dilemmas at self-sufficiency. We live on a small homestead and learned long ago that we can't be self-sufficient with our food production. We have been improving our spread for more than 3 decades now, and have built all buildings and fencing on our homestead except for the actual home. We are still at it, 37 years later, and even added 12 large raised beds 2 years ago. We have registered Nubian dairy goats, feeder pigs, meat rabbits, chickens, and a couple of horses. We have built all of our barns, sheds, the rabbitry, the chicken coop, the fencing, the greenhouse, the home's addition, and all of the gardens. And though we are very adept at most every repair at our place (home repair, auto/tractor repairs, etc), we found early on that we could not grow all of the foods needed. We simply don't have enough productive land to raise our own hay, alfalfa, wheat (for our breads), and other fresh or preserved vegetables. And though I make cheeses, we don't make our own rennet, nor do we have the ability to make our own microbial enzymes. We heat and cook with wood, have backups with propane so we can use our own wood from our forest, but we don't grow propane. 😂 I enjoy foraging, so we have a bit of supplemental foods but there is nowhere near the amount of food required to live off of foraged foods (much to the dismay of novice types who claim they will 'live off the land' should a collapse occur). I hope you are able to connect with others in your area so that you can create a barter system that is fair and equitable for all involved. I also hope you will consider a second series -- it's loads of fun watching the 'experiment' you created. God bless...
Thankyou Max, we stumbled across one of your videos and then found ourselves watching the entire lot. We are keen grow your own folks since moving from the city. We love the countryside and have so much respect for our local farmers who work tirelessly to feed us. I am disgusted with the way our government (and its opposition) seem to be hell bent on shutting down UK farming, we will do this at our peril. Control the food, Control the people comes to mind.
great achievement Max, congratulations and thank you for giving us an insight into your life this last year. Many thanks also to Tessa for filming and producing something so kind on the eye. a brilliant short series
Well done on your year we followed your journey and it was such an eye opener my husband is a small farmer he is dairying on a small scale in an old byre, we loved the comment cant remember if it was yourself or not but it makes complete sense that the future of farming is in the past well at least learning from it anyway. Also kudos to the lady who filmed and edited it was superb
Thanks for taking the time. The farming is in the past thing is something Nick said at and organic farm called Grassroots Dairying. The film maker who actually does all the work is a producer called Tessa Browne. They are both great. Good luck with your own endeavours. Max
Your series was suggested to me by a friend and I've binged it! I'm a homesteader/homeschooler/herbalist in West Virginia, US and I love what your experience over the past year has expressed. I'm on a mission to grow and raise as much as I can on our homestead--including herbal medicine. Our homestead is small, but we've surprised ourselves with how much we can produce on it. Poultry, vegetables, fruit, herbs, eggs, oil (just bought a press for making sunflower oil)...and more. God bless and thank you for sharing your journey!
Superb, one of the most interesting things on RU-vid. Thanks for sharing and for bringing so many other useful perspectives too. As other have said, such a shame it hasn’t got more attention. Good luck for the next project.
Congratulations. Self-sufficiency is bloody hard work. Your series of film diaries shows the dreamers amongst us just what is involved in achieving the romantic state of living off the land. To have done it, in essence, alone, is extraordinary. Good on you sir!
John Seymour! What a man! I have spent the last two decades sailing around the world-can you believe that I have given copies of his book to people I have met in the strangest of places to help them in their pursuit of self -sufficiency. His knowledge translates from the hills of Wales to the jungles of central America and the arid lands of Europe. Amazing. Life at sea can never be as self sufficient as my previous farming life in terms of food but the basic principles are similar. I fish and forage. Produce my own power and can even make fresh water from the briny sea. Am binging on your films-thank you, it's been fascinating watching your experiences.
