A Hungry New Year

[errantember]

Happy New Year!

One major change this year is that I will only be eating what I grow for one day out of every month. To kick off this new habit, I will be fasting on New Years Day!

While I'm supposedly a "Permaculture Designer", I've really been a dilettante in terms of actually, say *growing* *food*. I've set up several gardens, but I've never really had more than a 20% success rate with anything I've grown, and I sure as Hell am not growing enough to feed myself, much less the other four people who live at my house. By insisting that I starve if I haven't produced anything to eat that month (or stored something from before), I am seizing the issue and smacking it down Front and Center in my life.

*SLAM!*

Some rules are clear, others are not. One strict one is that the food has to be 100% grown on property. No buying seedlings allowed. For the sake of this particular exercise, no gathering is allowed, either. No recycling or re-using others' discarded food. But do I allow myself spices not grown on property? What about salt? Salt doesn't grown anywhere! What I'm thinking I might say is that I can use non-home-grown spices and condiments on my Permie Food Day if I buy them using funds I raise by selling something else I've grown. Until then, it might be lots of radishes and greens!

If you've been putting it off like I have, I invited you to join me! You're rules don't have to be exactly the same, it's the spirit and the end result that counts.

I'm excited to be finally getting serious about growing my own food! But maybe not as excited as I'll be at breakfast on the 2nd of every month.

Comments

[laughingturtle.livejournal.com]

That is a really neat idea! I have only managed to ever grow one successful salad garden (lasted one season and then refused to ever grow again) and a monster oregano plant (on my former property...I'm almost tempted sometimes to drive by there and steal some...but I'm scared to find that they tore it out and replaced it with something pretty and that would just make me too sad).

I'm scared to try growing plants because it's so sad discovering that once again I have failed them somehow and no matter what I do (water, don't water, fertilize, don't fertilize, pay them attention, ignore them) they just wither and die. I'd love suggestions though. I think that container gardening is probably the best idea for my lifestyle and environment. Any ideas on how to get started?

Also, off topic, I have a children's book rattling around in my head and was wondering if you'd be interesting in illustrating The Day Sebastian Turned Into a Cat (it's based on a conversation that I had with Sweetness coming home from daycare one day).

I seem to have lost your number or your phone number has changed. The last time I sent a text to the number I thought was you I received a text bad reading only "Wrong Number!". I can only assume that they were fed up with the random phone calls, voice messages, and texts from a complete stranger thinking she was talking to her sister. I miss you and would love to have your new number.

Love you!

Enjoy your fast!

[laughingturtle.livejournal.com]

Oops! I saw the icon and ignored the name. The icon looks an awful lot like one my sister uses. Sorry bout that!

[ladyjaneinlace.livejournal.com]

Hey, do you need bags of leaves, by any chance? Mulch, compost, etc? My neighbor has about 20 paper bags full out on his curb, with a c-list post inviting all takers.

Heatherwilde Subdivision, Pflugerville

[errantember.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the heads up!
There are many opportunities closer to here of people bagging leaves for me. We have a compost pile, but it's been severely ignored for months. What I would like to do is get some chicken wire, set up some round compost piles, and just shovel those leaves into it. Soil improvement would definitely help my efforts.

[ladyjaneinlace.livejournal.com]

That's great! I'm not sure I remember which part of town you're in, but thought I'd offer anyway. :-)

I'm not quite up to starting a compost pile myself, even as just a round wire enclosure. I'm going to "mow in" my own substantial carpet of leaves on my lawn for now, and hope for the best.

[errantember.livejournal.com]

I'd love to come see your garden sometime. I seem to recall you've been keeping it for a long time.

[ladyjaneinlace.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I don't actually have a garden yet, I only bought my home in May (after 4 yrs in an apartment). Perhaps you are confusing me with another Lady Jane in the community?

[gailmom.livejournal.com]

I love that idea...and until the recent "suddenly my hens stopped laying" I would have been much more comfortable joining you. ;P Now, it is a very scary thought....

[errantember.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

I've very on the fence about eggs. I'm still buying chicken feed (not even organic). The chickens get our kitchen scraps, and they forage in the yard, but they're still getting a lot of nutrition from the feed. On the other hand, they are the single biggest success story in raising on-property food we've had so far.

[gailmom.livejournal.com]

mine get my kitchen scraps, plus the scraps of two other households (all of which would otherwise get composted or trashed, depending on which house we are talking about). Without those eggs, at least two of those households, if not all, would be buying factory produced eggs, and the feed they do eat I buy from a locally owned and run feed store.

I think this is one of those "so much lesser of two evils it isn't even funny" sort of things.

[errantember.livejournal.com]

It's great that you're feeding them with so much recycled scrap food. I may work for a similar arrangement with my neighbors when I get a new flock in the spring.

??

[miagail.livejournal.com]

isn't it normal for egg production to drop in the winter and pick back up in the spring?

Re: ??

[errantember.livejournal.com]

Yes.

Re: ??

[gailmom.livejournal.com]

yes, it is. And I was expecting it when they dropped from an average of four a day to an average of two when we started getting below freezing at night. But for the last, oh, a bit over a week...nothing. not. one. egg.

I've never had my hens just NOT produce before....it is weirding me out. Considering how used I've gotten to always having eggs, I am not looking forward to when I run out. 0.o

Re: ??

[errantember.livejournal.com]

Mine have produced very, very few eggs recently. Maybe three or four since Christmas. They also haven't been laying them in the egg box, because that's the warmest place in the coop. You might want to look in possible alternative locations for eggs. At least one roosts in the egg box each night, and shits all over the place, so they don't like to lay there. I think the solution is to make the new coop so that the egg boxes are slightly colder at night than the rest of the hen house.

Re: ??

[gailmom.livejournal.com]

hmmm...good point, and something to consider as I finish putting together the main pen.

[terriblelynne.livejournal.com]

One of the things I promised myself I'd do this year is cook you the meal I promised to cook you *mumble* ago. Any chance we can make these things work together?

[errantember.livejournal.com]

We could, but your cooking would be more likely to happen if we just bought shit and did it.