Monday, April 26, 2010

Back to work...Independence Days Challenge Update


Spring vacation has passed. It was a much needed vacation. Plenty of time at home, plenty of time together as a family. We shared many meals together. We finished up a few projects. We shared simple fun; cribbage games, music making, bike rides, a really cool insect program at the library, a homebrew in the yard late in the day.

Now we face the home stretch. Mark has 8 more weeks of the school year. We have 3 more months before we move.

We took a day trip to our new home. The current owner has offered us to plant a garden because we will be moving right at the beginning of the harvest. We may not plant annuals there but we will move some of our perennials this spring. The property is a little wilder than where we live now. There is a resident ground hog, deer. So we are thinking of building a couple of raised beds and just putting all the perennials in it, then covering it with bird netting. Once we are there we will start a winter garden. But otherwise we need time to watch the land before we put in many big gardens. We will probably fill the larder for next winter with most of the spring crops we have planted, fall crops we plant at the new home and then bulk purchases from local farms. I firmed up my summer job at a local farm and this will also provide some produce at the farmers market.

Planted: Carrots, much spinach, onion, broccoli, peas

Harvested: parsnips, spinach, chives, scallions,eggs, dandelion greens

Preserved: dehydrated 1 pint dandelion greens

Local foods: local carola potatoes, local apples, moo milk, local beef

Waste not: Turned compost piles, cleaned out closets and dressers and made a big donation to thrift store, re-dug a raised bed, mucked out barns (how I wish we had a tractor for this). Tidied up the garden tool shed. We used this for an overflow of hay this past winter. So we cleaned it up and then used the scattered hay for mulch.

Want not: Our dear friend and minister at church found a great deal of King Arthur Flour. 50lbs for 15.00. She got a bag for us and we are going to barter garden help for it.

Eat the food:Potato salad, we are adding leafs of spinach but soon we will be inundated with spinach..I can't wait!

2 comments:

Wendy said...

Glad you guys had a good week together. We'll be thinking of you as you finish out the year ;).

Hullabaloo Homestead said...

How exciting to getiing so close to your move. Im sure you are looking forward to it! And that was very sweet of the present owner to offer to start a garden. I always wonder if whoever moves into our house when we sell, will appreciate our gardens. Enjoy your day!

:)Lisa

...and no, I cannot keep the little man sitting down. We actually need to keep the chairs on the floor because he loves dancing on the table!