Back to Basics / Independence Days

Some time ago I signed up for Belinda's Back to Basics Challenge, which in turn, Belinda based upon Peak Oil writer, Sharon Astyk's Independence Days Challenge.

I've been slack, slack, slack in updating, for which I apologise Belinda (grovel, grovel), but now that Sharon has restarted her Challenge for this year, I have decided I'd really better get my act together and start posting about it again regularly, with a sort of hybrid format LOL, and I will do instead of my usual Simple Days posts (as I don't really have the time for them at the moment). Sharon's participants post weekly, but I don't know if I'll have time for that either, but I'll try for fortnightly.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Independence Days Challenge, Sharon firmly believes that growing and preserving as much of our own food as possible is the best thing we can do for the planet, ourselves and our wallets! Of the challenge, she says:

"I think a lot of us have in our heads the idea that putting up [preserving] food, or getting into the garden has to wait until we have time. But of course, that time rarely arrives. Thus, I’ve found it tremendously helpful to simply do a little bit each day. It is also enormously useful to my morale to know that I got a little ahead in my goals that day - even when it is hard to believe it."

and:

"It is easy to forget how important this “little stuff” is - easy to think that your little garden doesn’t matter very much, or that your preparations won’t be enough... [but] the corollary of the fact that every calorie of food takes 10 of fossil fuels is that every stir fry or salad you eat from your garden saves 10 times the oil as the calories contained within it. The fact that almost every packaged ingredient uses 7 times as much energy to create that packaging means that your choice to buy bulk oatmeal just saved 7 times as much energy as the package contains."

You can read more about the challenge, and the various categories on Sharon's blog, here.

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Planted - kale (two types), fennel, cauliflowers, dill, chinese cabbage, kohlrabi, spinach (two types), endive, chicory, mizuna, tatsoi, corn salad (mache), miners lettuce.


Harvested - lettuce, mustard greens, a few potatoes, sweet potatoes, mushrooms, beans, raspberries, starfruit.


Maintained - Dug over two garden beds with compost and manure; erected a trellis and finally tied up the youngberry and raspberries.


Observed - The luffa vine has set at least two fruits at last; Snails, snails and more snails are defoliating various vegies and even fruit trees.


Preserved - Another batch of red onion jam for pizza bases.

Red Onion Jam

Reduced Waste - I made a couple of bread bags by repurposing old linen tea towels, eliminating a little more plastic from our kitchen;


Preparation and Storage -

* In the light of the recent swine 'flu media attention, I revised and updated my food and other items stockpile list and will add to the stockpile as items come on sale - I will also go through my first aid kit to check for expired items as I haven't done that for a while now;
* I got DH to lay black plastic on the grass in the area (out the front) which is to become the Green Tea camellia hedge and medicinal herb bed;
* I realised that somehow, I still have a huge stack of lemon juice frozen in the freezer from last season's Meyer lemon haul (how I missed it during peak summer lemon cordial season, I don't know), so have made note of it to use up in cooking before this season's lemons really start coming in.

Dwarf Meyer Lemon

Building Community - I was interviewed about my blog and garden for an upcoming local newspaper column (as was Tricia).


Eat the Food - A big pot of chicken-and-everything soup to use up all the vegies in the fridge in danger of becoming inedible; cooked the first of the Red Giant mustard leaves, a new-to-me leafy green (first in soup, then in a stir-fry - both nice); used up a heap of old floury potatoes as gnocchi.

Red Giant Mustard

Learnt a new Skill - Made gnocchi for the first time (although it could use some work ;-)