IDC2020-Week 1

After a great discussion with Gina, I've decided to try to start the Independence Days Challenge again to try to get myself back on track with home preservation. 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:

- seeds arrived this week so I was able to start: tomatoes: yellow pear, black brandywine, black beauty, basil: cinnamon, tulsi, mammolo, marigolds, peppers: black hungarian, ajvarski, doux, eggplant, sage, rosemary, lavender, squash: golden zucchini, grey zucchini, yellow scallop, and cucumbers

-i have a lot more seeds and hope to start planting out (direct sowing) this week. Our garden is pretty soggy at the moment so we need to build up the areas we want to plant in.

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 and nettles

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:

- i didn't preserve anything this week

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 chickens
-Not food related, but I have been repairing a favorite jacket of Greg's that he hasn't been able to wear in years. I have one more side to sew in the zipper and it is completed. I've also been repurposing thrift store stashes of natural fabric clothing (silk, linen, cotton, wool) into clothing items and bags. 

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:

-1 bag of chick starter feed

- ordered 25 chicks (arriving 1st of May) and prepped their area 

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 eggs and nettles

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: 

- Increasing our chicken head count (we are down to about 11 chickens (7 hens, 4 roosters), starting a garden to increase a source of food for ourselves, family and neighbors if need be

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:

- I have been building an online course to teach children/parents about herbs and have been slowly adding the content. I am also in the process of learning to re-design my own website after giving up on having a web designer do it for me (twice I tried and twice it failed).