Independence Day Challenge Update

This is my Monday update (yes, I know it's Tuesday, but Monday kinda got away on me) on what I’ve done over the last week to move towards food independence. I originally read about it on Towards Sustainability and the original idea came from Sharon Astyk – read more about it here.

PLANT SOMETHING:
Seeds of Buttercrunch lettuce, Sweet William flowers, Musselburgh leeks. Seedlings of Yellow and Blackjack courgettes, Superking brocolli, Dwarf Carpet stock and Joi Choi Pak Choi transplanted into the garden.

HARVEST SOMETHING:
I’ve been picking my green manure crop mustard to throw to the chooks and to eat in salads. I’ve also been harvesting Courgettes, Pak Choi and Basil. And I harvested more mown grass to throw into the chook pen to increase their deep bed. And I collected EGGS of course! I totally forgot about including them last week.

Olivia nibbling on the mustard, she liked it younger and sweeter!

PRESERVE SOMETHING:
I bottled six jars of tomatoes, three with skins and three without, to see if we like leaving the skins on or if it’s worth getting a mouli to get rid of them. I also boiled up some beef bones, an old onion and some carrots to make beef stock for freezing.

REDUCE WASTE/ WASTE NOT:
I made a (hopefully) sparrow and white cabbage butterfly proof enclosure to plant out my seedlings under after finding that the sparrows had eaten all the growing tips out of my dwarf beans. They won’t grow now – what a waste :(

Ugly, but hopefully very functional. (The cover, not my daughter!)

PREPARATION AND STORAGE/ WANT NOT:
I bought a rabbit (who isn’t here yet, we're waiting for his hutch) to start my plan of growing and eating my own rabbits. And I found three of the most gorgeous old sheets in an Op Shop. I think I'll keep the blue and purple one for use - it's cotton, while the others will probably get used to make things.

BUILD COMMUNITY FOOD SYSTEMS:
I talked to the people I bought the rabbit off about the possibilities of harvesting rabbit meat. I bought three Light Sussex chickens off a lady and talked to her about sprouting her chook wheat and maize to increase their health and also told her how to break broody chooks from sitting so they could go back to laying her some eggs.

This is my young Light Sussex Rooster who got some new girlfriends.

EAT THE FOOD:
I made a courgette chocolate cake – Yum! I also ate a salad this week made entirely from my garden: courgettes, mustard, basil and pak choi. What a great feeling.

LEARN A NEW SKILL: This category will get used sometimes, but I don’t think I’ll be able to put something in here every week! But this week I’m including my sourdough culture because I’m still growing it up and learning about how to use it, hopefully next week I’ll have made some bread from it.

This is the new shelf my hubby made and put up on the weekend. You can see my sourdough starter in the muslin covered jar next to the white yoghurt maker.