Independence Days Week 1

Sharon Astyk has a new challenge over at Casaubon's Book, and like the Dark Days of Winter challenge, it fits nicely with my own goals. So, I'm hoping to use it as personal motivation to accomplish things on a daily basis and keep myself on track throughout the busy season.

The rules are simple: every day or every week work on one of the several categories listed below. My goal is to do at least one of them every day, and so here's my week one update.

1) Plant something:

This week I planted my hulless oats (which I know are incredibly late going in but such is life) and quinoa down in my grain test plot, a row of radishes, a couple rows of dill, a row of oregano, and several rows of lettuce. I also got the banana fingerling potatoes cut up, and Jim got them in the ground yesterday.

2) Harvest something:

This week I harvested lettuce, asparagus, spinach, chard, cilantro, turnips, radishes, thyme, chives, green onions, sorrel, dill, and spring garlic.

3) Preserve something:

At this point in the season, my goal isn't so much to preserve something as to be using up last year's preserves to make way for the new season's round of preserves. So, in that vein, we've been using tomato paste, frozen cherry tomatoes, basil, chutney and jams, as well as heritage chickens and pork.

4) Store something:

I've been slowly building up our food stores with coop purchases. Last week I added rice, which would've been purchased regardless because we were out, salt, popcorn, peanut oil and coconut oil.

5) Prep something:

Last weekend I sheared our sheep, and this weekend we attended the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival and purchased some wool carders to begin processing our wool. We also got some felting needles for fun and some local dyed cotswold curls. I'd hoped to also find a Navajo spindle for spinning the wool, but no one had one, so we're planning to make a few here at home.

I also got my milking machine this week that I ordered used from ebay. Hopefully, our milk cow will come to live with us by the end of this month!

6) Manage something:

This week managing the high tunnel has been my biggest focus, particularly battling a slug invasion. Apparently the slugs that managed to overwinter in there have now reproduced in a small explosion. I spent 2 hours on 2 consecutive nights out handpicking the slugs and hopefully made a significant dent in the population. I pulled some yellowed foliage from the lettuce bottoms and worked to create more air circulation in general to help prevent disease and remove some of the sheltered, moist environment for the slugs. All of this booty went to the chickens and the geese who were quite happy! I also pulled some of the bolting veggies to make room for new sowings and put one of my laying hens in for a few hours to help prep the bed and remove the buggies.

Also got most of my tomato seedlings potted up yesterday before heading out to the Sheep and Wool fest.

7) Cook something new:

This week, after enjoying a couple rounds of steamed asparagus, I roasted some with olive oil, sea salt and garlic as per Madeline's instructions, and it was fabulous! Here it's accompanied by heritage chicken rotisseried on the grill, salad with a balsamic vinaigrette, poached new potatoes marinated in the same vinaigrette, and herb focaccia bread.

8) Add something to local food systems:

This week we continued to deliver delicious, organically grown produce to our 3 annual CSA members. I gave my neighbor some of our scrap greenhouse plastic so he could finish building a small cold frame for some of his vegetable starts as well as sharing some of our eggs and lettuces with them. I emailed my local bulk co-op on delivery day to let them know I have eggs and produce available that I can bring to pick up and sold a bag of lettuce. I'm also working on setting up our farm site to take pre-orders for produce, kind of like a virtual farm stand.

9) Compost something:

We compost everything.

10) Learn something:

The girls and I are learning how to needle felt, and last night I began working on a garden goddess. I'm also learning as much as I can about wool processing, as I mentioned earlier.

My beehives are finished, and I plan to set them up today for the bees arrival next weekend. So, I'm also reading and learning as much as I can about organic beekeeping, which there's not a lot of support for here at the local level, unfortunately. Thank goodness for the internet!