Independence Days Update - Week 1
Sharon May 2nd, 2008
I know it hasn’t been quite a week yet, but I thought I’d try and do my Independence Days updates on Fridays, to give me a routine. The blog may be on the quiet side this month, since 1 month from today Aaron and I complete _A Nation of Farmers (and Cooks)_ and get our lives back. But at least this means I’ll do something every Friday. And it means I get the fun of reading your updates, which I hope you’ll post in the comments.
Crunchy Chicken very kindly made the wonderful graphic you see above, and here’s the information for those of you who want to add a banner to your site:
<a href=”http://sharonastyk.com/2008/04
Ok, down to the nitty gritty.
Planted: This week, I planted a bunch of cucumber and zucchini seeds, along with beets, turnips and more peas. I also transplanted strawberry plants, sweet peas, onions and chard. We had a hard freeze, so I’ve been waiting on the potatoes. They’ll go in this weekend.
I harvested more stinging nettle, dandelions, chives and our first mustard greens of the season, along with rhubarb galore and asparagus. Yum!
Preserved: Canned rhubarb sauce, dried dandelions. We also had seven extra roosters butchered (we should have done it ourselves, but no time) and put them in the freezer. Today I’m going to scramble some eggs and freeze them, since I got four dozen yesterday.
Storing: I ordered more dried cranberries (we go through them at an alarming rate), sugar for canning season, and pickling salt at my bulk store. I’m still waiting on the arrival of two bags of rolled oats.
Prepped: Not much, but tomorrow is the town-wide yard sale in the nearest suburban town. My neighbor and I will be going, and I’m looking for more canning jars, shoes in bigger sizes, and more homeschooling books.
Managed: I really need to clean out the freezer. The problem is, there are seven roosters in the freezer, and that involves hauling them all out. This did not get done. Note to self - eat rooster so I can clean out the fridge. I anticipate a few weeks of nice Shabbos dinners. And if I’m super-ambitious, maybe I’ll even can chicken stock.
Cook Something New: This week was all about the asparagus - first harvest came on Saturday and was eaten with lime dressing. We also ate pasta with fresh dill, garlic and asparagus, roasted orange flavored tofu and asparagus, stir fried asparagus with vegetarian oyster sauce and raw asparagus, straight from the garden. Twas good. Tonight we will have roasted chicken, spiced roasted potatoes, asparagus with lemon dill sauce and sorrel-chive salad. The tofu and pasta dishes were new recipes for us.
Work on Local Food Systems: I barely left my house - book craziness. But I did give lettuce seedlings to two neighbors, and bring eggs up to another neighbor who mentioned she wasn’t buying them much because of the price.
Compost something: I don’t mind adding this to the categories, but it is sort of a hard one for me to do - we compost everything, or feed it to chickens and compost the manure. I can’t think of anything I did that was unusual.
Learned a skill: Well, I doubt it will help me in a low-energy future, but I learned to put images in my posts ;-). Otherwise, the only skill I have learned is whining about why I haven’t finished the bit of the book I’m supposed to have finished - and actually, I think I knew how to do that already.
Ok, how about y’all? How is it going?
BTW, we’re not weird - apparently stocking up is the new trend: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/30/AR2008043003435.html
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB120959859362157723-tf90ygLZ3jD_5LabyNB4AHJuPTY_20090501.html?mod=rss_free
What’s next? News stories on mending!
Sharon
- Independence Days Challenge
- Comments(51)
hmm… well, my “doing” is more likely to happen on the weekends than the weekdays, so i’m a bit short for this update
BUT here we go:
planted: nothing since last weekend when we planted spinach, lettuces, basil, watermelon, peas, and onions.
harvested: nothing yet, but some of our lettuce and arugula have sprouted! and not only that, i can tell a difference between the two kinds of sprouts now (they’re in the same container). not quite to a point where i can tell which is which though…
preserved: nothing yet.
stored: also nothing since we do our shopping on the weekend.
prepped: considered water storage ideas, and will ask at juice/smoothie places for containers of some sort this weekend. also planning to gather buckets from the grocery store this weekend.
managed: will go through my stores tonight to see how much food we have in the house, precisely
cook something new: made two batches of tabbouli in the last week, and a killer pasta salad. also had sauteed asparagus with lemon butter and garlic over fresh pasta. yum. (i have a feeling this might become my favorite category.)
work on local food systems: not sure where to start on this one.
compost something: cleaned the kale and other things out of our veg drawer in the fridge. the compost pile got to eat them. i guess that may be “managing” too, eh?
learned a skill: i learned more about water-bath canning, in an intellectual way.
anna the very beginner
I’m doing Independence Days very hit and miss so- I picked peas, ate some and gave the rest to the pig and rat. Carefully didn’t pick blackberries from the best place in front of the dogs or pig(they know about berries!)-hopefully I’ll get them picked today. Tried to breed two different does but they’re not quite in the mood.
erratic heather
I have a longer post up at limesarah.wordpress.com, but the most exciting thing this week was in food storage, where I got moderate amounts of things at the co-op and mail-ordered rather large quantities of grains from a farm in Maine.
Prep, I guess.
I studied edible plant books and hiked the property trying to find stinging nettle. Found some candidates, but will have to wait for them to flower to be sure. I’m new at this.
Harvest.
Ate thinnings from the lettuce patch and cut 2 overlooked asparagus spears from the patch thought defunct.
Admittedly not much. Does being 70 cut me any slack?
I live on the East Coast USA (NJ) and am looking for a source of bulk whole grains and beans. I would appreciate any suggestions - trying to keep shipping charges reasonable.
Dave
Lyle turned more of the field with permission from FIL William. Will try to plant my onion sets this weekend, as well as peas, and start the oats (that last being one of reasons for turning more soil).
Spent 3 hours yesterday cleaning out an old building that’s been used as a youth hangout for decades, assessed repairs needed. Will be scavenging materials from around the farm to repair/renovate the building and make it usable as a guest house. Already has bunk beds and will have a wood stove again, so with an outhouse nearby it could be used for longer-term if needed. Will be re-purposing some old furniture found behind the building for stacking firewood on.
Did some thinning out of the old Christmas tree stand, getting out some of the deadwood and creating more space for the remaining trees.
Although they aren’t set up in the right place yet, when it started raining really hard earlier in the week, Lyle was concerned the rain might run into the basement because we’re still working on repairing the gutters from ice damage this past winter. So he put our two new rain barrels under the spillover from the gutters and caught half a barrel’s worth in each (for New Englanders, the company is New England Rain Barrel, and the barrels are made from good quality recycled plastic — we got ours through one of the town pickup plans).
I’ll be ordering a Big Berkey water filter for emergency preparedness today. We have a well and a spring, but droughts and contamination can happen (although we pray it doesn’t, especially the latter!).
Squash (2 winter types, 1 zucchini, and pie pumpkins) seedlings are doing pretty well, as are the tomato seedlings. Some of the squash seedlings will be going to a nurse friend of mine who also gardens but doesn’t have time to start seeds indoors, and maybe to another friend as well, if we get high enough germination. The second friend and I will be trading some tomato seedlings later — and gum arabic seedlings if they ever come up — we’re growing different tomato varieties from each other.
Repaired one pair of socks, a shirt, 3 pairs of pants, and hand-sewed a very simple dress (the last is for my medievalist hobby but can be worn around the house too).
Picked some dandelion greens, will pick again.
Learned the identity of a wild plant, pulmonaria, and now have to find out if it’s something ‘useful’ for humans (yes, there’s lots of it here). Found a big patch of peppermint by the shack (there’s also bunches by the upstream part of the river that runs through the farm). Our town used to make and sell peppermint products, so the farm has a bunch still, growing wild now.
No food preserving happened, but I tend not to do that this time of year. Need to work on using up some of the preserved and/or frozen foods from last fall though. Yes, we’re not ready to unplug the freezer and probably won’t be for a while. We’ll have to work more on the types of foods we have in the house first, I think.
The small dairy down the road is up and running again (started up in March after the calves were born), so we’re getting milk and yogurt from them. Yes, I could make my own yogurt, but I’d rather support my neighbors when I can. The milk isn’t cheap by any means, but it’s close and fresh (and it’s raw too, so I could make cheese at some point if I want).
Weekends are action time around here but here’s an update -
planted: nothing since last weekend but I did go around daily fussing over my various seedlings. My boss who is not a gardener (likes to plant but never tend) was surprisingly quite distressed to hear I was growing potatoes, you will deplete your soil, and won’t be able to use it again next year, but his wife (a gardener/former homesteader) was impressed that I was growing potatoes in suburban NJ and astutely understood that the soil from the tubs would be headed for the compost heap after harvest.
harvested: nothing
stored: nothing
prepped: did a lot of research on possible sources for bulk orders by “mail” and thought about the pros and cons. None of the grains product is really local and I’m having a hard time balancing organic/non vs. cost (per # and shipping) vs. relative localness and number of middle men. In the end, I’m not sure I’ll be saving anything in foodmiles or cost/# in the shortrun.
managed: nothing more than the daily transfer of food from storage to pantry to table, as appropriate. Tonight, I work on the grocery list.
cooked something new: pumpkin leek soup, from our pumpkin stored all winter and NJ leeks (along with green chard, the first local veg of the year that we’ve seen) was a big hit for dinner last night.
work on local food systems: apart from above research nothing really. Interestingly, my regular supermarket (Wegman’s) in their quarterly glossy propaganda mailing was featuring their experiemental organic farm and lauding their local farmer network. The mag included a repeated statement that a return to the local family farm was the future of produce.
compost something: we compost all our vegie/yard waste (except invasives and diseased). This week after listening to me talk about it all winter, my assistant started a compost bin (with the caveat that she doesn’t intend to hang out her clothes to dry). I lent her some reading materials about the process.
learned a new skill: how to clean a leek is about it.
Susan in NJ
This week I planted 6 rows of corn (more next week), hilled the potatoes for the first time, trellised the peas who needed it and the pole beans who don’t yet, planted some sunflowers for the chickens (around their yard, I stupidly put it facing south west and there’s no shade!, reminder to plant a fruit tree there next year)
I haven’t added much to the food preserving part. I will as the garden comes in.
We didn’t eat anything new, but tonight is “use up the leftovers” night, where you can choode from slippery pot pie, baked spaghetti or one lonely piece of meat loaf, lol.
I am working on the art of negotiation with dh, might not be a new skill but worth improving.
This week, we:
-Built one 4′x4′ raised bed - we figure we have room for four of these for vegetables. Got the wood for two more. Fourth will be later in the month as the budget or the scrap-wood gods allow.
-Started a tater barrel in an old trash can. I’ve never grown potatoes this way before, but since our dirt-space is so limited, the more we can do in containers the better. (I live in West Philadelphia and have maybe three hundred square feet of space to work with - some of that is porch and some is concrete.)
-Tended the pea plants and put in more beans along the backyard fence.
-Harvested some chickweed and had chickweed salads
-Dried a bunch of apples that we got cheap from our CSA people (all old and spotty and unappealing to the general consumer, but tasty and really sweet as dried apple-chips)
-Composted all compostable yard and kitchen waste (this is a normal thing so it feels odd to include it here - it’s like listing “washing the dishes” as an accomplishment. Still, I see why it belongs in the category of food-independence.)
-Am in process of soaking some passionflower seeds. I want to grow a passionflower vine, but everything I’ve read says they are difficult to start from seeds. I’m trying anyway because it’s all I’ve got. We’ll see.
This was all good, but I feel like my biggest accomplishment this week was getting my husband on board with the project. He prefers to grow pretty things and grumbles when I suggest changing flowerbeds over to food production. I think he finally gets it, though, and has suddenly become all enthusiastic about seeing just how much food we can grow. I am very happy about this because he’s a better gardener than I am and it always helps to have another set of hands committed to the project.
Planted: I already had in peas, potatos, and onion starts outside. I added beets, carrots, shallots, and some lettuce starts. Inside, I have tomatos, bok choy, sunflowers, pumpkin, zucchini, new zealand spinach, regular spinach, cilantro, basil, chard, and just added hot peppers, two quinoa just to see how it does, and chamomile, which I did wrong but hope will grow anyway. Have you TRIED to deal with chamomile dust, I mean seeds? AAAAA!
Harvested: Nothing yet.
Stored: Got extras of things at the co-op: Bulk Quinoa, Black Eyed Peas, and canned stuff. Also got some 5 gallon food buckets from Craigslist for various projects/storage.
My main accomplishment this week was to begin planning the front yard, which has NO lawn and some serious out-of-control landscaping gone wrong. My house is THAT house on the block, the eyesore. I’m going to be removing some things and adding a bunch in the hopes of a great edible front yard someday.
Planted: I’ve planted loads of herbs and am planting out my beans and peas tomorrow or Monday. I’ve also got in all my compost for my container garden and so I’m all set to move everything outdoors now. I also stirred the compost heap.
Cooked: Made a stir-fry with a sauce that I hadn’t tried before, using small amounts of beef and bulking it out with beans and cabbage.
Oh, and news articles about mending? http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/may/02/communities.fossilfuels
Well, we had a hard frost so there was a lot of moving seedlings in & out of the little porch.
Planted: peas (i know, super late), zucchini in a container formerly used for recycling (just doing my part to protect the neighborhood from gentrification!), cilantro, parsley. Cut up potatos to plant but then we got some snow, so waited. Got self-watering containers mostly made for tomato plants - have to scrounge some tubing still.
My stealth planting plan on unused bike trail slope is still not implemented because of continual bad weather. Maybe this week.
I shouldn’t get depressed reading about everyone else being able to plant and harvest wild stuff but I do, a little. Trees are JUST starting to bud although some of the willows are blossoming. I see a few tulips and daffodils poking their leaves up along house foundations here and there. Anyway, here’s the update for this week:
Plant something: After one of my cats chewed the tops of all but one of my corn starts and then danced in another set of starts while munching, I had to perform corn triage. I transplanted 16 starts into 4″ pots plus a cucumber and a cabbage that got mashed during the dancing. All but one of the corn transplants seem to be growing as do the mashed cucumber and cabbage. I also purchased a couple more bags of locally produced potting mix.
Harvest something: Nothing yet.
Preserve something: Nothing yet.
Prep something: Placed an order through the local organic food club for a variety of beans (some 5 lbs, others 25 lbs), cheese, more brown basmati rice, miso and baking soda (5 lbs). I also placed orders with St. Lawrence Nurseries for six blueberry bushes and 10 prinsepia bushes and Washburn’s Nursery (just down the road) for three currant bushes, a horseradish and a fall order of apples (near forty pounds of apples).
Cook something: I’m still working on the cabbage and leek soup I made a while back that was a pantry meal but I did make a taco salad (without tortillas) from home made refried beans, spiced pastured beef and spring mix I got in my nonlocal CSA box. I make kefir all the time so that doesn’t count but I did receive a kombucha mushroom this week. Now I just have to go get some tea and sugar.
Manage your reserves: It’s scary how long the sprouts are on the potatoes. Despite the admonishment to not use just any old potato for starts, I’m going to anyway. I have three types of sprouting potatoes and will be using some for planting and some for giving to others for planting. Some might still be edible, you never know. I’ve been eating down my dried apples and finished off the brined and dried walnuts but I’ve still got quite a few dried raspberries and blueberries around. I’ve also been eating down the beans I had bought previously which is why I was bulk buying more.
Work on local food systems: I’m looking into the Buy Fresh Buy Local program through Food Routes, a national non profit dedicated to promoting local foods. Alaska has something sort of like that called Alaska Grown, but there’s no outreach component. The State provides some funding for branding with the Alaska Grown logo and advertising for farmers markets but that’s about it. I sent a message to the Food Routes people for some guidance and will see what they tell me. And finally, I’ve been chatting with the neighbor to the north of me and we plan to exchange seeds and seedlings in the near future.
I’m out of town for the weekend but plan to get more seeds started and more transplanting up done early next week.
Kerri in AK
What do you do with dried dandelions and frozen scrambled eggs? I didn’t know you could freeze eggs. Do you cook them before you freeze them, or just stir them up? And how do you harvest dandelions? Do you just pick off the leaves? Or pull up the whole plant?
Christine
This week I rototilled my garden (it is 45′x55′ and there were a lot of tough roots left from last season). I planted more onion plants, the peas, broad beans and early potatoes. I planted 3 more rhubarb plants and 3 horseradish roots. There was a hard freeze this past week but it didn’t seem to damage anything. I foraged the hedgerow for asparagus and froze some. I was hoping that some weeds here were nettles but was advised that they are motherwort. I may have found some nettles in the hedgerow but will have to see what the flowers look like.
Here in the midwest the weather is very unsettled this time of year. I tend to plant things later to avoid hail damage.
We are eating a lot of eggs this time of year when the hens a really producing.
Indoors I have tomatoes, leeks, cutting celery and onions started. As soon as the onions get planted out I will have room to start the peppers, herbs and flowers.
That’s about it for this week. Next week is my shopping week and I will continue to work in the garden.
Not a whole lot accomplished this week, but here goes:
Planted: peas, zuccinni, tomatoes( in starter pots) and amaranth.
Composted: all kitchen veggie waste plus leaves from last fall (they sat on my yard all winter under 6′ of snow)
Preps: 20lbs flour and 20lbs split peas. Picked up 7 3 gallon containers for my grain storage.
Started “re-claiming” two areas of yard that will be garden. Signed up for 2 4×8′ plots in community garden.
Skills: finally got a pressure cooker (YAY!!!) and studied how it is used, but no “hands on” practice yet.
Cleaned out one closet to convert to food storage area.
Donna
We are in the middle of moving but did get some basil started and bought some cherry tomato starts at the Farmers Market, We are going to get a rain barrel tomorrow for the new house. Used up the last of the frozen cranberries from last year’s Farmers Market in a new bread recipe. Happy that they didn’t go to waste from being overlooked in the move. Bernie
Well, Its been a busy week (or is that a couple of days.
Planted:I’ve planted blueberries, rutabaga, strawberries,transplanted sorrel, leeks, started basil indoors.
Harvested: Parsnip, Jerusalem artichokes, sorrel, dandelion greens, lots of eggs.
Preserved:not much yet to preserve but I am investigating uses of wild plantain.
Prepped: Found some cheap underwear to put away. Found some low cost candles at the thrift store and some clothes for the wee one in a couple of sizes. Took delivery on a large second hand 250 gl. container for water harvesting.
Managed something: Tidied up the linen closet to assess supply of blankets, towels, and wash clothes. Found 8 large jars in shed left behind by prior owner, washed them out to use with wild fermentation experiment this summer.
Storing: picked up a couple gallons of white vinegar and apple cider vinegar for pickling, and pickling herbs.
compost something: I have all the components for building first pile of the season, chicken poo, sheep doo, garden leaves, couple buckets of food scraps, just waiting for the weekend when hubby can watch wee one.
Learn something: we’ve sheared our sheep and I have been learning to hand card.
Cook something new: made bread with flour I milled myself with new grain mill.
Support local food shed: Tomorrow I am going to the Fedco Tree sale to get fruit trees for home and Community Forest Garden that I volunteer for.
I am going to add make something with my hands: Made one sock for Aunt for Christmas. Gotta finish the other one.
This challenge is great. A lot of this stuff I was already doing; but, to document it means that I can really see HOW MUCH I am doing. It also means I am more conscious of what I am doing and thinking of other things I could do.
This week I started some Chinese 5 colour hot pepper seeds. (please please grow) I’m a total newbie to the gardening scene, and grew my first veggies last summer.
We haven’t harvested anything yet. It’s all still frozen. I’m going to plan to try an indoor salad garden next year so we can have some home grown fresh greens in the winter.
Storing - I’m looking into buying a small chest freezer and learning how to can. Haven’t started yet though. I also have a 20 lb bag of brown rice to store. I won’t be buying much due to shortages, so would like to make sure we make this one last.
Prepped - I have a small storage room under the stairs in the basement that I’m beginning to prep as a cold storage / pantry type place. It has lots of potential. Also planning to build two more raised beds and one for raspberries behind our garage.
Managed - Did a quick sort of the fridge and am trying to use up anything that is getting near the end of its life.
Cooked - My brother-in-law is staying with us, so I’m learning to cook for 3 instead of 2. I’ve been experimenting with Indian style food lately. Lots of ways to make staples like lentils and potatoes taste yummy and exotic.
Local Food - We’ve got a great farmer’s market so much of our food is local already. I’m beginning the process of looking for local grains, oils and organic milk.
Compost - We weren’t able to compost for part of the winter due to having an over-full and frozen compost bin. We have a small urban lot, so expanding it wasn’t an option at the time. We are starting to be able to use it again and will work on increasing capacity this summer.
Skill - There are so many. I haven’t conciously learned new ones this week, but I’m making a list of skills to master (or at least attempt) by the end of the summer.
I’ve been talking to a couple friends about local food, food independence, speculation in markets and all that. A couple of them are reading Pollan’s books right now. I’m hoping to keep building on that network. If all or most of the pepper seeds I planted sprout, I’m going to give some away to friends too. They are a rare Heirloom, and quite decorative, so I think this will serve multiple purposes.
I hope to have more accomplished by next week!
Planted: Indoors: sowed squash, pumpkin, fennel, spring onions, basil; potted chili seedlings.
Outdoors: potatoes, carrots, root parsley, parsnips, turnips, peas, fava beans, mint, onions
Harvested: mint, lemon balm and blackcurrant leaves for tea; nettles, dandelion leaves, parsley, salad greens, chives, Jerusalem artichokes, rhubarb
Preserved: Nothing. Will soon be able to make rhubarb jam.
Storing: Nothing
Prepped: Not really
Managed: Checked and sorted things in freezers
Cook Something New: Made hoummus from local peas; made dumplings from potatoes, Jer.artichokes and nettles. Tried a new recipe for nettle soup.
Work on Local Food Systems: Not really
Compost something: We compost more or less everything
Learned a skill: Practised my spinning
Megan, I feel you - our house is also THAT house on the block.
Planted: basil and hot peppers. I have some mint sprouting roots in the kitchen that I’ll plant this weekend…somewhere.
Harvested: honeysuckle, dandelions, mulberry leaves for the bunnies (HAPPY buns)
Prep: Hit thrift stores for cheap candles and containers to plant in. Started stockpiling food-grade buckets from my workplace. Un-boxed my summer wardrobe and deemed it “embarrassingly shabby” - started to rebuild it. Bought extra first aid supplies.
Food Management: Nothing extra stored this week. I did evaluate my pecan stash and determine that it’s time to shell and freeze the rest. I’m going to revamp my inventory-keeping system this weekend and try to freeze and hardboil some eggs. Cleaned out the secondary freezer.
Composting all food/garden waste as usual. Learning more about food gardening every day. Helping out at the CSA every weekend. I’m sure there’s more that I just can’t think of now!
-Tara in Dallas, TX
We’ve been really busy this week.
1. Planted: basil, leek, carrot, cascade hops, tansy, amaranth, thyme, rhubarb, horseradish, lobelia, and more pansy.
2. Harvested: pansy, dandelion greens, asparagus, peppermint, spearmint
3. Preserved: 7 pints of black and pinto beans.
4. Stored: I added a little wheat, oats, barley, black beans, and dry milk to my pantry.
5. Prepped:
* Water storage is up to 4 days (plus the water in the Berkey).
* I bought 3 cases of canning jars.
* Animals: Converting the chicks to more homegrown food rations. Rabbits are completely on grass and roots. Sheep and goats are still eating oats and alfalfa pellets along with pasturage. Added 6 months of cat food and 2 months of dog food to the animal food closet.
6. Managed: Moved 30 wheelbarrow loads of old hay and manure out of the barn and onto the new compost heap. Kept up with weeding the garden, herb garden, orchard, and strawberry bed. Started using “Food Storage Planner” from Frugal Squirrels to help keep all this under control. I just deleted all the stuff they had that we’ll never eat or store and added my own foods based on what we grow and eat.
Kim
I, too will do most of my gardening on the weekends, & don’t have access to Internet at home, so will be posting during the week. I did post about last weekend earlier on my blog (http://violetlane-cj.blogspot.com/2008/04/independence-days-challenge.html)
- don’t know if that will show up - but since then, I’ve been doggedly at work (finally!) on reducing the piles of paper that are overwhelming my life. Most of it has to do with food storage/peak oil prep/homesteading/etc. - lots of good information, but I can’t find any of it when I need/want it! My goal for May will be to sort/clean it all out, shred-for-the-compost what is unnecessary, and file it in some sort of order/form that I can retrieve. If you saw the stacks (I thought about adding a photo to my blog, but am too embarrassed by the size of it!), you could see why it will take the whole month!
The other accomplishment was finding a great deal on a ding-and-dent-but-still-brand-new chest freezer. That’s now safely lodged in my garage, still looking quite empty…
Looks like a nice weekend ahead, so more planting will be done!
Carla in North Idaho
Wow, people have done a lot. Here’s my (much shorter!) list:
— but I haven’t heard yet that it’s been rejected.)
Planting: Started seeds indoors for: celery, leeks, lettuce, marigolds, peppers and cantaloupes. Then I spent the rest of the week trying to get my 7-month-old kitten to stop sitting on them. The lettuce is sprouting!!! The section where the leeks are planted looks quite mashed.
Harvested: Nothing
Preserved: Nothing
Prepping: Dug the weeds out of several of the holes in the cinderblocks of my raised bed so they can be replanted with herbs.
Wrote a newspaper article about a woman offering free local disaster preparedness classes.
Cooked: Nothing. Unless tea and hard-boiled eggs count.
Manage resources: Rode the bus to work for the first time, to begin working toward goal of using less gasoline.
Composted: food scraps, as usual.
Work on local food systems:
Met with my fellow committee member in local Slow Food group to talk about how to begin assessing potential for starting a winter farmers market in the county. Began researching names of farms to contact.
Wrote a long editorial about the whole global mess/mass starvation/peak oil/global warming, etc., urging people to take action and plant gardens; tentatively scheduled to run May 10 (of course, that was before the editor read it —
First time poster, and apartment-dwelling city girl here. I thought it might be interesting for those of you with land/yards to see what this challenge is like from an urban perspective.
One of the things I decided to do this week was to start looking into urban foraging (finding food growing wild in the city). I know where blackberries and rosemary grow, but that’s not much to live on! Doing some searching online, I found http://bayareasource.googlepages.com/events, has a class within biking distance of my house tomorrow! Hopefully I’ll make it over there.
The other thing I did this week was to clean out our freezer. We’re long time CSA members and frequently have extra produce in the summer, so I wanted to be ready with space. (I also found some tasty sweet potato chili in the back of the freezer that made for great lunches this week!)
I’m a quilter in my free time, and this week I went to Goodwill and picked up some cheap flannel sheets that I can use as batting for some of my current projects. I frequently tell myself when sewing that I’m “quilting for the apocalypse” after one of Sharon’s posts from awhile back. I too want my loved ones to be warm when we have to turn down/off the heat.
Goals for next week: find the cheapest local source for organic bulk beans, learn how to darn socks, start some sprouts, consider starting a windowbox of herbs in the livingroom.
Cheers!
Jen
It snowed here yesterday, so nothing’s been planted or harvested.
Stored: Added to the canned goods and wild rice stash
Prepped: DS and I cleaned up the front garden and have borrowed a neighbour’s chipper/shredder to break down the cuttings and dead leaves for compost. As city ordinances won’t allow me to plant veg in the front yard, a 15′x6′ section on either side of the front walk will be converted to an herb/edible flower bed, and I’m adding more antique roses known for large hips for winter vitamin C.
Cooked: all week, and am getting back into the habit of baking one day a week
Manage resources: the upstairs pantry has had its shelving put back and been reorganized, and we’re starting to clean out the basement in order to put more shelving in; we’re keeping an eye out for a chest freezer.
Composted: see above re: prepped, and I’m looking into vermiculture for the cat waste
Local food: confirmed CSA shares, checked the city website for news on the year-round farmers’ market
1. Plant something: I planted a plum tree I had over at the other house. I also planted cabbage, brussel sprouts, and broccoli (tomorrow). I hope to plant the two pear trees tomorrow as well.
2. Harvest Something: I picked violets for jelly last night. I also uprooted tons of garlic mustard (it will take me years to manually eradicate this stuff) and brought it inside to try. Last weekend, Shawnee and I picked a bucket full of dandelions for jelly or syrup. Also, the new hens I obtained last fall are finally laying eggs (more and more each day!!)
3. Preserve something: violets and dandelions are steeping for jelly as we speak.
4. Prep something: Discussed with DH about making a “wish list” of items/purchases we could use for future hardship (e.g. livestock, gun for hunting/fishing equipment, Permaculture plants). Plan to pay off debts and looking for way to do this the quickest and least harmful financially to us. Bought lentils from the Amish market. Also, I am finally getting around to starting a dried sourdough starter that supposedly came from the oregon trail. Tomorrow is the first area ‘animal swap’ (mainly, a giant flea market that includes livestock). i want to purchase a few guineas for tick control and maybe some more chicks. Plus, I always am on the lookout for ‘homesteading” implements that could come in handy.
5. Cook something: Making spaghetti tonight with our own grown & canned sauce. I also bought some ripe bananas at market today and plan to make bread (obviously the bananas aren’t local, but the market is ran by a local Amish family). See below (manyof these blend together), I plan to make bread and shepherd’s pie with our tickling supply of sweet potatoes and our own lambs’ ground meat (carrots from local market).
6. Manage your reserves: I am in the process of doing inventory on what we have left in the pantry. I plan to use up the rest of the sweet potatoes before they mould tomorrow (sweet potato Shepherd’s pie with our own lamb meat!!)
7. Work on local food systems: Stopped by the Amish market and bought cabbage plants that they start in their greenhouses (and BTW, I noticed now have wind turbines-how cool!). I also arranged to buy and pick-up two piglets from an area (Amish again!) farmer. if I have time, I plan to hit another market for asparagus (the one didn’t have it yet).
Oops, just noticed the two new categories!!
8. Compost something: We throw all non-meat food scraps to the chickens or to the compost pile for the garden. This happens daily and won’t change (maybe this could go in manage your reserves or prep something????) However, I will add I discussed with DH that all non-coffee grind scraps can go to the two piglets I am picking up tomorrow.
9. Learn a new skill: ooh, this is a good one!! I really want to learn to butcher my own chickens (I know, I know I am waaaay over due to learn this one), but the cornish crosses are going to the Amish lady that does them for a percentage of the birds (i.e. 10%, so 1/10-not a bad price to pay if you don’t have the time or knowledge to do it yourself). So, I will have to put too skills down next week, I guess. Unless you count making Violet Jelly (I know how to make jelly, but I have never made violet jelly!).
[…] Sharon reminded me about this, and I’m not sure whether to do this on a weekly basis or a daily one. […]
I’m going to be doing this on a daily basis here at my blog: Red State Green
1. Plant something: finished getting everything in my garden for this spring, except for two rows of spinach I’ll put under the peas.
2. Harvest something: asparagus
3. Preserve something: not yet
4. Prep something: not yet
5. Cook something: all week, man. Bread, especially.
6. Manage your reserves: Ug, I’ll start on that soon, I swear.
7. Work on local food systems: finalized our Incorporation for the co-op; got our awesome recycled-cotton & plastic shopping bags in for fundraiser; gearing up for concert fundraiser-yeahhhrrrr!
8. Compost: digging out from under skads of felled branches. Managed to dig enough out to side-dress brassicas & onions.
9. Learn a new skill: I, too, learned how to put a graphic onto my blog-this time, onto the sidebar!
Here’s how it goes so far. It feels good to see it put down on paper, cuz it feels like not so much when I am doing it.
1.Plant something: watermelon seeds indoors.
2.Harvest something: raspberry leaves (tomorrow)
3.Preserve something: no
4.Prep something: assembled a compost bin out of pallets
5.Cook something: stirfry, chili
6.Manage your reserves: put all my dry goods into mouse-proof containers
7.Work on local food systems: am growing extra tomato seedlings to share with friends
8.Compost: all my kitchen scraps and yard waste
9.Learn a new skill: I have set about to sew window treatments for the house I just moved into, including some window quilts for winter. I am a new sewer, so learning as I go.
Planted: Nothing yet. We are starting square foot gardening as soon as we finish painting the outside of our 1920’s era fixer-upper this month.
Harvested: Herbs from my windowsill garden, bok choi and asparagus came in early at one of the two CSA’s to which we belong (YUM!)
Preserved: Nothing yet. I have cleared my cellar shelves, painted the window to reduce light, bought some more canning jars and lids, found all of the parts to my water bath canner, and priced pressure canners at Lehmans.
Stored: Nothing yet. We are debating a chest freezer (recognizing the energy and environmental cost and still weighing options…) and I am collecting containers for root vegetables etc.
Prepped: We had an opportunity to drive to Lehman’s today (http://www.lehmans.com/index.jsp). The store is even more wonderful than the website. We live about 30 miles from it though, so this will be a once a season trip. We priced crock pots, tools, grain grinders, cast iron cookware, pressure canners, butter churners, etc. We only bought a few kitchen essentials (e.g. flour sifter now that I bake bread every other day…). We will be buying either a wood stove or pellet stove this year (still debating pros and cons) and so asked lots of questions of the staff at Lehman’s. We also priced wood cook stoves, but they are a bit out of our budget this year…
managed: I have a budget and menu planning system that I am working on updating in Excel this week.
Cook something new: We will be trying bok choi tomorrow for lunch. I also made 2 new potato recipes as we are trying to experiment with non-grain starches (as suggested by Sharon). One recipe worked (garlic potato loaf). The other was awful (Fruity Breakfast Potato Scramble). Oh well. Kids still ate them.
Compost something: We have been composting for the last 5 months, but just added worm composting two weeks ago. It is so cool and so easy! My sister got us started.
Learned a skill: I learned to ask friends to combine social obligations with chores. A friend and I went grocery shopping together while my husband helped her husband put in his square foot garden squares and watch the kids. It was a wonderful day.
What a great weekly ritual! Not only is it inspiring to read everyone else’s posts, it really helped me to organize my goals and accomplishments to write this response.
Thanks!
Tina
I decided to risk it and plant some tomatoes this week. I had to cover them last night but tonight they should be fine.
Learned a new pizza dough recipe~yum!
Ordered from our co-op again, 25# of sugar safely in storage.(O:
I’m going to approach this a little differently. Part of my goal is to get myself to do something every day, even a small thing. I just need to make sure that I’m not focusing on one area exclusively. So here’s my report:
Tuesday 4/29: Planted one kale start, one cabbage start and one tomatillio.
Wednesday 4/30: Checked out Carla Emery’s Country Living from library (learn a new skill/research).
Thursday 5/1: Checked freezer supplies. Used broccoli pesto that I made last year for dinner with pasta (manage reserves).
Friday 5/2: Planted another batch of cut and come again lettuce.
planted - nothing so far. My windowsills are crowded already
harvested - the rosemary is grwoing like weeds, so I started to take ‘harvest’ it (usually simply cut some and dry it for storage)
stored - nothing yet (except for the rosemary)
prepped - bought some airtight storage containers at a sale; took up arms against the odious flittery flour moths which AGAIN have invaded my kitchen; decided to re-organise our ’storage niche’ (dh will have to help with that, it’s scheduled for next weekend when we renovate the kitchen with help of my family)
managed - made pesto from those sundried tomatos which were asking to be used in some meaningful way…
worked on local food chains - renewed an agreement with friends of ours who grow lots of fruits: we collect twist-off lidded glasses, and trade them for jelly and preserves later this year
cooked something new - adapted a moroccan lamb stew recipe to a vegetarian, storage based version. Yummy!
composted / gave back something to nature - our city has a city wide collection scheme for compostable scraps, so we compost everything that is compostable, even though it is not us personally who get the results
learned a skill - not exactly, tried to refresh my knitting skills
… I still work on trying to do something every day. Not that easy
Greetings, Jordis
Planted: onions, beets, broccoli, radishes, and carrots
Harvested:Nothing yet, but the mint has come through the wet winter looking gorgeous and is already out of control. Thinking abut drying it for tea or something.
Stored: Planning on picking up some more staples this weekend. I’ve been gradually adding to bean and rice stores for a couple of months now. Need to think about things like split peas and lentils too.
Prepped: I’m not crazy about the idea of picking up extra “stuff” since I try to keep “stuff” to a minimum, but I definitely need to pick up some butane canisters for the butane tabletop stove (in case the power goes out), and think about water stores for an emergency.
Managed: Nothing, since I was out of town until Wed and then under a good deal of work stress for the rest of the week. Need to think about this goal and how it translates in my life.
Worked on local food chains: again, need to think about this one. So far only working on *my* food chain…
Cooked something new: well, as I have no new ingredients, haven’t managed this one. As soon as some spring crops start making their way into my house, I will.
Composted: Always compost in the city wide collection, but I’m seriously thinking about finally installing the compost bin I bought from the city 3 years ago. It requires that I dig a large hole, and I’ve just never gotten around to it.
Learned a skill: had to do a bit of research about keeping slugs out of the garden with copper tape. Turns out it didn’t work for me last year because I didn’t use a wide enough strip of copper. Ended up with 6″ copper tape at the end of my research and am starting to stick that to my raised beds this week, as the tender shoots emerge.
Here’s where I am at the end of the week:
Planted: Sowed green bean seeds in the former collard green bed
Harvested: Collards, sorrel, lettuce, two tomatoes, strawberries
Preserved: Froze excess collard greens
Stored - Nothing
Prepped - Nothing yet
Managed - Cleaned out fridge, purged large walk-in closet
Cooking Something New: Added wild wood sorrel to our salads
Food System: Organized farmers to donate leftover produce from market to local Catholic Worker House, sent out email to 400 people reminding them of our local locavore challenge during the month of May
Compost: We compost all of our veggie scraps and chicken bedding
Learned a new skill: Knitted short rows without holes (you have to be a sock knitter to understand the depth of this accomplishment
Wow, that’s alot! We planted zucchini, two side of tomatoes, more cherokee trail of tear beans, lemon balm, and bee balm. We transplanted strawberry plants we purchased at the local nursery and cleaned out the fridge and freezer.
We are steadily working on cleaning out the garage (we combined households) and even sold almost a $1,000 worth of stuff. We bought a couple things we needed and saved the rest. This is impressive since we gave away probably $3,000 worth of furniture to friends.
Hi, Megan and Deb G and any other Bellingham ‘hamsters lurking out there, I have some extra heirloom pepper and herb starts and enough lettuce seeds (speckled trout’s back, red oaky, some other stuff) to have plenty to share. Go north from the Fairhaven library and look for the woman with the mustard blooming four feet high in the parking strip and the garden in what used to be a front lawn. Can’t miss it, all my neighbors tell me so.
I made a tiny dent in the biomass attempting to reclaim my garden and revert to primordial temperate rain forest. My better effort was going through the first aid drawer, pitching all the expired items and making a shopping list. The tea seed arrived from Horizon Herbs. Tea is quite tempermental. The seeds have to be scarified, soaked and started in warm soil. They are fussy about being transplanted and are best started in gallon pots with metal tags, because they may come up another year. Or not. I have one abused shrub left from a batch of seed that I started years ago. I recycled the potting soil from the no shows and had spotty germ in random pots for years.
We just signed up but as this is our orientation anyway.
Our rain barrels arrived and we went and bought downspouts and things. There was NO precipitation in April.
Have barrels for potatoes but need to find just the right place for them - it’s still freezing at night.
Mr. Greenjeans gave up a 6×8′ place in his workshop that we are going to put up walls and make into a hen house and put a hole in the wall for a run.
Compost regularly
Ok let’s see…
Planted: Got my new apple espalier trees in
Preserved: I checked my canning equipment to see if I had everything I needed
Prepped: tilled the flowerbeds again to prep for the upcoming planting; making final selections on what to plant this year and where
And that’s about it for me for this week!
i did a post on it but forgot to comment here. this is my weekly round-up:
1. plant something:
sat: out of town
sun: started weeding strawberries and asparagus
mon: transplanted basil
tue: planted 4 cauliflower, 4 green cabbage, 5 red cabbage, 2 brussels sprouts, 12 broccoli, finished weeding strawberries
wed: planted some nasturtiums, amaranth, borage, hollyhocks, calendula
thu: covered brassicas with row cover, finished planting onions, weeded horse radish, started weeding wheat feed, transplanted peppers, celery into larger containers
fri: planted 20# of potatoes with 2 little ones help, planted 5 zucchini, planted dill, parsley, cilantro, thyme, chamomile, wild tobacco, summer savory and chives, repotted holy basil and elecampagne, cut up last 20# potatoes
2. harvest something:
^harvested several wild morels found around our property and neighbor’s property
^harvested some of our asparagus
^harvested lilacs to make jelly
3. preserve something:
^made 2 batches of violet jelly
^made and froze 1 lb butter
4. prep something:
^got several sustainable gifts for my b-day this week: marcato atlas pasta maker with several attachments, butter churn, pampered chef bread pan, another large cast iron skillet and dutch oven (you can never have too many!)
^secured a load of firewood from neighbor
^searched for milk goats, berkey water filter and refrigerator (for storing extra eggs and milk)
^started reading making your small farm profitable
5. cook something:
^wild morels and homegrown asparagus were on the menu this week
6. manage your reserves:
^placed coop #1 order
^started coop #2 order which will be placed once #1 comes in next wednesday
^purchased several bottles of everclear to use for tincture making
7. work on local food systems:
^fed and watered broiler chicks several times a day (they go through food like crazy). hopefully the tractor will be completed today and we can move them out of the greenhouse and onto fresh ground.
^listed our eggs and meat on our local harvest online store
^separated seedlings to grow peppers and celery to hopefully sell to local restaurant and at market later this season
8. Compost something:
^every day, all our foods go into the compost bucket and get fed to the chickens who turn it into manure for the garden.
^i hold back apple cores, carrot ends and peels and a few other veggies scraps for goat treats
^the dog and cats eat most the meat/bone scraps (i feed fish scraps to the chickens for extra protein)
9. Learned a skill:
^tried out my new pasta maker (my daughters took turns hand cranking it)
^tried out my new butter churn (jaden tried cranking it but it was too hard for her)
Planted: four varieties of potatoes; one more to go. Sugar snap peas and blue-podded soup peas along the chain link fence.
Harvested: nothing yet. But all our fruit trees and shrubs are in bloom; it is beautiful here. We could still get a frost, but I’m hoping not.
Preserved: nothing yet. But I’ve got DH primed to get me a pressure canner for my birthday!
Cooked new: Made polenta from millet (Italians used to use millet before corn arrived from the New World). Just cook the millet 10 minutes longer, with 1 more cup of water (for the cup of millet). Press into a pan. You could add cheese if you like. Works perfectly.
Made a pie from the last Hubbard squash, local eggs and honey, and on-hand coconut milk (I’m staying away from dairy for a while). Spices of course. It was delicious! I pat myself on the back for FINALLY using that Hubbard squash from last fall.
Prepped: stopped at a few thrift stores, bought some canning jars cheap, plus two glass gallon iced-tea jugs for practically nothing. I’ll use them for water storage in garage; they’re small enough I can carry and lift them myself.
My topbar beehive is ready to pick up. Now I’ve got to get serious on how to protect it from the Bear. I also need to pick up some beekeeping supplies; I sold everything I had many years ago.
I’m not doing this so much for the honey, but for the bees. We have a wonderful spot for bees, in a river valley, no agricultural poisons for many miles, lots of fruit shrubs and wild flowers. Honeybees need all the help we can give.
Local Food Systems: sent out the May list to our local food coop which I organized last month. I’ve used this opportunity to stock up myself too. I now have CO millet, CO quinoa, CO anasazis, CO pintos, CO garbanzos, NE popcorn, ND buckwheat, and CO whole wheat flour on hand. We’re using the delicious millet and the pintos every day.
Friends contacted me: they have a dinner group-get together once a month for a home-cooked gourmet feast. The theme this time was local foods; their responsibility was dessert. What fruit is available in Colorado in May? Nada! Except for what I have preserved. We settled on pannacotta (custard) decorated with wild plum compote (from wild plums I dried last year) and wild-grape/honey syrup (was supposed to be jelly ;-), made with honey from Colorado and wild grape from my yard. Sounds yummy!
Planted: 4 varieties of potatoes, 2 banana trees, bought 11 more fruit trees, some pigeon peas, some calendula, some mushroom plants, some aibika and some eggplants. I will be planting these when the moon is right!
Harvested: a little for dinner and lunch each day - eggplant, mizuna, silverbeet, spinach, lettuce, rocket, daikon, radish, snowpea leaves, and our first guava!
Preserved: 3 bottles of ketchup, 3 jars of tomato relish
Cooked New: nothing this week.
Prepped: some stockpile items like matches, first aid items, a manual food processor from an op shop and a cast iron frypan (to be used inside or out).
Manage Reserves: cleaned two shelves of pantry.
Local Food Systems: supported local farmers markets, investigating local milk from CSA.
Thanks for getting me off my bum, Sharon! Doing something everyday really makes me think.
I didn’t officially sign up, but I think I did pretty good this week just in the normal course of our lives.
Planted: my sweetie didn’t plant anything new in the garden that I’m aware of. However, I broadcast the oat groats with hulls still attached that I sorted out from my CSA oats. I’m not sure if they’ll grow, but I will soon be harvesting wheat that grew from doing this last year. It’s scattered all over my yard!
Preserved: Cooked up one of the last pumpkins from last fall. Will be freezing the puree leftover today after baking a couple batches of muffins for snacks.
Storing: Packed bulk foods into 5 gallon buckets with dry ice.
Prepped: Picked up more candles at a yard sale.
Managed: Collected another few boxes of clutter from about the house for yard sale this coming weekend.
Cook Something New: Merged two recipes to make so-so pumpkin pancakes.
Work on Local Food Systems: Nothing this week, but starting to think about guerilla gardening.
Compost something: Picked up 12 HUGE free bags of pine needles and oak leaves from craigslist. Adds important variety to mulch and compost.
Learned a skill: Not a new one, but will be re-learning an old one today when I remat two paintings. One will be sold, the other hung on the wall.
Totally off topic, but can someone help me add the Independence Day Challenge banner to my blogspot blog?
I’m hoping to do something in 5 catatories at least once a week — and always something in planted harvest. I’m also approaching this as a household project, so I get credit for my dds work. (Sneaky, aren’t it?) I’ve also added a catagory called outreach with has to do with helping others locally or at a distance.
Planted: yet more spuds, lettuce, chard, spinach, filled in the holes where peas hadn’t sprouted.
Harvested: about 6 carrots that had over wintered unnoticed — very sweet.
Preserved: nil
Storing: nil
Prep: found the file I brought to sharpen the spade.
Managed/deculttered: put together makings for a salvaged crib quilt all in once place. Got out 2 large bags of clothes to families making sure that what was in them was excatly what they had requested or confirmed by email they wanted.
Cooked something new: Well, I made pot of soup from frozen broch. I gleaned. Rest of household claim it smells like boiled cabbage, and realized (once I tasted it) that it tasted like over-boiled cabbage. Decided I’d take it to work for lunches.
Work on local food system: asked permission at church to plant 10×20 foot bed of spuds for soup kitchen. Everyone expected it to be approved. Everyone expressed horried fastination tinged with disbelief that little old me could double dig that much. They ain’t seen nothing yet!
Compost: Just the usual.
Skill: nil need to learn how to sharpen spade etc.
Outreach: found out curtain to make another 8 school kits for MCCC. Delived stolen ham, 25 coloring kits and 50 mini hygine kits to soup kitchen. helped put in small garden for friend. Forced large amounts of seed potatoes on innocent friend. Humped what seemed like endless amounts of firewood saving for friend with who need a cord last year to heat and cook off the new potato bed where the tree cutters dumps them from my nieghbors dead tree.
Misc. Ingnored large, large heap of wood chips in from of house.
Sort of make seven.
MEA
I’ve tried posting my list from my blog a couple times, but for some reason it doesn’t show up.
So, here’s a link to my longer post with some pics:
Independence Days Week 1
I blogged my activity!
http://applejackcreek.com/blog/index.html
I’m posting about my weekly activity on my blog. ( http://www.evolutiontosimplicity.blogspot.com )
For DAVE-
(if you’ve scrolled down this far)
Have a look at Neshaminy Valley. They’re in Ivyland, PA and do deliveries throughout NJ (as well as Ct, MA, NY, PA, DE, MD, DC and VA for anyone else who might be interested). For NJ there’s a $350 min order but most I know who have ordered via Neshaminy do it with friends.
I’ve never ordered from them (though I’m about to) but I’ve heard good things about Neshaminy from others.
Here’s a link to their catalogue:
http://www.nvorganic.com/catalog/catalog_may.pdf
-nicole
(also in NJ)