Harvested: Japanese eggplant, wax beans, green beans, tomatoes, zucchini, crookneck squash, cucumbers, serrano peppers, nasturtium blossoms, basil, dill, parsley, lemon thyme, sage, scallions, a bit of mint. Foraged wild blackberries.

Preserved: attempted recipes for lacto-fermented beet and cucumber pickles. This is my first try, so we’ll see how it goes.

Reduced waste: Composting. Learned I could save those mesh bags you sometimes get onions and potatoes in and turn them into homemade crocheted dish scrubbers, so I’ve started saving those.

Preparation and storage: filled a bin under the guest bed with some long-term food storage items — mostly from what I’ve learned from this blog Talked to my grandfather about the best methods for growing potatoes in this climate, as he’s lived here a *long* time and I know potato-planting time is around the corner. Convinced my honey to break ground on a little extension for the fall garden — we’ll break up the clods and amend the soil over the next few days, if it stays cloudy (heat index 106 F recently, so the work goes slowly).

Build community food systems: Um, I took some tomatoes to my neighbors, and they seemed genuinely delighted — does that count? Probably not. (It felt pretty monumental, though. I know they’ve been looking askance at the new arrivals who plant veggies in their *front yard.*) Also, convinced my mom, who is skeptical, to start storing food.

Eat the food: a tiny dish of eggplant parmesan, already getting creative with the zucchini – feels like we eat at least one every day, fantastic blueberries from our CSA which didn’t last very long once we’d tasted them, dilled beans, hot salsa, lots of sliced tomatoes with just a sprinkle of salt and pepper, cucumbers with a bit of buttermilk dressing or in Greek salad or as is.

We’re having a spell of cooler weather with some rain most days. But when the sun shines, my solar dehydrator is full of herbs and greens! There’s just enough sun (and accompanying warmth) that a number of things are growing very lush.

My elderberries are producing their first blossoms (bushes new to me last year). The black raspberries are ripening and the red raspberries are filling out.

7/06/09: Planted: nada

Harvested: foraged Telegraph Hill mint, weekly organic veggie box and flowers: carrots, cucumbers, beets, new potatoes, head garlic, yellow onions, apricots, green beans, summer squash

Preserved: nada

Reduced Waste: community composting/recycling; saved glass jars and plastics for reuse; froze veggie scraps/chicken bones;

Preparation and Storage: nada

Build Community Food Systems: trade plums for soy flour and Pyrex

Eat the Food: sausage/squash sauté from frozen sausage, hash browns (CSA potatoes, onions and parsley)

Yard Sales/thrift store: library: Titanic video for 25c

LisaH

Harvest something: snap, snow and shelling peas, strawberries, lettuce, garlic scapes, cilantro, carrots, more elderberry flowers, basil, broccoli, potatoes

Preserve something: strawberries in rum, froze snow peas, more strawberry jam and frozen strawberries, froze pesto

Waste not: made pledge for birthday to commute by human powered commuting to work x 1 year; so far so good; drastically reduced garbage production continues, though not sure what has caused this

Prep and store: nothing really

Community food systems: no, but I did bring strawberries to work and they were almost worshipped

Eat something: sublime homemade pesto with cups and cups of fresh homegrown basil, stirfrys, potato salad and hasbrowns, salads, strawberries, peas straight up

Harvest: Kirby cucumbers; chard; kale; red, green, and oak leaf lettuce and romaine; chives, thyme, lemon thyme, rosemary; “big leaf” shiso; nasturium leaves; tasted a bee balm petal

Preserve: Froze blueberries and rhubarb.

Waste Not: Put a lot of things in compost that should not have gone bad except that neither of us in hot weather mode yet and left cooked rice, oatmeal out on counter; refilled kitchen/pantry containers as needed and updated storage log; re-used the ubiquitous blueberry boxes to cage the base of the tomato and basil plants in hopes of dissuading baby rabbit munching; discovered another layer of sweet potatoes in the storage area and triaged same; got my partner to re-containerize sunflower seeds that had attracted a friendly nibbler (probably a chipmunk); made yogurt from shelf-stable milk that I’m rotating.

Want Not: Read up on late blight; got a simple propane grill so that we have an alternative to charcoal for outdoor cooking (and to make my partner happy); and with mixed feelings but to preserve productivity (and to make my partner happy), installed the window air conditioners in the upstairs and downstairs home offices.

Community: The usual farmer’s market and garden talk with friends.

Eat: West african peanut soup with storage sweet potatoes, homegrown kale, homemade broth, and peanut butter, peanuts and tomatoes from the pantry (really good, a big hit – a Mark Bittman recipe); blueberry ricotta cheesecake using the last frozen blueberries (I meant to make this for my partner’s birthday last month which might have been pre-fresh blueberries); blueberry buckwheat pancakes with blueberry syrup; the first peaches of the year with and without blueberries; mixed greens and vegetable salad (our first this year all from backyard) with homemade tarragon vinegar; a daily ration of cucumbers; lots of shiso in salad, sandwiches and as plate liners.

I’d love to see the recipe for tinctures as well. Herbs is an area I’d like to expand my knowledge on. Thanks!

Highlight: Using a tincture that I made from a feral patch of yarrow and having it actually work for the purpose I intended it for! Yeah for herbal remedies!