IDC2020 - Week 4

Better late than never!

Independence Days Challenge - week 4. 

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:

- Greg planted onions and potatoes

- I sowed milky oats, 3 types of carrots, a mesclun mix

- My daughter planted 3 types of kale, cilantro, chives, and celery

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, nettles, violet and dandelion flowers, violet, dandelion, and chickweed leaves

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:

- Dried nettles leaves

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

-Using old greens containers to start seeds in

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:

- Dried nettles for tea

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, nettles, other herbs from the yard

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: 

- 

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:

- Playing around with natural dyeing

- Using up scraps to sew into larger pieces to make bags

IDC2020 - Week 3

So apparently, I have forgotten to blog on a regular basis. No surprise if you know me well.  Independence Days Challenge - now week 3. 

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:

- I planted some yarrow and spearmint I got from a friend last week.

- I sowed yarrow and chamomile

- Greg started tilling the garden to prep for planting oats, carrots, many spring greens, onions, and potatoes and chitted the 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, nettles, violet and dandelion flowers, violet, dandelion, and chickweed leaves

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
-tethering goats in hay field for grazing
-Using old greens containers to start seeds in

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:

- I spent less time at the store this week so didn't stock up on anything

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, nettles, other herbs from the yard

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: 

- 

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).

- I've been having a blast eco-printing plants for my online class to create tutorials for the year long project.