Watering the garden

I swear, I didn't pose this for the blog.
(But I did run back into the house for the camera.)

When I suggested we go water the garden,
Lucy said "wet," and climbed into the water bucket.

After watering a few pots, she asked "me?"
When I said yes, she watered herself, too.

I can't stand the cuteness!

Independence Days challenge: gardening in the heat

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

1. Plant something:
Oh, dear. Not only did I not plant anything, I may well have killed several things. I tend to be a very lazy gardener; I put things in and hope they'll survive my neglect. That works fine with my perennial garden, but not so well with all the new edible plants I've been putting in. My 20 new salmonberry and thimbleberry bushes all dried up to a crisp this week with the heat and my neglectful ways. Is there any hope?

However, I'm not a complete gardening idiot. The pots we planted on the driveway are doing well, and nothing there got fried. I've been really happy with the "Mel's Mix" we've been using in the pots, described in Square Foot Gardening (1/3 compost, 1/3 soil, 1/3 vermiculite). The pots don't dry up too quickly, even though they're set on hot cement. And I have some tomato plants I bought as seedlings--I planted 4 in a pot, and running out of room, put the other 2 in the ground beside the pot. The ones in the pot are much larger and have green tomatoes all over them; the ones in the ground have a few flowers. I set the kids to work this week with sticks and string to make trellises for the vining plants. They did a great job, don't you think?

2. Harvest something:
Eggs. All 5 of our currants. (Will we ever have a real berry harvest?). Peas, basil, parsley from our CSA. Lavender, comfrey, black caps. Tried to harvest mulberries, but had missed them, they ripened so early this year! (Shoot!) However, I discovered something new--cherry plums--and foraged a few. Just waiting for the rest to ripen.

3. Preserve something:
Froze 4 pints peas. Dried comfrey for chickens' winter feed. Dried lavender.

5. Preparation and storage:
I spent this weekend cleaning, organizing, and weeding out. Took a load of stuff to the thrift store, and am feeling a lot more sane for it.

7. Eat the food:
We're going easy, easy, easy with meal prep. Examples: Local bread with butter, salt, and lettuce. Coleslaw of Chinese cabbage, scallions, and mayo. Whatever we can think of that will use greens and not require much of us. Sauteed zucchini. Carrots. Pesto.

Independence Days Challenge: planning ahead

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

(Lucy checks out the lavender, Meyer lemon tree, and beach roses)

1. Plant something:
I haven't planted anything, but I dug out lots of compost and used it to prepare a square-foot-gardening-type potting mix for an old feeding trough (?) I'm going to use as a raised bed atop our driveway. Will plant after vacation. Also, I've been pacing the gardens every day, checking for progress, and realized that I'd given up on my "dead" thimbleberry, salmonberry, and elderberry bushes too soon. Most of them are showing signs of growth. Yay!

2. Harvest something:
Eggs. Lettuce, lovage, thyme, parsley, sorrel, chive blossoms.

3. Preserve something:
We've begun drying the greens of carrots and radishes from the farmer's market, which will be added to the chicken's winter feed.

4. Waste not:
Please help us out here. This time of year, our freezer is nearly bare. But it's still got bags and bags of frozen peppers (green, red, yellow). I guess those winter stews and chillis we thought they'd go into just never happened. What should I do with all of them? I need a good idea that doesn't involve cheese, and I haven't got a clue.

I prepared a lot of food ahead for our vacation, to help us cut back on driving, purchasing, and packaging while there.

5. Preparation and storage:
We store a lot of dried beans. Yep, store them. Never eat them, because that takes forethought. Soaking. Long cooking. We never do it. We've got to be the least-bean-eating vegetarians around. So I'm proud to say that I soaked, cooked, and froze 4 pints of black beans this week, so maybe we'll actually eat some! We brought some on vacation with us, because they're such an easy, happy meal for Lucy.

6. Build community food systems:
Nothing.

7. Eat the food:
Salad with fresh herb dressing (mayo, lemon juice, lovage, parsley, thyme, salt, pepper). Maple-parsnip soup from this cookbook (so good!). Amazing roasted carrots from the farmer's market (didn't realize how much I'd missed carrots, and these were especially sweet...). Pumpkin bread with the last of the frozen pumpkin puree.

Independence Days: not very productive this week

Oh, dear. It seems I wasn't quite ready for regular posting yet. I'm sorry I've been so absent this week! But it's time again for Sharon's Independence Day's Challenge, and somehow I must post that, even when I've done very little. Let's hope it's the jumpstart I need to get back into the rhythm...


1. Plant something:


I went to my favorite annual plant sale this weekend in the pouring rain. Little plants, dug from local gardens, and so nearly guaranteed to thrive in mine. I love it! This year, I tried to show restraint, and focused on edible plants. I got licorice mint, lavender, "bloody sorrel," lemon balm, and horseradish, and planted them all as soon as the rain cleared.

I'm sad to report that the bushes I planted over the past two weeks aren't doing very well. I didn't care for them as well as I should (hard to water things so far from the house, especially with a broken hose nozzle...) and only about half of them are leafing out. Pooh.

2. Harvest something:
Eggs. Lettuce thinnings. Daily chive snacking in the garden for the kids.

6. Build community food systems:
Well, I supported local farmers by braving the farmer's market in the cold pouring rain. Does that count?

7. Eat the food:
Lots of rhubarb cuppa-cuppa-cuppa (Lucy can now say "rhubarb"--with a big smile; she loves it). Parsnip souffle. Not much else interesting.

I'm back, with my Independence Days update

I'm back. Thank you for forgiving my absence for a bit; my family had a bit of a crisis, but we're pulling through. And thank you so much for your kind comments; I was amazed at how much it helped me to have sympathetic words from strangers. It's time again for Sharon's Independence Day's Challenge, and that seems like as good a time as any to start again...


(peas, surrounded by branches to keep the chickens from uprooting them; so far, so good)

1. Plant something:
I have been very busy in the garden; more edible-plants orders arrived this week, so I planted a meader persimmon tree, 10 salmonberry bushes, 10 thimbleberry bushes, 3 elderberry bushes, 2 huckleberry bushes, creeping oregon grape groundcover, bunchberry groundcover, more good king henry, roman chamomile, and stinging nettle. And from the farmer's market (open at last!), I added lemon balm and lemon thyme.

(one of the many sticks I planted this week; can't wait until they're more bushy!)

2. Harvest something:
Eggs. Good king henry, ramps, garlic mustard.

(my perennial garden, pretty much ignored since I began planting edibles; thankfully still looking beautiful!)

4. Waste not:
Cleared some food out of storage that we're not eating, for donation to the post office's food drive.

6. Build community food systems:
The farmer's market opened again--yay! We got parsnips, leeks, scallions, and--to my great delight--wheatberries (we've never had grains there before; I was so glad to see them!)

7. Eat the food:
It's asparagus season, and therefore we are eating asparagus as often as possible: we've had lots of roasted asparagus and some stir-fried tofu and asparagus. More rhubarb cuppa-cuppa, this time using local honey rather than sugar (mmm...and I think I could cut the sweetner down next time). Roasted parsnips and leeks, wheatberry salad with scallions and sorrel.

Reading and digging in the mud

It's been a very full weekend! In between lots of cheering-up-the-teething-toddler,

I got to the library:

(couldn't resist that $1 Fannie Farmer cookbook from the sale shelf, though it seems an odd combination with the one below it!)

Admired the effect of the rain on the now-looking-lush gardens:


And got my new plants in the ground:

Hope you found some time for relaxing this weekend, too.
...
I forgot to take pictures for the Great Outdoor Challenge again! Here's what I wish I'd photographed:

Lucy, sitting in an overtaken-by-weeds yard, picking dandelions with her 5-year-old friend, her arm around his shoulder.

Or when she pointed to a magnolia tree and later a wisteria vine, then to her nose, and said "mmm!"

Or when she sat with me on the steps, pulling leaves off the garlic mustard plants we'd foraged across the street, in preparation for dinner, again saying "mmm."

Can you picture it?

Independence Days challenge: getting greener

Time again for Sharon's Independence Day's Challenge. It's been a big week for the garden; seems like every day something new is up or beginning to leaf: sprouts of peas, lettuce, chard. Bigger dandelion and Good King Henry and sorrel and ramps (these may be big enough to harvest some in the coming week). Emerging yarrow, comfrey, garlic, lemon balm. Chives being picked daily for snacking on by the kids.


(more, larger ramps in the "forest garden")

Here's what I did besides watching the garden come back to life:

1. Plant something:
More lettuce, beets, peas, and chard from seed. Transplanted the parsley that's all that's left of my "winter herb garden" into the herb bed outdoors. Rhubarb, a transplanted gift from a friend.


(new rhubarb)

2. Harvest something:
Eggs. Parsley. Sap. Chives.

3. Preserve something:
*!#@*! I burned the little bit of sap we were able to harvest this week. The pan might not even be salvageable.

4. Waste not:
I've been working on using up all the old stuff that gets buried at the back of the freezer (3 opened bags of hamburger rolls? Really?).

Can't remember if it belongs in this section, but this week, I've been crocheting quite a bit (progress report on that soon!). I've completed my first diaper cover, which cost me $5, as opposed to the $25 I spent to buy some. A good money savings, as well as being very satisfying!

7. Eat the food:
Inspired by last week's cheese cracker success, I decided to try some more crackers. These didn't come out nearly as well as those did, probably because they're significantly less decadent and because baking with 4 small children in the house is always tricky (i.e. they're nearly burned. Yes, burning food because of too many distractions is a frequent event around here). I'll try again, though. They did come out crispy and crackerish and I loved knowing they were safe for my dairy-allergic baby and had only wholesome ingredients. The kids loved them, too. We're eating lots of dried fruit, applesauce, potatoes, and frozen veggies, using up the end of the stored foods.

Independence Days challenge: first foraging

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

1. Plant something:
Grandpa Admire's Lettuce (from seed). Raspberries (from a neighbor, delivered midwinter, frozen in the pot. They survived!). Green Arrow Peas (again; the chickens dug up the originals). Peas and lettuce apply to the Growing Challenge, as well.

2. Harvest something:
Eggs. Dandelion greens. Chives. Bits of sorrel. The sap didn't run this week, but I don't have nearly enough syrup; am hoping for another chance this week.

4. Waste not:
I got that great pile of books this week, which (in addition to being a passionate hobby for me and useful for my work with children) will be a part of my children's education, so I consider it "preparation." I got that great

7. Eat the food:
The kids and I had the first green eggs of the season, made with foraged dandelion greens and chives and sorrel from the garden. I made these cheese crackers twice this week, and oh, my gosh, are they amazing! Crackers is one of those packaged foods I just hadn't learned to make yet, but now I can't wait to try some other recipes (got any good ones?). These are like Cheez-Its, but much more delicious (and real). I also made two batches of wonderful granola this weekend (one with dried elderberries, one with dried strawberries). And I made a batch of bread dough to have on hand this week (something I'd like to do every week--not quite there yet.) I need to have more baking weekends like this, so the house is full of goodies and we're not tempted to buy meals out.

Seeds (shhh...don't tell!)

(our backyard, after a recent snowstorm)

We love our yard. We bought our house in part because its 1/3 acre lot seemed both more expansive and more private than most town lots because it was surrounded by big old trees. Over the years, our neighbors have removed many of the trees (I mourned each loss). But we still have just about the shadiest yard around. Perfect for me, who likes to hide from the sun in the summer. Not so perfect for vegetables.

So we haven't done much vegetable gardening. Some volunteer squash in the compost heap. A few measly peas here and there. A couple cherry tomatoes. But never a whole vegetable garden.

Until this year. We've decided to do a bit of guerrilla gardening. There's an abandoned house near us. It's city property, neglected for years. Most importantly, it's got more sun than we do. This year, a raised garden bed or two might appear in its yard. Who will care? If someone does, we're just out a few seeds and some labor. But I bet they won't. And then we might actually be able to grow some veggies.

We spent this afternoon dreaming over seed catalogs. Headed our way are:
Boston Marrow Squash
Double Yield Cucumber
Blondkopfchen, Moonglow, and Martino's Roma Tomatoes
Grandpa Admire's Lettuce
Green Arrow Peas
Chioggia Beets
Light Red Kidney Beans
Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans
Golden Chard
Straight Eight Cucumber.

Aren't they great names? I swear, I could choose plants for their names alone (I didn't though--not entirely, anyway!--we chose organic, heirloom, and productive).

I also know of a green space that might suddenly sprout some elderberries this year...

Sowing seeds

Yesterday, Andi said that the one thing she was really missing this winter was lettuce. Well, I can't produce lettuce from storage, but something green and crisp and fresh? That, I thought I could manage.

For some reason, I have never grown sprouts. It was on my list of things to try this winter, and I'm finally getting around to it. Here are my adzuki sprouts, started last night:



(I used a piece of an onion bag as the top.)

I don't have much of a green thumb, but hey, I only have to keep these alive for a few days!

And speaking of sprouting things...

I've decided to join One Green Generation's Growing Challenge for the coming year. The seed catalogs have started arriving in the mail, and they've got me thinking about spring. I haven't had a whole lot of luck so far growing food from seed in our very shady yard, but I am determined to do better this year. This challenge seemed like it might help me stay motivated on that goal. For this challenge, I need to:

1. Plant 3 crops from seed.
2. Plant the "seeds" in 3 other people (inspire 3 other people to plant something from seed.), and
3. Post about it on the One Green Generation site.

So, consider yourselves invited to join me in this challenge. Never planted anything from seed before? It's a great time to try! (She's got some suggestions of easy beginner crops here.) I'll post more as I choose my seeds and get started planting. If you join me, you'll help me meet goal #2!

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know we've made a commitment to eating only locally-grown produce. Nothing's more local than your own backyard. I've got enough planted in my yard so far that I know the thrill of stepping out the back door to fill a basket with lunch. Now I want to do more; to have a truly edible landscape. Please consider joining me in this first step; this is a simple start toward a greener life!

Independence Days challenge, week 28

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

1. Plant something: Bought a big hanging pot of thyme, sage, and parsley and a big rosemary plant to add to my indoor herb garden.
2. Harvest something: Eggs. Sorrel, Good King Henry, kale, swiss chard.
3. Preserve something: Froze 12 pts. pumpkin puree.
4. Waste not: Am frantically at work on a quilt for Craft Hope, which is made entirely of seen-better-days fabrics, now given new life.
5. Preparation and storage: Added on-sale pasta, olive oil, lentils, beans, and spices to storage. Stored 6 bunches of leeks, 30 lbs of squash, 90 lbs of potatoes, 5 cabbages.
6. Build community food systems: Inspired by this post about a neighborhood garden, we started talking more seriously about where we could find some sunnier land to grow veggies next year. Andi came up with a perfect solution! There's a many-years-abandoned public-housing house across the street from us. Why not plant a garden in the back yard there? If they ever decided to use that house again and take it away from us, oh well. We'll have had use of it for a while. We talked to our friend who lives next door to that property, and she'd like to go in on it with us. So this week we'll lay a tarp to kill a patch of weeds there, as a beginning.
7. Eat the food: We've started to break into this year's stored food: frozen blueberries, some jam, "root cellared" carrots (stored in the shed) and sweet potatoes (stored in the bedroom closet) and apples (stored in the baby's room). We're still eating "green eggs" weekly, and now lots of soups. We've started to get a bit better about using our dried beans from storage: this week, made kidney beans and used dried split peas for soup.

One last basket

All the kids came in this morning announcing that it's supposed to snow tomorrow, so out to the garden we went to pick anything that was left. Lots of comfrey (to be dried and added to winter chicken feed), several teeny tiny volunteer squash and squash blossoms from the compost bin, two tiny green tomatoes, some sorrel, and bits of mint, lemon balm, bee balm, feverfew, and sweet cicely.

This winter, I'm going to see what I can grow inside. I've yet to experiment with sprouts, or to have a successful container herb garden in my cold, drafty house. I'm determined to try, though; it'd be good to have some fresh greens through the winter.

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 15

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

1. Plant something: No.
2. Harvest something: Mystery squash from the compost bin. A few green beans for snacking in the garden. 16 lbs blueberries from Running Fox Farm. Bits of dill, sweet cicely, lemon balm, chocolate mint, thyme, rosemary.
3. Preserve something: Canned 1 1/2 quarts peaches (not much, but it's a start, anyway). 1/2 pt. dried peaches, 1 1/2 qt. dried apricots, 1 pt. dried plums. Dried bits of dill, sweet cicely, lemon balm, chocolate mint, thyme, rosemary. Dried 12 ears corn. Froze 1 1/2 lbs broccoli, 1 1/2 lbs green beans, 15 lbs. blueberries.
4. Waste not: In the past few weeks, we've started getting somewhat more serious about doing EC with Lucy. She's now peeing on the potty regularly, which means far fewer diapers (we use cloth, but still, it's a savings of diaper-service money for us, and a savings of water and energy in the cleaning.)
5. Preparation and storage: Added a bit more water to storage. Wrote an "Emergency Evacuation Plan" as a requirement for re-licensing my family child care, which is something I should have done anyway. It led to a list of things I want to prepare in case of an emergency involving the kids in my program. I've started preparing a "bug-out bag" for them, which should get me going on preparing ours, too. Got a nice wool blanket at a tag sale.
6. Build community food systems: I asked the parents in my program to help collect containers for storing water for emergencies. Will it help them think to do the same at home?
7. Eat the food: Lucy started solid foods this week. She's going local: zucchini, potatoes, green beans.

Independence Days challenge, week 13

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

1. Plant something: No.
2. Harvest something: Eggs, grape tomatoes, lovage, chives, blueberries (from a local organic farm), currants (total harvest this year: about 8 berries. Pooh.)
3. Preserve something: Froze blueberries.
4. Waste not: Nothing new.
5. Preparation and storage: No. (Wow. I've been terrible this summer!)
6. Build community food systems: I feel pretty good about this area, because I'm raising/teaching children who know where food comes from. We've been making daily rounds of the garden this week, assembling what amounts to a salad-in-the-hand: a leaf of lettuce, a chive, a piece of lovage, a grape tomato, a currant, etc., and then gobbling them up as a snack on the spot.
7. Eat the food: I made a great pasta salad this week with tons of cucumber, scallions, and radishes from the farmer's market and lovage and chives from the garden. We've been eating well from the farmer's market, too: fresh salsa, peaches, green beans, etc, etc, etc. I made two delicious zucchini breads, and realized just how far I've come in learning how to really cook (i.e. not just follow a recipe)--I was able to figure out several successful substitutions for ingredients I didn't have. (All that practice from eating out of storage in the wintertime.) That said, I'm realizing just how depleted our stores have become, and I need to do a big huge shop to replenish.

Independence Days challenge, week 12

lunch from the garden

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

1. Plant something: No, so thank goodness for things that plant themselves.

volunteer squash taking over the compost bin

2. Harvest something: Eggs, chives, grape tomatoes, comfrey (for the chickens), mulberries, feverfew, lovage, kale, good king henry, chocolate mint, spearmint, lavender, rosemary, red clover.
3. Preserve something: Dried mulberries, chocolate mint, spearmint, rosemary, red clover, feverfew, lavender.
4. Waste not: I remembered, for a change, to dry the bread ends for bread crumbs before they became stale chicken food or moldy compost as usual.
5. Preparation and storage: Made a diaper cover rather than buy one; am trying to save money for other priorities.
6. Build community food systems: No.
7. Eat the food: Altered a "Cheddar and Onion Muffin" recipe to use tons of chives from the garden rather than onions. Made lunch from the yard and neighborhood: "green eggs" (see basket of goodies above) and mulberries.

Independence Days challenge, week 11

My woefully small Sharon's Independence Day's Challenge update for the week:

1. Plant something: No.
2. Harvest something: Lettuce, our first 3 grape tomatoes, thyme, eggs.
3. Preserve something: No. (Oh, no...we were really lax this week!)
4. Reduce waste: Nothing in particular.
5. Preparation and storage: I did get to a bunch of tag sales and thrift stores this week and got great sewing notions which will go into clothes, and lots of books for future homeschooling.
6. Build community food systems: No. Man, what did I do this week?
7. Eat the food: The kids have been having smoothies for snack this week. I've been using the last of last year's frozen berries, plus milk, plus a dollop of maple syrup, plus whatever green stuff I feel like throwing in (such as the broccoli and cucumbers they hadn't finished at lunch). Blend it all up, and yum! Whatever's left gets poured into popsicle molds for later snacks.

Independence Days challenge, week 9

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

1. Plant something: nothing this week.
2. Harvest something: Mulberries. (This week, we met the man who owns the tree, and got official permission to pick the berries; he even said it would be ok for us to bring a ladder.) Eggs.
3. Preserve something: Dried mulberries. Dried turnip greens. Dried blueberries.
4. Reduce waste: nothing unusual.
5. Preparation and storage: Last summer, we picked and froze a ton of blueberries--maybe too many, as we still have a few bags left. So I tried an experiment: I dried some of the frozen berries. I'd wondered if freezing would break the cell structure a bit so the skins wouldn't dry all papery and loose around the berries. Sure enough, they dried beautifully! This will be my new, more-effective blueberry drying method. (And it made some room in my freezer for this year's bounty.)
Also, one positive effect of the economic times is two great new thrift stores opening in our area. I got many wonderful books for future homeschooling this week.
6. Build community food systems: We gave the man who owns the mulberry tree his first taste of a mulberry, and encouraged him to continue to fight to keep that tree there (he said the city wants to take it down). I also brought some of the children in my program picking with me.
7. Eat the food: You're probably wondering "dried turnip greens? What do you do with those?" Well, my Wednesday group of kids has come to expect popcorn for afternoon snack. I like to boost the vitamin content a bit, so we make our own version of "Veggie Booty" (one of their favorite store-bought snacks, from back when I bought them prepared snacks). I put dried greens in the blender and turn them to powder, then coat buttered popcorn with it. We've done spinach, kale, and parsley so far, all with great success. Also, tried a new recipe for mulberry muffins.

Independence Days challenge, week 8

Week 8 for me of Sharon's Independence Day's Challenge. Still puttering away, just doing a tiny bit at a time.

1. Plant something: Provider beans (raised bed with trellis below the clothesline), Kentucky Wonder beans (beside the compost bin and behind the fence), Laxton's Progress peas (forest garden), Mammoth Melting peas (behind the compost bin), swiss chard (planter in herb garden).

2. Harvest something: Lavender.

Mulberries. (The area where we live used to be the home of a utopian community which ran a silk mill. There's a lone mulberry tree at the end of our block, a relic of that time. It drops its berries all over a parking lot there. Last year, I decided that if no one else was going to pick them, I would.)
3. Preserve something: Lavender oil.
4. Waste not: Nothing in particular.
5. Preparation and storage: Not this week.
6. Build community food systems: Well, we participated, anyway. We went to the Tuesday farmer's market for the first time this year (we have three in our town, aren't we lucky?) and got tons of great produce, bread, and maple syrup (didn't make our own this year, as Lucy was born right during syrup season so we had our hands full). And I guess maybe I gave some people a lesson in foraging, being the crazy lady picking the mulberries, as neighbors passed by on their evening walks. And, as always, I involved the kids in planting.
7. Eat the food: We've been terrible about cooking since Lucy was born, and especially since the elimination diet Andi's been on has taken all the fun out of it. I cook all day for the kids, but by dinnertime, we're wiped out. So we've been eating out way too often. I decided it was time to try something "new" (really an old idea, just new to us). I wondered if we planned a meal for each day of the week--the same each week--if we'd find it easier to cook. The hardest part for us seems to be thinking about what to make. It worked pretty well. We cooked three actual sit-down, eat-the-same-thing-together type meals this week (sad that that's good for us, huh?). We'll try again in the coming week. The best was Tuesday night: bread and chop-chop salad. Perfect for the night of the farmer's market. This week's salad had baby carrots, spinach, scallions, almonds (from storage), radishes, turnips. Next week's will have whatever looks best at that market. I know we'll stick to that menu.

Independence Days challenge, week 6

Oh, dear...we're not doing very well with this challenge this year. New baby+return to work+vacation= not much accomplished. Weeks 4 and 5 were pretty much lost. Not doing much better this week, but I thought I'd better post, anyway, to get myself motivated to do better.

2. Harvest something: Good King Henry, spinach, chives, mint

7. Eat the food: I was proud to make a dinner this week that came half from my back yard: sauteed Good King Henry, spinach, and garlic, with scrambled eggs and parmesan on pasta. In a yard with barely any sun, it's exciting to be able to grow even that much of our own food.


Good King Henry is my new favorite green. I planted it last year in my so-called "forest garden" (wishful-thinking name for a tiny strip of garden between us and a neighbor, which I'm trying to transform). It's a perennial, grows well in the shade, tastes similar to spinach, and grew more leaves by the time I was ready to harvest more. It's growing seeds now, so I'm hopeful it will spread by next year.