Books to read while the canning pot boils

I promised I'd share a booklist for what I've come to think of as our "squirreling away" project (our current investigation of storing up food for winter, focused in part on the comparison between us and animals, especially squirrels.) The books we're reading now have some overlap with last year's autumn book basket, but as we read, we have a different perspective found through the lens of our recent experiences foraging, collecting acorns, making jelly, and picking and eating apples.

I'm afraid this might become a marathon post, so I'll break it into a few smaller ones (you know I tend to go on and on about children's books!). These are the food-storage by humans ones.

Have I told you about Librarything? It's one of my all-time favorite online tools. I've used it to catalog all my books. It's super-helpful for teachers or parents who want to follow up on children's very specific interests, because you can tag all your books with whatever keywords you want. After years of going to the school librarian asking "can you think of any books about string?" (for one of my most-frustrating examples) and ending up with only one non-fiction title from the computer card catalog, I am thrilled to be able to find all the books I've got that show inspiring uses of string. (If your kids--like many of those in my past classes--happen to be into string, you may be interested in my collection of books tagged "string,"or in the books tagged "string" by anyone on librarything.)

So, for example, as I began to notice the children's interest in all the food preservation that was going on around them, and in acorns, and squirrels, I searched my librarything catalog for "food storage," "canning," "squirrels," "acorns," "apples," and "foraging." Here are some that I chose from those that came up (for a group that's currently a 1 1/2-year-old, 3 2-year-olds, a 3-year-old, and a 4-year-old).

Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey. Of course. Is there any more classic, more beautiful story about the experience of gathering food for the winter? And it's about both people and animals. And that picture of the kitchen on the endpapers? I could move right in, and I find myself spending as much time discussing that illustration as reading the rest of the book! (And the fact that Sal is playing with a spoon and canning rings rather than toys? Perfect.)


Autumn Story by Jill Barklem. The mice gather berries just as we're doing. And the illustrations of their well-stocked pantry shelves full of canning, and ceilings strung with drying food, and baskets and baskets of berries covering the floor? Fabulous.


Let's Find Out About Fall by Martha and Charles Shapp. One of the advantages of vintage books is that they come with vintage assumptions: like everyone's gathering stuff from their garden and preserving it for winter. Just a brief mention, here, but I like normalizing "weird" habits like local eating by having them come up in many ways in many books.


Frederick by Leo Lionni. A twist on the old "The Ant and the Grasshopper" fable, except that here, the "lazy" one is an artist, gathering the sun rays and colors and words the others will need as their food stores run low. A good reminder of the different gifts we each contribute to our communities.


Hurry, Hurry, Mary Dear by N. M. Bodecker and Erik Blegvad. What a score when I came across this one at a library sale! "Pick the apples, dill the pickles, chop down trees for wooden nickels. Dig the turnips, split the peas, cook molasses, curdle cheese." Etc, etc, etc...all the tasks Mary takes on to prepare for winter, while her husband lazes about. Great illustrations, so much to talk about, and a reflection of all the skills (and more) I'm trying to learn and share with the kids.

By the way...if you click on a link and find yourself at IndieBound, and then buy a book through there from your local independent bookstore, I should theoretically earn a bit of change (hasn't happened yet). If you find yourself at Librarything, it's because IndieBound didn't have it and I want you to see the book without finding yourself at an online giant retailer.

Coming up next...books about apples and acorns and squirrels, oh, my!

By 9 am

I'm getting much better at squeezing in small amounts of food storage whenever I have a bit of time, rather than doing all of it in marathon sessions that keep me up until the wee hours (though lots of it does still happen that way). We had a half peck of peaches at peak ripeness, and a bag of apples given to us by a parent in my program ("can you use these? They're kind of spotty..."). So this morning, as the coffee perked, I cut up apples and put them on the stove to cook. After breakfast, Lucy and I ran them through the food mill and put the sauce into jars. As they processed, I peeled peaches, greeting the arriving children in my apron with peaches in my hands. They went into the canner just as the last child arrived, so I was able to begin my day with them with a bit more fruit for our shelves. (Then we sat down to a snack of toast with the crabapple-wild grape jelly we'd foraged and cooked up together...mmm! I'd made that yesterday when one of the kids came in asking "how's that jam coming?" Umm...not at all...I'd forgotten to finish it. It was just a bit, so we didn't can it, but popped it in the fridge for some immediate gratification.)

Independence Days challenge: green beans

Time again for Sharon's Independence Day's Challenge, already? I've been a slacker blogger this week! Sorry. Summer's a crazy time around here, and it's been hot, hot, hot!! (Makes me grumpy.) Here's my meager update.

2. Harvest something:
Eggs. Grape tomatoes. 11 lbs. green beans from our CSA.

3. Preserve something:
4 1/2 pts. pickled beets with anise. 25 pts frozen green beans. 2 qts. frozen stock.

7. Eat the food:
Lots of zucchini-nut muffins. A rice-lentil-carrot-cabbage-basil salad that came out surprisingly well (with mayo/lemon juice dressing). Another, also good (I think I may actually be learning how to make up recipes--finally, at 41!): chick peas, lemon juice, lots of basil, grated carrots and turnips, chopped lettuce and scallions. Delicious zucchini cakes (our new favorite recipe is from Nourishing Traditions). Sweet and sour chard over rice.

Independence Days challenge: the container garden is working!

Time again for Sharon's Independence Day's Challenge:

1. Plant something:
Well, I haven't planted anything this week. But I've tended my pots, and I'm thrilled--they're working! I grew things from seed and they're actually growing. Look at those beans, reaching for the sky! And the kidney beans and cucumbers are covered in blooms. Yay!

2. Harvest something:
3/4 lb. purple potatoes (total harvest from one trash can; very disappointing! Wonder what I did wrong this time...). A few more grape tomatoes. Sunflowers, basil, and rosemary from our CSA.

3. Preserve something:
7 1/2 pts. plum jam using this recipe (way more sugar than I normally like to use, but I liked this recipe's simple plan for seed removal and don't trust myself enough to mess with recipes yet). 5 pts. plum jam using the low-sugar Pomona pectin recipe. 4 1/2 qts. dill pickles. 2 pts. anise beets. Dried a bit each of carrots, rosemary, and greens for the chickens.

5. Preparation and storage:
Had a bit of good luck at tag sales this weekend: got a hand drill and a collection of drill bits, a life jacket, and a child-sized spade. And I got a handful of wonderful vintage children's sewing patterns at a thrift store, as well as a pile of great children's books.

7. Eat the food:
A good potato salad with green beans and hard-boiled eggs. Raspberry-plum-lettuce popsicles. Lots of carrots and zucchini. A pretty-good grilled zucchini pizza (would have been really good if I could learn to make a better crust.) Tomatoes straight out of the garden. Nothing particularly interesting, but fresh and good.

Plum jam 2 ways

Please excuse my slow mid-week posting lately. For some, summer's a slower, more relaxed time. For us, summer's when life kicks up a notch in intensity--I'm focusing on the current children's work, prepping for four kids to move on to kindergarten, working on enrollment for next year, prepping for the new children, taking care of my own family, and constantly preparing food for storage for the winter. It's a whirlwind.

So imagine me one day this week with 6 children under 6--several using glue guns while they work on their boats; Lucy under my feet or on the counter beside me--processing 12 qts of plums which had to be dealt with immediately (i.e. a day ago; some were already rotting). Crazy!

(Wondering how to can with a 17-month-old? The best moments were these... Lucy sat on the counter beside me with a huge bowl of plums. Her job was to hand me each one so I could slice it with a knife and put it in the pot. That lasted a good while. When she tired of that, she moved on to the floor, where she used doled out small handfuls of catfood into the children's pots and pans and little dishes for a good long time. The resulting mess was well worth it. The less-fun moments involve a hot toddler in a hot sling while I twist my body away from the boiling jam on the stove as I stir...)

I never really trust myself with jam. I sometimes make it too runny, sometimes too hard. So I don't tend to experiment much, though I really dislike the high quantity of sugar used in most recipes. Since the tiny plums were new to me and I didn't know how to get out all those pits without way too much work, I read a ton of recipes looking for the perfect technique. I found one that said if you slit the plums, then cook them, the pits would rise to the surface and you could scoop them out. Perfect. So I made that for my first batch. Insanely sweet (equal parts fruit and sugar), but gorgeous--the longish boiling time resulted in a glowing jam that looks like marmalade (the one on the right). It would make great gifts.

Then I decided to try Pomona pectin. I have a strange aversion to adding pectin--it seems artificial, plus it's one more ingredient I have to buy. I generally use high-pectin fruits instead, or my own pectin, made from quince. But I'd heard such good things about Pomona, and it lets you use so much less sugar. Sure enough, it worked beautifully, setting up with a very short cook time (added bonus!). It looks completely different--more like a butter than a jam. I'll serve this one to the kids (they don't get the super sugary stuff from me; I'm mean like that!). I'll be using the Pomona again; I liked its ease.

12 1/2 pts of plum jam, stored. On to blueberries...

Independence Days: filling the freezer with fruit

Time again for Sharon's Independence Day's Challenge:

1. Plant something:
I'm just happy I didn't kill anything more this week! The container garden loved the heat this week--I can't believe how much the beans grew!

2. Harvest something:
12 qts. cherry plums foraged from a nearby park. 6 qts. raspberries from a pick-your-own farm. Eggs. The last few of our snap peas. The usual garden snacking (Lucy's learned to ask "mint?" just before picking and eating some). Our first grape tomato (which was then cut into 6 equal portions to be shared by the kids at lunch) :-).

3. Preserve something:
5 pts. pickled beets. 8 qts. frozen raspberries.

4. Waste not:
I've started tucking re-usables into my shopping bags so I won't forget them. Yogurt containers and berry boxes go into our CSA bag, because they'll re-use them. Coffee bags go into a specific bag for the co-op, so we can re-fill it. Makes remembering much easier!

5. Preparation and storage:
Our stores are woefully low. We're re-stocking slowly: a few extra jars of coconut oil, a few of peanut butter, a few recycled bottles filled with water.

6. Build community food systems:
I told several people about the cherry-plum discovery. And, of course, being the wacko on the side of the road with a basket always invites looks and inquiries. It feels like my small little contribution to educating the world about the possibilities of foraging.

7. Eat the food:
Lots and lots of popsicles. Favorite flavors this week:
strawberry/yogurt
strawberry/spinach/coconut milk
blueberry/summer squash/spinach/water
Lots and lots of kale. Kale chips, of course. And a surprisingly-good what's-in-the-fridge concoction that all the kids liked (loose recipe below). It was such a hit, I made it again today, and the kids kept saying "this is my favorite rice!" Potato salad, cucumber salad, green salad (salad was clearly a theme this week!). Lots of berries, just straight up. And just tonight, I conquered a fear of mine: I made a pie crust. I know, it's supposed to be easy. But I've always hated things I have to roll out--they get stuck to the rolling pin and rip and break. So I buy pre-made crusts. Or mostly, just avoid anything that requires a crust. But today, I did it! It's baking now, but it looked like it worked!

Spicy Kale, Eggs, and Rice
Chop a bunch of kale into small pieces. Saute in a bit of oil until bright green.
Push kale to the side of pan; break a few eggs into the pan, scramble, and cook.
Add cooked rice. Pour in lots of watery salsa (or salsa+water).
Cook until water is absorbed or evaporated.

Independence Days challenge, week 27

Time again for Sharon's Independence Day's Challenge:

1. Plant something: Nope. But we have been moving a lot of compost to the gardens, and my brain's been busy with dreams of next year's garden.
2. Harvest something: Eggs, various greens.
3. Preserve something: Strung hot peppers from new "houseplant" to dry. Dried turnip greens. Canned 3-1/2 qts applesauce.
4. Waste not: Made more longies from shrunken wool sweaters.
5. Preparation and storage: Stored carrots, squash, and cabbages from the farmer's market. Bought lots of pumpkins which will be pureed for winter baking.
6. Build community food systems: Talked up local food with Andi's niece, who visited this weekend, and showed her how to make and can applesauce.
7. Eat the food: We're doing pretty well here, for a change. I've been doing lots of cooking: sweet potato soup, potato-leek soup, squash-cornmeal muffins, sweet potatos with bok choy, green eggs, and more. Yay! The new crock pot is getting a lot of use; I love the emotional warmth it adds to the house to have cooking smells going all morning.

Independence Days challenge, week 26

Time again for Sharon's Independence Day's Challenge:

1. Plant something: No. Starting to think I never plant anything.
2. Harvest something: Eggs. Kale, Good King Henry. 2 bushels apples from Quonquont Farm.
3. Preserve something: Dried celery greens, 2 pecks apples. Froze 3 qts. spinach. Canned 18-1/2 qts. applesauce.
4. Waste not: Nothing new here.
5. Preparation and storage: Stored parsnips, carrots, sweet potatoes from Farmer's Market. Added pasta to storage. Stored 2 bushels apples. Started taking an online Kids & Herbs class.
6. Build community food systems: Signed up for our CSA for next year. Took my mother-in-law apple picking for the first time in her life! Made applesauce with the kids in my early childhood program.
7. Eat the food: I've been serving the kids "green eggs" about once a week lately, from our yard (yay!).

Independence Days challenge, week 25

Time again for Sharon's Independence Day's Challenge:

1. Plant something: Nope.
2. Harvest something: Eggs. One last basket of tender greens and herbs from the garden. 3 bushels apples from Quonquont Farm.
3. Preserve something: Dried comfrey and carrot tops to feed the chickens. Dried the last bits of sweet cicely, lemon balm, bee balm, feverfew, mint. Dried 1 watermelon, 2 pecks apples. Canned 3-1/2 qts. pickled bean salad, 4 qts. potato-leek soup (this is the first time we've tried pressure canning). Froze 4 lbs. cauliflower, 2 lbs. beans, 1 qt. stock.
4. Waste not: Favorite fall trick--I use an apple slicer to cut and core apples for the kids, and I hate to throw away the big core it leaves. I put them in a bag in the freezer, and they'll get added to our next batch of applesauce. It's amazing how quickly they add up to something useable.
5. Preparation and storage: Stored 1 bushel apples, 1 crisper drawer full of carrots.
6. Build community food systems: No.
7. Eat the food: We've eaten a ton of potato-leek soup and apples this week. I've also been trying my newly-dried goldenrod as a tea for my cold. And we've been using tons of the elderberry syrup I made.

Independence Days challenge, week 24

Time again for Sharon's Independence Day's Challenge:

1. Plant something: No, but the kids and I spent a lot of time this week spreading the compost from our leaf pile over our forest-garden beds, in preparation for next year's planting.
2. Harvest something: Eggs.
3. Preserve something: Raspberry jam, using a new-to-me method from the book Small Batch Preserving. I love it! I have a hard time with jam, often burning it to the bottom of the pan. This method was much easier for me. I followed the strawberry jam recipe, just substituting raspberries. Better be good, as the 1/2 pint I made cost about $7! This is why we don't make much raspberry jam, though it's my favorite! Also canned 8-1/2 pts pickled beets, 5-1/2 pts tomatillo salsa. Froze 2 qts corn, 4 qts. stock, 2 qts edamame. Dried 1 pt. nectarines, 1 pt. hot peppers, 2-1/2 qts watermelon.
4. Waste not: Nothing new.
5. Preparation and storage: Got a big new crock pot at the thrift store to encourage us to cook more this winter! Started buying the "root cellar" foods for the winter: 50 lbs squash, 80 lbs potatos, a bag of garlic.
6. Build community food systems: Nothing new here.
7. Eat the food: Andi actually admitted she's come to like cooking this week! Maybe we'll start eating at home more with this realization!

Independence Days challenge, week 23

Time again for Sharon's Independence Day's Challenge.





Our shelves are finally starting to look ready for the winter:





1. Plant something: Nope.
2. Harvest something: Eggs. Goldenrod. Apples (from Freecycle. Now, as I drive around town, I'm eyeing everyone's yards for neglected apple trees and trying to work up the nerve to ask if I can pick them.)
3. Preserve something: Goldenrod oil. Dried dill, watermelon. Froze green beans, cauliflower, spinach, stock. Canned 10 qts of (free!) applesauce.
4. Waste not: Same old, same old.
5. Preparation and storage: Added vinegar, pasta, tortilla chips to storage.
6. Build community food systems: Well, we sure supported what's there already! In this last month of farmers' markets, we're buying as much as we can haul out in our grocery cart (one of those wire things on two wheels you pull behind you--so helpful!)
7. Eat the food: Nothing new and exciting here.

Independence Days challenge, week 22

Time again for Sharon's Independence Day's Challenge:


Lucy comes for a bite of pear as Andi preps them for canning, arm-chair style.

1. Plant something: No. Must become a better gardener!
2. Harvest something: Eggs. Goldenrod.
3. Preserve something: Canned 9-1/2 qts. grape juice, 1/2 pt. jalepenos, 12-1/2 pts corn relish, 4 pts. ketchup, 9 qts. pears. Dried goldenrod, 3 pts. tomatoes. Froze 2 lbs. broccoli, 4 lbs. tomatoes.
4. Waste not: Same old, same old.
5. Preparation and storage: Re-organized canning shelves into clear categories (pickles, ketchup/salsas/chutneys, canned fruit, jams/jellys/syrups), tomatoes/tomato sauce).
Got a big pile of future homeschooling books at a book sale.
6. Build community food systems: Blogged about how we organize our food storage inventory. Continued canning "lessons" for friends.
7. Eat the food: Nothing new here.

Independence Days challenge, week 21

Time again for Sharon's Independence Day's Challenge:

1. Plant something: No.
2. Harvest something: Eggs. Mystery squash from the compost bin. Crab apples from a local park (with the kids). 4 pecks pears and 1 peck peaches from Quonquont Farm.
3. Preserve something: Canned 3 qts. pears, 3/4 pt. pear butter, 16 qts. tomato sauce, 3-1/2 pts. peach salsa, 27 1/2-pints crab apple jelly, 1/2 pt. peach honey, 10-1/4 pts salsa, 6 qts. tomatoes, 5 pts. tomato juice. Froze 2 qts. green pepper, 2 qts. red peppers.
4. Waste not: Saved money and waste by picking up "drops" under pear and peach trees rather than from the trees.
5. Preparation and storage: Worked on cleaning and organizing canning shelves.
6. Build community food systems: Gave canning advice to a parent in my program. Taught two friends to can and helped them can their first batch of tomato sauce. My proud moment of the week came as we walked back from the park and one tired child asked "is your house close?" and another answered "you just have to turn after that mulberry tree." It's true; I'm raising 4-year-old foragers.
7. Eat the food:Nothing new here.

Canning central

Friday was a gorgeous fall day, and the kids and I, joined by some friends, walked to the park to pick crab apples.



Today, it's canning central in our kitchen, with us and two sets of friends canning in shifts. Here you see 2 pots of Barbara Kingsolver's "Family Secret Tomato Sauce," a pot of peach honey, and another of crab apple jelly, all boiling down at once.



On these marathon weekends, we can all day and into the night. Here's our outdoor set-up around 10:00 this evening: still processing.

Independence Days challenge, week 20

Time again for Sharon's Independence Day's Challenge:

1. Plant something: No.
2. Harvest something: Eggs. Good King Henry, swiss chard, kale, chives (sounds like a bunch, but we're talking enough to make one meal of "green eggs" for the kids. But hey, it's something grown in my own very shady yard.) Chocolate mint, sweet cicely, bee balm, thyme, False Solomon Seal berries.
3. Preserve something: Elderberry tincture. The blueberries that were dehydrating last time I wrote turned out to be 1 1/2 qts. dried. Froze 5 1/2 lbs. cauliflower, 3 lbs broccoli. Dried red clover. Canned 8-1/2 qts pears, 4 1/2-pints pear butter.
4. Waste not: Made 3 diaper covers from thrifted, holey wool sweaters. Made a dish scrubber from some mesh bags lemons came in (we eat only local produce...with the exception of lemons. I couldn't give them up in my tea! I'm trying to grow a potted lemon tree, but so far, it's produced nothing.) Made the pear butter from the cores and peels left over from canning pears.
5. Preparation and storage: Last week I forgot to mention that I went to a great tag sale where I got a $1 percolator to replace our broken drip coffee maker, a 16-volume children's encyclopedia, and a manual typewriter (for use with the kids in my program now; for homeschooling later). This week, I went to a wonderful sewing-supplies sale, and got some fabrics which will become clothes for Lucy. I also forgot to mention buying 3 rain barrels a few weeks back. This week, I added 3 boxes salt to storage. The shelves are slowly, slowly starting to fill in (see photo above), although we're still far behind where we should be at this time of year.
6. Build community food systems: As we canned this week, my friends kept asking whether the families in my program realize just how much time I put into food preservation for their kids. They don't, really. But thinking about it made me think about the impact of feeding our family plus 8 other kids a week. I love, for example, that when the kids polished off the bowl of blueberries I gave them for lunch this week and I said there were no more, they asked "Why? Did you save them for the winter?" Yeah, I did. And I love that at 4, they know that and think of it as normal. It is their normal.
7. Eat the food: We ate a lot of eggs this week: green eggs with the kids, a great frittata with veggies from our friend's garden. And we've been gorging on the peaches and pears we picked.

Independence Days challenge, week 19

Time again for Sharon's Independence Day's Challenge. We just got back home late Friday night, so this is what we did on the long weekend. Yup, it was crazy!

1. Plant something: Nope.
2. Harvest something: Eggs. A few grape tomatoes. 11 lbs blueberries from Running Fox Farm, 3 pecks peaches and 3 pecks pears from Quonquont Farm, elderberries from neighbors and roadsides. Red clover.



3. Preserve something: Dried 1/2 pt. elderberries and ? blueberries (they're still in the dehydrator). Canned 19 qts. peaches. Made 3 pts. elderberry sryup. Froze 1 1/2 lbs blueberries. Canned 9 1/2 pts. "blubarb" jam (blueberry-rhubarb), following this recipe from Chez Beeper Bebe. Canned 5 1/2-pts. peach-blueberry jam. Got ? 1/2 pts. peach honey, 2 1/2-pts. elderberry-peach jam, and 5&1/2 pts. quince pectin from our friend who was canning with us (we share labor and our kitchen and supplies; this was our share of what he made).
4. Waste not: The peach honey was a good example of using all the scraps--it's made from the peels that would otherwise have gone to the chickens (they got them afterwards).
5. Preparation and storage: Working on getting our canning shelves re-organized.
6. Build community food systems: While chicken-sitting for us this past week, our friend decided he wants to get some chickens, too (yes, we recruit!). And we've been canning, as usual, with these friends, which makes it a community experience, and much more fun, too. One of them worked up the nerve to ask some (politically polar-opposite to us) neighbors for their elderberries, something we've been wanting to do for years. They said yes, in exchange for a jar of jam. The husband was very eager to try them, as previously "we just let the birds have them."
7. Eat the food: We ate a lot of take-out to accomplish all this in a weekend. But we did have a great dinner of roasted veggies and fruit cobbler.

Independence Days challenge, week 18

I wasn't able to post this while we were on vacation, so here it is, Sharon's Independence Day's Challenge:

1. Plant something: No.
2. Harvest something: Eggs. A few grape tomatoes, and the usual herb-garden run-by kid snacks.
3. Preserve something: 3 1/2 qts canned peaches, but one quart jar broke as it touched the water (argh!).
4. Waste not: Nothing new.
5. Preparation and storage: Finally, I added some food to our much-depleted storage--just a bit, but a start! I got 25 lbs dried black beans at our co-op on sale; now I just have to get in the habit of actually thinking ahead and soaking them. Also added 3 cans of baking powder.
6. Build community food systems: Well, we're visiting family, demonstrating our "freakish" local-food eating habits when we buy food. I doubt it will change any minds, but it's at least one step toward normalizing what seems weird to others.
7. Eat the food: Nothing new.

Independence Days challenge, week 16

snapping beans, baby style

Time again for Sharon's Independence Day's Challenge:

1. Plant something:
2. Harvest something: Eggs.
3. Preserve something: Dried 1 qt. apricots, 2 pt. corn. Froze 2 qt. corn, 4 lbs green beans, 1 1/2 lbs broccoli. Canned 16 qts. dill pickles.

We tried a new pickle recipe this year: inspired by Melissa at All Buttoned Up, we tried this recipe. They look good; will report on the taste later. Here's a scene from my life lately--doing everything, even hot canning work, with a baby on the hip (or in the sling):


(Please ignore the hideous outfit: it was in the 90s, and I was canning. That'll ruin your look any day!)

4. Waste not: Made diaper cover from shrunken sweater. Talked about EC to probably too many people. Lucy went a whole day in one diaper, even as we ran around on errands all day (She peed in three public restrooms. How cool is that?)
5. Preparation and storage: Nope.
6. Build community food systems: Nope.
7. Eat the food: We are horrible! We ate out far too many times this week.

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.)

Independence Days challenge, week 3

Week 3; plugging away little bit by little bit.

1. Plant something: spinach, kale, 3 types of lettuce.
2. Harvest something: violets.
3. Preserve something: violet jelly.
4. Reduce waste: used the leftover lemon peels from jelly to make candied lemon peels, rather than simply composting them as usual. Hoping it will be one little bit less candy I'll buy, too.
6. Build community food systems: Got children's help collecting violets for jelly. Made the jelly with a neighbor who's new to canning.
7. Eat the food: still using frozen squash in quick breads, and trying to use up last bits of frozen berries before they're in season again.