Independence Days Challenge: Week 2

Okay, here goes Week Two of food independence!

1. Plant something – I planted ostrich ferns that I got from a neighbor. I’m looking forward to seeing if they’re edible next spring. I’ve read that they are, but I’ve never tried it. I also transplanted some parsley I started in my window and planted some radishes and turnips.

2. Harvest something – We have been sprinkling chives and garlic chives on all sorts of things. I added the asparagus from the yard to my store bought asparagus today for dinner. The difference in taste was absolutely amazing! Our home grown asparagus was sweet and tender and nutty, even when it was raw. The store bought was bland and kind of tough, not sweet at all. I need to plant more asparagus!

3. Preserve something – Nothing yet, the dehydrator has been taken over by raw food experiments, so the herbs have had to wait. I need to dry the bee balm soon though, it’s already starting to bolt.

4. Reduce waste – We’ve been exploring eating more raw food. That saves gas since we don’t use the stove. Also, we cut old worn out clothes into rags again this week. It’s kind of fun in a destructive kind of way, like pulling weeds, which I’ve also done a bunch of. Speaking of which, I’m trying a new way of composting nasty weeds like quackgrass myself, rather than sending them off in a city waste bag, trying to keep the nutrients that I have in my yard rather than losing them.

5. Preparation and Storage – I’ve kind of been slack here, but I’ll get there.

6. Build Community Food Systems – I gave a friend of mine some of my extra leek starts since I planted all that I wanted and still had ¾ of them left. I also traded perennials with my neighbor across the street, and she offered me some of her ostrich ferns that I have been eyeing for ages. We talked tomatoes and fruit trees. I’m making much more of an effort to reach out to my neighbors and it feels good.

7. Eat the Food- We’ve been eating chives on everything, the kids love it. We ate our first asparagus from the yard, and while my oldest hates it, my two year old happily ate the tips off and handed the rest back to us. I’m happy to report that asparagus from the yard still tastes really good, even without the tips. We’ve been eating violets out of the yard too, the girls love to eat flowers.

This challenge is really inspiring me to incorporate the edibles in my yard into our diet more, rather than letting them just go to waste. Yay!