An article-interview with Tatyana Anikaeva, the owner of the Family Estate in the Belgorod Region.
It will be about self-sufficiency in terms of nutrition.
Please tell us about what you eat
We eat everything we own, what Mother Earth gives us: zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, turnips, radish, pumpkin, cabbage, carrots, rye, wheat, etc. Wheat, by the way, I managed to find spelled (i.e. spelled - the original wheat), now we are trying to replace the usual cultivated wheat. We also eat fruits (apples, pears, cherries, plums, etc.), berries (strawberries, raspberries, grapes, sea buckthorn, hawthorn, watermelons, melons, etc.) and nuts (hazel, walnuts). We drink water from a spring or from a well.
We also have our chickens, a cow and a goat. A cow and a goat give milk, from which we make butter, yogurt, sour cream, cottage cheese, cheese. Well, chickens, of course, give testicles.
Of course, we do not eat meat. Therefore, chickens die a natural death. (Laughs)
Also for the winter we dry mushrooms, apples, pears, even tried to dry tomatoes and cucumbers - it turns out very tasty. And we canning too, cucumbers there, salads..
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Do you grow potatoes?
Not. We completely excluded the potatoes. It is replaced by Jerusalem artichoke and turnip.
Firstly, potatoes are a very labor-intensive crop, they take a lot of time, and they are not worth it. Secondly, we don't want to bother with the Colorado beetle, we don't see the point. And the main thing is that it slows down the speed of thought, and that makes a person a slave. It is believed that potatoes are the food of slaves. She was taken out to feed her slaves, so that the slave would lose all will, so that he would calmly obey and go where he needed to. Therefore, they tied it to us so that we did not rock the boat, did not think about anything and did not raise our head higher than it should be.
And such grace is now without her. And the Colorado beetle left, otherwise there were crowds of it, and it became calmer. Jerusalem artichoke perfectly replaces it.
Tell us more about it, please
We do not plant Jerusalem artichoke already - as we planted it once, now we only dig it every year. We store it in the basement. We eat it in salads, we really like it raw, although we cook it - it looks like potatoes, only frozen, sweet. And we add it to the soup, and no one realizes that the potatoes are not there.
Probably a lot of things have to be grown so that there is enough for autumn, winter, and spring?
a lot is needed … And now we realized that one bed with carrots is enough, one bed with a turnip is enough, and there is no need to plant these mad areas.
Cabbage 20 heads are good enough when you have a lot of everything else. And you don't need a lot of zucchini either - I put ten about ten for the winter and that's it, you don't eat them every day. And pumpkins are the same, and the rest. Therefore, we realized that it turns out that so little is needed for life - I made such a discovery for myself.
Does it take a long time to grow food?
No, it doesn't take much time. The main thing here is to plant everything on time, and it is better early, as Anastasia said. Therefore, we do not wait for the deadline, if only the land is ready. If the beds from last fall remained, then we simply break through the lines with a stick and plant them there. We pull the weeds only at the beginning, while small sprouts, and then no longer.
I know that your vegetables are stored until spring, and some even until summer
Yes, vegetables are stored in our basement (cellar), or in our house. The pumpkin is poorly stored in the basement, our basement is damp, so we store pumpkins and zucchini in the house. They lie all autumn, winter, and often spring, depending on how ripe.
And how to determine if the zucchini and pumpkins are ripe for long-term storage? Because usually when you buy zucchini or take off from the garden, they do not lie for a long time
This is due to the fact that we shoot young zucchini for food in the summer, with a thin peel.
And you need to determine their maturity precisely by it: you press with your fingernail on the peel, and if it is tough and does not squeeze, then this means that the vegetable is ripe, it can be torn off and it will lie for a long time. Then, when consumed, peel off the peel, of course. And the pulp remains tasty and juicy, it can be eaten raw, and steamed, and fried, and caviar can be made, etc.
How is everything else stored?
Carrots, beets, turnips, radishes and in general all root crops are stored in the basement all winter, spring, and sometimes even in summer they can lie. The temperature there is slightly above zero. There is practically no minus there - we specially equipped everything, insulated it, made two doors, so nothing freezes there. And even if the frost is severe, well, something will freeze there in the corner, but the bulk always remains normal, and this rarely happens, only in very severe winters.
Apples are also stored in the basement. I store onions and garlic in the attic, they freeze there, and then, as I need to bring into the house, they thaw there and become the same as they were before freezing. I don't see any special differences. This is how they, too, until spring are preserved without spoiling, without germinating, without frowning.
How are you doing with flour?
We grow wheat and rye ourselves. A wooden mill with basalt millstones was ordered from Germany, it was inexpensive, about six thousand. And on it you can make any grind - larger or smaller, as you like. So we bake bread from our own flour, you can't compare it with the store one, of course … We also add such ground wheat to the porridge, it turns out very tasty and healthy.
What sweet do you eat?
Oh, well, we have a sweet tooth (laughs). Basically it is, of course, honey. We also eat dried fruits - apples, pears turned out to be very tasty (we did not even expect - like candy straight), we dry grapes. I also bake sweet bread with honey, it turns out something between a sweet bun and cookies.
And we also have our own recipe: Japanese quince with honey. Quince is sour like lemon, and the smell is also very similar. I rub it on a grater, mix it with honey, put it in a jar and in the refrigerator. The main thing is not to cover it with a lid, but just a gauze or a cloth to breathe. So it will stand as long as you like, for a year or more. This yummy is good for colds, and as a delicacy just for tea instead of lemon, and in the summer it turns out to be a good drink - if you dilute it all with water, it only quenches your thirst. Just like sea buckthorn with honey.
Tell us more about honey, please. Do you have your own apiary?
several hives and one deck now. We had decks before, but nothing worked in them, but now we decided to try differently, to make the deck smaller, because the big ones didn't work. Or maybe, as the dolmens say, the thoughts were not the same. Therefore, we still have honey from the hives, but, of course, we are going to switch to the decks.
Igor made bee frames with a nylon fishing line, a wooden honey extractor. In general, all devices for collecting honey, and so that it does not touch the metal. (We will definitely write a separate article about this - approx. J) This is very important, since when it comes into contact with metal, honey loses more than 90% of its properties. Store in cedar barrels, seal with wax. And we store most of the honey in combs and eat right with them. It is better preserved there, always fresh and liquid, i.e. does not harden and does not become sugared.
Tell me, what do you buy in the food store?
Well … salt, soda … and nothing else. Sometimes you have to buy rye flour if you don't have enough of your own. We do not eat white flour. Sometimes we buy bran too. After a raw food diet (three years) we are somehow not drawn to cereals at all. Sometimes we can eat buckwheat, millet, but somehow they don't go very well with us.
What about pasta?
Well, we generally don't recognize pasta as food.
Dachshund, where do you get vegetable oil?
We buy sunflower seeds from a familiar farmer (we have a lot of fields in sunflowers here, but we don't collect anything there, because all this is probably GMO - when the farmer had small sunflowers, they are gigantic in the fields of the grain company). Then we ourselves press the butter with him. Only we do it not like it at high temperatures, but press at low temperatures so that the beneficial properties are not killed. It turns out, in general, raw-pressed butter. Sometimes we order cedar oil from Buryatia, while our cedars are still small (12 years old).
Now I’ll ask a very important question: how much money do you spend on food per month?
Oh, you know, probably not how much. (laughs) Because everything is different - what kind of money is there. Well, salt, soda, well, I buy them five packs at once and they are enough for a year.
What are the feelings of eating your own?
Oh, it's not comparable at all! At first we did not understand this, but now, when we completely switched to eating our own products, we felt the difference. You go to visit, for example, people have their own things there, or what is worse - from the store, then you come home and think: "Why did I eat all this?" It seems that it is not convenient to refuse, but you eat something and immediately some discomfort is felt, either in the mouth, or in the stomach, or in the general mood. Previously, this was not noticed, but now every year more and more. So we often visit with our own people. (Laughs)
And finally, please, give some parting words, some advice to people who want, but are afraid to go to earth. So that they can take this step
A person must be confident in himself. He must decide for himself that he can do anything. And until he overcomes this fear that I cannot do this either, and I cannot, he will not succeed. We also came, and we could not do anything, but we took on everything, because need forced, there was no money, but now everyone who goes to the land has limited finances, rarely anyone has enough of it. Therefore, they took everything. And then it turns out that you take up some business and think: “Lord, what was I afraid of? There is nothing to be afraid of. Everything is elementary! " We tried, read, asked, and everything turned out, easy and simple. But then how do you feel - that "you can do it!" Even self-esteem rises. If something is not obtained the first time - nothing, this is an experience, but the second time it will definitely work out. Igor is not a builder - he built two houses. I also never raised anything much and did not keep a cow - now we feed ourselves, and we no longer need anyone for this. So go boldly to the ground, do not be afraid of anything, over time everything will work out and you will understand how great it is to live on your own, without grocery stores, not to depend on anyone and eat all your own!
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We visited the estate of Igor and Tatiana Anikayev twice, and both times they treated us to what they eat themselves. And it was unforgettable! To say that it was just very tasty is to say nothing. The sensations of taste were overlapped by the sensations of being filled with something else, very pleasant. And I can say with confidence what it was. It was love. True love, which is transmitted from those who bathe in it, and who are happy to give a person what he needs. This is Mother Earth, on which vegetables and fruits are grown with love, this is a cow who gladly shares her milk with a person with love dissolved in it, these are the testicles that the hen shares. But initially, this love comes from a person who caresses everything that surrounds him with it, and, of course, according to the laws of the universe, it returns to him. And this is precisely what is called - the Space of Love.
Elena Happy