August 29, 2010

No Frills IDC Update

I've had less writing time lately but I am working on a couple of updates on the goats and llama.  That means a no frills  Independence Days Challenge  update for today!  :)

1. Plant something
  • onions (Ebenezer)
  • beets (Detroit Red)
  • lettuce (Parris Cos)
  • turnips (Purple Top White Globe)
  • radishes (Pink Beauty)
  • orchard grass
  • ladino clover
2. Harvest something
  • watermelons
  • strawberries (we get a small handful each week)
  • tomatoes
  • sweet peppers
  • cucumbers
  • sweet basil
  • green beans
  • buttercup winter squash
  • okra
  • eggs
  • goat milk
  • popcorn (just a couple of ears to check)
  • sage
  • chard
  • black turtle beans
3. Preserve something
  • made and froze pesto
  • froze okra
  • froze eggs
  • canned green beans
  • dehydrated tomatoes
  • canned tomato soup
4.  Waste not
  • scraps to chickens and goats
  • manure to compost
  • re-using canning and cooking water
  • line drying clothes when the sun shines which isn't as often these days
  • recycling all our cardboard, plastics, glass, & cans
  • saving most glass containers for re-use
  • trying to buy less plastic so I don't have to "waste" it
5.  Want not
  • mostly food preservation & seed saving
  • our neighbor told us where there is a persimmon tree on our property
6.  Build community food systems
  • blogging about it
  • traded eggs for hardwood logs (for firewood)
7.  Eat the food
  • melons for fruit
  • eggs for baking, breakfast and lunch
  • tomatoes and cukes for salads
  • okra & Swiss chard for cooked veggies
  • potatoes baked or roasted & leftovers for hash browns
  • chicken & local farm raised pork & beef
  • and a teensy bit of goat milk for my coffee (more on that next post)
Want to read what others are doing?  Click here.


No Frills IDC Update © August 2010 by Leigh at http://my5acredream.blogspot.com/

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Persimmon- something I have never eaten - just the name sounds good though. Looking forward to the goat milk post - will you be making goat cheese someday?

Nina said...

I can't say I've ever eaten a persimmon. Once in a very rare while we can find them in a grocery store, expensive and not always looking very palatable.

Leigh said...

Evelyn they aren't edible until after a good frost. Somehow that changes them from mouth puckeringly astringent to sweet and tasty. I'm not sure what I'll do with these. Persimmon butter maybe. (?)

Nina, as far as I know there are two kinds of persimmons: American and Japanese. I suspect it's the Japanese variety that makes it into the grocery stores. They are a pretty delicate fruit, so I'm not surprised they don't look all that appetizing.