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.

Independence Days Challenge: garden in pots

Lavender, ready to be harvested and dried.

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

1. Plant something:
The kids and I planted a garden-in-pots on top of our second driveway, in one of the only tiny bits of frequent sunniness we have. I didn't have nearly enough pots for all the seeds we wanted to plant (our planned-for guerrila-gardening raised bed has been abandoned for now, as the location proved to be much shadier than we'd remembered.) But we made do with what we had, and are trying Kentucky Wonder beans, Moonglow tomatoes, Blondkopfchen tomatoes, Straight Eight cucumbers, Double Yield cucumbers, German chamomile, and Boston Yarrow squash (all of these go toward the Growing Challenge). It rained most of the week, and the beans and chamomile are already sprouting.

Chamomile sprouting. Teensy tiny seeds plus toddler hands equals very crowded seedlings!

2. Harvest something:
Eggs. Foraged elder flowers.

The herb garden, picked over by children and chickens (notice the nearly-leafless comfrey--you can tell how tall the chickens are by how high its stalk is bare).

3. Preserve something:
Froze 2 qts spinach. Drying elder flowers.

Our first tomatoes appeared this week.

5. Preparation and storage:
Added several jars of peanut butter and coconut oil to the basement, trying to restore our depleted supplies.

My potted Meyer lemon tree has doubled in size with all this rain.

7. Eat the food:
I finally made kale chips (well, I've made them in the past, but I finally made them without burning them...) and the kids loved them. Sure to become a regular lunch item. I used up some of our many frozen-last-year red peppers to make a roasted red pepper sauce for spaghetti. The kids and I ate bread with radish butter and salt (yummy for those of us who dared try it. Gotta do the 10-times-more thing for a few of them...). We're eating lots of greens, of course: salad, swiss chard, bok choy and (new at the market this week)--broccoli!

Independence Days challenge: first visit to the farm

(my big huge swiss chard "plot"--but hey, I grew them from seed in my shady yard; I'm proud)

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

1. Plant something:
Beans in a feeding trough atop my driveway.

2. Harvest something:
Eggs. Lettuce. Guomi berries (our first harvest from this planted-last-year bush. Each kid got to taste one.) Chives, lemon balm, thyme, parsley, lovage.

6. Build community food systems:
I went to a town meeting about some nearby fields the town wants to buy, curious about the rumor that part of it might become community gardens. So far, I was just catching up, in my ignorance. But next time, I will be a more vocal advocate.

We went to our first CSA pick up at "our" farm. (In the past, I bartered for food with a organic-farming family in my program, so didn't have need of a CSA; and when that ended, I couldn't get in to the farm I'd chosen, so I stuck with the farmer's market. But I'm thrilled to be there at last.) What an incredible place! We're very excited to meet some of "our people" there--you know, enviro-conscious, local-eating, food-preserving freaks like us. And we're thrilled for Lucy, who gets to hang out weekly with goats, ducks, and crowds of chickens, and to play on the cool play structures they've rigged up for the kids. And me, I get to eat shaved ice with maple syrup while I choose whatever goodies I want to fill my bag! Mmmm. (If I had a spare $1,500, I might have to buy one of those cool machines myself!)

7. Eat the food:
We had a giant bag full of fresh produce this week. What unusual bounty, after the winter! And we bought 6 quarts of strawberries and some asparagus this week, too, so we were in produce heaven. We ate strawberries alone, strawberry muffins, strawberry-oatmeal bake, and strawberry-chard smoothies. We ate roasted asparagus and pasta with asparagus. And fried rice with bok choy, turnips, radishes, and eggs. And green eggs with chard. And stewed rhubarb with honey. Guomi berries off the bush. Lettuce from our garden with dressing made with our herbs.

One post, three challenges

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

1. Plant something:
Resina calendula and sugar snap peas from seed (good toward the Growing Challenge). Highbush cranberry, golden horn tree, salal, and nagoonberry (that's what was in the big box).

2. Harvest something:
Eggs, dandelion greens, violets, good king henry, sorrel, sweet cicely, and chives from our garden and yard. Garlic mustard foraged from a nearby abandoned yard (this is a new food to us).

3. Preserve something:
Made garlic-mustard pesto to freeze.

6. Build community food systems:
Some of the kids went home talking about the green smoothies--which turned out to be a new idea for some of the parents--and some kids are now gathering dandelion greens and giving them to their parents to eat. So I shared the "recipe" for our smoothies in one of my daily emails to the families in my program.

7. Eat the food:
I served the kids green smoothies three times this week, with mixed results (some love them, some don't--but I fear a bit of that is peer pressure). Lucy continues to love them. And all the kids love the idea of them, and love gathering greens for them, so it's going to become a regular snack around here (I trust that their taste for it will come with time--and with the arrival of fresh fruits!).

We also ate a yummy yogurt dip made with chives and teeny bits of other herbs from the garden (all I've got so far): plain yogurt, lemon juice, herbs, salt, pepper. It was great on green beans (1st day) and on roasted cauliflower (2nd day). And ate garlic mustard foraged from a nearby yard. Hated the recipe I used, but think I could like the greens. Will try again.

And then there were these. Oh, my goodness. Don't make these if, like me, you have trouble with--shall we say--portion size. I found the link here. Not the slightest bit local or sustainable, I'm afraid, but a good made-from-the-pantry treat.
...
Outside today, I finally removed a terracotta planter which sat at the base of this tree for a few years. We'd failed to take it in over the winter, so it had cracked to pieces, and it was so root-bound, I could barely get the soil separated from the pot shards. But I tackled the task today. To watch me, Lucy was inspired to climb up on the base of the tree, a new accomplishment of which she was very proud.

Once the pot was removed, there was a treasure-trove of insect life left behind: pill bugs, centipedes, and various larval creatures. Here, Lucy watches as the older children scramble to catch the fast-moving bugs to feed them to the chickens.

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.

Challenge updates: first days of spring

Time again for Sharon's Independence Day's Challenge. I've decided to combine these Monday posts with updates for the Growing Challenge.


1. Plant something: Golden Chard, Green Arrow Peas, Chioggia Beets. (From seed, so these apply to the Growing Challenge, too.)

2. Harvest something: Eggs. Maple sap.

3. Preserve something: 3 quarts maple syrup.

4. Waste not: I made 2 new pairs of longies and a dress from felted wool sweaters this week. (Need to blog those soon; it's almost too warm to wear them!)

5. Preparation and storage: I spent a lot of time cleaning up the yard and gardens this week (and obsessively checking to see if anything is coming up yet). I began digging out the (still mostly frozen) compost, and used it to replenish planting boxes. I also added another bottle of water to storage (am slowly working on this, as we empty suitably-sized glass bottles).

6. Build community food systems: We attended a fundraiser for the Survival Center and donated more than we'd expected we would.

7. Eat the food: Oh, my gosh! In the midst of this week's lovely spring weather, I gave myself the most delicious welcome-spring treat--Strawberry Lemonade from The Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. It was perfect!! We almost missed strawberry season last year, and picked very few. I'm so glad we used some of them for this! We've been eating a TON of dried fruit this week, and I made a pretty good cream-of-broccoli soup using frozen broccoli. And I've done a good bit of baking (tried a new quick bread recipe which I liked a lot: "Whole Wheat Muffins" from The Tassajara Bread Book, using crabapple jelly as the sweetner).