Independance Days Challenge: Week 1

I’m doing my first challenge! Over at Casaubon’s Book the Independence Days Challenge has started. The challenge is to increase your ability to be independent from food and energy systems and infrastructure as they are currently set up. This year there are seven categories: planting, harvesting, and preserving food, reducing waste, preparation and storage of stuff you need, building community food systems, and eating the food. I really like that eating the food is a category, I think it’s a lot easier to say you’re going to eat what you get from a local farm than it is to do it. When you’ve been raised on carrots that all look mostly the same orange color, same length and same taste, trying to figure out how to eat baby carrots with the dirt and the tops still on them can be daunting, let alone some of the other more obscure vegetables, like kohlrabi. I love kohlrabi now, but 5 years ago I didn’t even know it existed. There is a skill set to eating well using vegetable that haven’t been machine cleaned and bagged. So here’s a couple of pics and my list for week 1 of the challenge:

1. Plant something – We planted a dwarf plum tree and a crabapple tree. We got the crabapple for free when we participated in the local river cleanup. I’m wondering if I could graft apple branches to the crabapple when it’s older.

2. Harvest something I picked our first stalk of asparagus this weekend. Hopefully next week we’ll have more.

3. Preserve something – Nothing yet, but I have plans to dry herbs this week.

4. Reduce waste – I put up the clothes line again, and I’ve started drying clothes outside with it.

5. Preparation and Storage – My DH is checking to see if we can get old pallets to make a fence for our yard. This has become increasingly important because of the kids that hop the low fence we have now and wreak havoc in our garden.

6. Build Community Food Systems – Nothing yet, though I’m planning a vermicomposting workshop with some friends for later in the summer.

7. Eat the Food – I’ve discovered the wonder of pureed foods. My kids will eat all kinds of greens if I cook and puree them and use that as pasta sauce. Also, I’ve started making smoothies with older fruit, or fruit that wasn’t popular with them, like melon. We’re wasting a lot less food now and the family is eating a lot more greens. My new favorite is making a fritatta with pureed spinach in it. It’s green eggs and all we need is the green ham and we’re set.