Independence Day Challenge: June 13 - 19

The garden is producing and it's canning time once again. Green beans and Swiss chard are abundant and these are keeping me busy. For the time being plantings about done but there's still a lot to mulch. Weeding of course goes without saying. I'm also taking pics for my June garden tour. Hopefully I'll have that to show you later this week or next.

1. Plant Something -

• echinacea
• pyrethrum
• butterfly weed
• rudbeckia

2. Harvest something -

• lettuce
• Swiss chard
  
• broccoli
• daylily flowers & buds
• strawberries
• green beans
  

3. Preserve something -

• dehydrated daylily flowers for seasoning
• lacto-fermented Swiss chard following Sharon Astyk's description for her kimchi in Independence Days: A Guide to Sustainable Food Storage and Preservation
• canned green beans
  

4. Waste Not –

• using the mulch we chipped last week for mulch of course
  
• homemade nesting boxes for the chickens
• dried leaves for chicken litter
  
• plus the usual

5. Want Not –

• Bought a dairy goat to be bred this fall for milk next spring
• I already put this under "preserve something" but really, the canning is so that we want not come fall, winter, and spring
  

6. Build Community Food Systems –

• blogging about it

7. Eat the Food –

• garden salads: lettuce, radishes, carrots, Swiss chard, turnips
• steamed green beans
• campfire grilled chicken
• yogurt on cereal and fruit. I've been having trouble getting my non-homogenized milk (they're always sold out), so yogurt is becoming more of a treat than a staple!
• leftover salads - leftover cold baked potatoes and steamed green beans on a bed of lettuce and Swiss chard
  

To read what other Independence Days Challengers are doing, click here.

How about you?
How are your planting & preserving coming along?

Independence Day Challenge: June 13 - 19 copyright June 2010 by Leigh at http://my5acredream.blogspot.com/