IDC: Week 15

By popular demand, the Independence Days Challenge is back! Every Friday from February - September we are challenged to work on our skill set. Anyone can join in!

The categories and my responses:

Plant something: A lot of us were trained to think of planting as done once a year, but if you start seeds, do season extension and succession plant, you’ll get much, much more out of your garden, so I try and plant something every day from February into September.

Plant something:

-dug up more lettuce from last year's garden and transplanted it by the back door for easy harvesting

Harvest something: Everything counts – from the milk and eggs you get from your animals to the first dandelions from your yard to 50 bushels of tomatoes – it all counts.

Harvest something: 

Eggs

Milk

Wild greens: chickweed, nettles, dandelion, chicory

thistle

red clover blossoms

dock roots

chicory roots

mulberries

Preserve something: Again, I find preserving is most productive if I try and do a little every day that there is anything, from the first dried raspberry leaves and jarred rhubarb to the last squashes at the end of the season.

Preserve something:

-

Waste not: Reducing food waste, composting everything or feeding it to animals, reducing your use of disposables and creation of garbage, reusing things that would otherwise go to waste, making sure your preserved and stored foods are kept in good shape – all of these count.

Waste Not: 

-Fed chickens, dog and cats scraps; composted unfeedable scraps

-free range grazing the sheep and tethering the goats (about 6 weeks earlier than usual, i completely forgot this one...we have an entire round bale of hay left)

-gave turkeys, chicks, ducklings soured milk

Want Not: Adding to your food storage or stash of goods for emergencies, building up resources that will be useful in the long term.

Want Not:

-

Eat the Food: Making full and good use of what you have, making sure that you are getting everything you can from your food, trying new recipes and new cooking ideas, eating out of your storage!

Eat the Food: 

-eating lots of eggs and milk

-hard boiled eggs 

-made yogurt from our milk

-lots of wild greens: nettles, dandelions, chicory

-thistle stalks

-mulberries

Build community food systems: What have you done to help other people have better food access or to make your local food system more resilient?

Build Community Food Systems: 

-offering milk and eggs to my community

-offering herbal medicines to friends

And a new one: Skill up:  What did you learn this week that will help you in the future – could be as simple as fixing the faucet or as hard as building a shed, as simple as a new way of keeping records or as complicated as making shoes.  Whatever you are learning, you get a merit badge for it – this is important stuff.

Skill Up: 

-still studying up on common and uncommon, infectious and non-infectious diseases and what herbal medicines would best be suited for them

Prepping for Canning Season

Summer is fast approaching and with it, Canning Season! I've been gathering up new types of supplies to try out this year, including Tattler lids and Weck jars to reduce our exposure to toxic plastics (traditional canning lids are coated with plastic that can leach into your foods when heated during the canning process).

This blog has written an excellent post on gathering up your canning good equipment:

http://localkitchenblog.com/2012/05/14/preparing-for-preserving-season/

Are you trying out anything new for your canning season?

IDC: Week 14

By popular demand, the Independence Days Challenge is back! Every Friday from February - September we are challenged to work on our skill set. Anyone can join in!

The categories and my responses:

Plant something: A lot of us were trained to think of planting as done once a year, but if you start seeds, do season extension and succession plant, you’ll get much, much more out of your garden, so I try and plant something every day from February into September.

Plant something:

-dug up lettuce from last year's garden and transplanted it by the back door for easy harvesting

-dug up st. john's wort growing in last year's garden (greg was getting ready to till) and transplanted to sjw patch

-transplanted volunteer potatoes

Harvest something: Everything counts – from the milk and eggs you get from your animals to the first dandelions from your yard to 50 bushels of tomatoes – it all counts.

Harvest something: 

Eggs

Milk

Wild greens: chickweed, nettles, dandelion, chicory
thistle

red clover blossoms

dock roots

volunteer red onions

chicory roots

Preserve something: Again, I find preserving is most productive if I try and do a little every day that there is anything, from the first dried raspberry leaves and jarred rhubarb to the last squashes at the end of the season.

Preserve something:

-

Waste not: Reducing food waste, composting everything or feeding it to animals, reducing your use of disposables and creation of garbage, reusing things that would otherwise go to waste, making sure your preserved and stored foods are kept in good shape – all of these count.

Waste Not: 

-Fed chickens, dog and cats scraps; composted unfeedable scraps

-free range grazing the sheep and tethering the goats (about 6 weeks earlier than usual, i completely forgot this one...we have an entire round bale of hay left)

-gave turkeys, chicks, ducklings soured milk

Want Not: Adding to your food storage or stash of goods for emergencies, building up resources that will be useful in the long term.

Want Not:

-Bought flat of woodruff plus 6 pack of dianthus, 2 bay trees and 1 rue plant

-ordered 3 south african geraniums (Pelargonium sidoides) from Geraniaceae.com. they arrived quickly and were well packaged. if you are wanting any type of geranium, i highly recommend this nursery!
-bought some nifty can/wine bottle openers from the thrift shop for our 72 hour kits and for the new van; also scored some brand new cast iron cookware, i'm most excited about the saucepan w/lid and the corn bread skillet; 1 back pack for another 72 hour kit (i was 1 short) plus a small backpack for the van first aid kit and another messanger type bag for the van emergency kit

Eat the Food: Making full and good use of what you have, making sure that you are getting everything you can from your food, trying new recipes and new cooking ideas, eating out of your storage!

Eat the Food: 

-eating lots of eggs and milk

-hard boiled eggs, deviled eggs

-made yogurt & cheese from our milk

-lots of wild greens: nettles, dandelions, chicory

-thistle stalks

Build community food systems: What have you done to help other people have better food access or to make your local food system more resilient?

Build Community Food Systems: 

-offering milk and eggs to my community

-offering herbal medicines to friends

-did herb walk at The Nature Institute

-hosted Herbal Study Group herb walk at my house

And a new one: Skill up:  What did you learn this week that will help you in the future – could be as simple as fixing the faucet or as hard as building a shed, as simple as a new way of keeping records or as complicated as making shoes.  Whatever you are learning, you get a merit badge for it – this is important stuff.

Skill Up: 

-still studying up on common and uncommon, infectious and non-infectious diseases and what herbal medicines would best be suited for them