Monday, June 15, 2009

Independence Days challenge, week 7

Week 7 for me in Sharon's Independence Day's Challenge:

1. Plant something: No. But I did finally do some work in my gardens, spreading compost, pulling weeds, and covering some berry bushes (almost too late, as the animals have left us only a few currants and gooseberries).
2. Harvest something: The kids continue to pick and eat herbs daily: chives, mints, oregano. Hardly counts as harvesting, but I think it's important, anyway, as a way of encouraging a new generation of gardeners.
3. Preserve something: 1 pt. dried rhubarb, 19 qts. pickled asparagus.
4. Waste not: Cutting up a ripped fitted sheet into rags, it suddenly occured to me that I could salvage the elastic as well (duh!). I tucked it away with my sewing things, where it will probably become a waistband for something for Lucy someday. I also finally finished spreading this year's finished compost over the gardens.
5. Preparation and storage: We did some work on organizing our gazillions of canning jars, which had been taking over the basement, and also our canning shelves, in preparation for this year's bounty.
6. Build community food systems: I did the dehydrating and canning with the kids, who helped quite a bit this year. I documented the process for their parents. I feel really good about this group of children knowing food preservation as a normal part of life--something they probably wouldn't see elsewhere.


7. Eat the food. We ate the last jars of pickled beets, pears, and applesauce from the basement. I've got to use up the last of the frozen strawberries, as this year's have been in the market for two weeks now! (And then we need to pick this year's supply and figure out some time to deal with it.)

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