Independence Day Update #1
Sharon May 4th, 2009
It is definitely not too late to sign up to join this year’s challenge - just add your name to the comments and start posting, either here in comments or on your own blog. I’m really going to try and do this every Monday for a whole year (well, yeah, we always start out things like this as optimists, right 
).
This was not my best week - I was in the North Country in the Adirondacks last weekend, got back late on Sunday, and left town again for Maine on Wednesday afternoon, and, of course, it is a tough time to be away from the garden. Still, a bit got done.
Plant something: Broccoli, Cabbage, Peas (ok, Eric and the boys planted these), carrots, radishes, beets, parley, onions, chard, lemon balm, sage, thyme, chinese cabbage, komatsuna, early tomatoes, lettuce, saltwort, pansies, johnny jump ups, california poppies, regular poppies.
Harvest something: Chives, nettles, dandelions, rhubarb, asparagus, sorrel
Preserve something: Dried nettles and raspberry leaves.
Reduce Waste: Sorted out the apples from winter, and dried and sauced the last few goods ones, planted the sprouted onions for spring greens.
Preparation and Storage: This was my best category, because while in visiting family I hit a library sale and managed to get us almost to a full set of Hardy Boys book (the old ones) - which actually is a prep, when you’ve got four book-addicted children ; and hit Savers for pants and pajamas for rapidly growing eldest for next year.
Build Community Food Systems - Nothing in my community. Can I count the two talks I did on _A Nation of Farmers?_
Eat the Food - Because we don’t use our fridge, going out of town means eating everything or taking it with us. We managed not to throw any usable food out or let anything get wasted, which for us is pretty good. But we didn’t cook much of anything in particular, since we didn’t want leftovers.
Not my best week, but I’ve got an entire week of gardening ahead of me to catch up! Can’t wait!!!
How about you?
Sharon