The Home Grown September Challenge is going splendidly. Though when you get really down to it there is not enough food out there so I am not sure how Long the challenge will last.
It is very dry now and I am going to have to do some serious watering lest my greens give up on me. Not being able to reach for a bag of frozen peas as an easy green addition to a meal makes life interesting.
Though this is an excellent way to ensure that the list for next years gardens is thorough. I am already running out of potatoes and onions. So MORE is a recurrent word in the list.
I have plenty of tomatoes, aubergine, sweet capsicums, beets, celery, zuchinni and jalapenos. There are two cabbages left and a stand of swiss chard that is taking a beating as I eat it every day. But is there enough of all that to last over three weeks? We will see. No eating out of cans. No eating packaged frozen vegetables. No eating the foods I am processing for the winter.
The late summer vegetables will not be ready for a month or so and the beans are suddenly infected with a leaf eating bug. Hmm.
One entire planting of tomatoes has gone brown and is dying but I still have plenty in another garden and scattered through the flower beds as snacks for when I am gardening.
It is possible that I may lose weight after all! Oops. However I do have a little beef and a reasonable amount of lamb in the freezer. No chicken or pork.
I chose September on purpose for the challenge because it is kind of a middle month, the first flush is over and the garden is puddling along now. I knew I would be short of some things. And hoping that the challenge would point out the weaknesses in the month. The first weakness seems to be that my staggered plantings are not staggered close enough. The second weakness is that there is not ENOUGH of everything to put down for the winter Plus eat all summer.
The hens are still laying extravagantly (even though I just caught 6 fat hens yesterday to give to Red Hat Matt as a house warming present) so I can always eat eggs. But using no store bought cheese at all is tedious.
I will make more fresh cheese next week. Today I am going to focus on the gardens, weeding and watering my new crops. And getting more worm fertiliser into their roots.
Now I know this sounds a little grim however I am excited by all these revelations. Sometimes the only way to actually see something clearly is to DO it. It is all very well to say Oh I eat out of the gardens but when I made myself eat ONLY out of the gardens for a good length of time I see immediately where I am topping up from outside the farm. Plus I am now counting my crops as I work considering how long each will feed us for. This is good, very good. Already I am out there more often with seeds for autumn food. I am taking more careful note of what I have ahead of me and what needs special care. I am eating less so that the food lasts longer.
In fact the ‘eating less to make the food last’ is probably a very old fashioned thing. And a BIG lesson. On a normal day we are able to go to the supermarket or farmers market and yank huge bundles of cheap food off the shelves or tables. We stuff our cars full to the brim and drive cheerfully home. There is no thought of conserving our resources, or buying or eating less so that there is enough to go around. We cannot raise our hands to shield our eyes and peer to the end of the row, we have no knowledge in fact of how much food there is out here or even where the farms actually are and if they also have crops failing. So we take and eat as much as we can afford. We gaily trust that in the cool mornings and hot afternoons out in some field somewhere a little man and his wife will pick more for us, another little man will drive more produce in a truck through the dawn to our purchasing point and some one will restock the shelves or lay out her produce so all we have to do is drive back and Buy More. Do you think this is one of the reasons people are eating more, piling up their plates and having second helpings and getting fatter at each meal? Because they cannot see to the end of the row?
I remember saying to my kids: There is no point in me making a cake – all you do is eat it. Do you know how long it took to make that cake? I would say to them as they stuffed the last crumbs into their mouths ten minutes after I took it out of the oven. Now that they are all grown and pretty good cooks themselves, they savor their food more and think about the tastes and discuss how to make it better. I have never thought of it this way before. So the Challenge is teaching me to eat slower and less.
I have read that in any given city, there is a three day supply of food in the supermarkets. So if there is a major disaster and that truck cannot get through the food and drink will run out in three days. I think I can last longer than that.
Today I am making an aubergine and tomato, cheese free, lasagne, with the home made pasta. Thank goodness you suggested I allow myself flour and olive oil.
Have a lovely day.
I will be disappearing into the gardens again today. (yes, some of the weeds are that tall!)
your friend on the farm, celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
94 responses to “The Home Grown September Challenge”
Grim? It sounds to me like your challenge has been quite successful so far. You’ve learnt plenty, making the odds for complete success with your next month challenge even better. Can’t wait to hear what you think about lasagna made with your own pasta. It really is a completely different dish altogether. Have a nice evening, Celi.
I am NEVER going back to bought lasagne, wow! It was soft and tasty and I did not boil it or anything before making the lasagne, I just let it cook in the juices. Wildly successful. If nothing else this challenge is improving my cooking! c
I knew it! I gave a tray of lasagna to a friend recuperating and he said the pasta was more like pastry. 🙂
Cute little eggplants so far!
Your challenge is quite a task! When you travel 50km to go shopping it tends to focus your mind and make you inventive if you forget something. I saw a recipe for Aubergine jam on David Lebovitz’s blog; looked good and immediately thought of you. Did you find your oak twin?
Not yet, but I will. I am dying to have twin oaks across the world.. c
The oaks other common name is Japanese Chestnut Oak. It has long narrow leaves like a Chestnut; they are pale green when they first open with a beautiful cerise pink margin.
[…] about a million different things – like how it’s starting to feel like autumn, Cecilia’s Homegrown September Challenge, as well as this NYTimes article – when I came across a sight that breaks my heart: windfall […]
Miss C, of course this tree has changed its name in the US! its called Sawtooth Oak. When I entered your state the closest nursery was in Georgia……a bit too far south!
Ignore the last message! when I looked at a picture of a mature sawtooth maple leaf its quite different. I will recheck the botanical name.
This challenge is bringing up so much learning, so much to contemplate and see clearly. Good for you. To live sustainably is a wonderful goal for us all.
Your twin oak is Quercus Dentata (Japanese emperor oak) Davidsans Japanese Maples in Springfield have them for sale.
You are getting creative! Love your pictures, I don’t know what to do with egg plant or Swiss chard, how do you fix it! We don’t have a garden, but our neighbors do! We are blest that they share, have so many tomatoes today, going to freeze some more for my daughters! Be nice for soup, stew, spaghetti sauce, chili, this winter, gotta go am making myself hungry!
6 fat hens… I think is the best house warming present ever… and keeps on giving 🙂
Living in a desert makes growing things hard. Love visiting your blog for flights of fantasy gardening.
It sounds like this is going very well and I admire your creativity. I do think people have gotten used to such big portions of food that they just keep eating even when their bellies tell them – enough! When we were young, my mother always had a salad, meat, vegetables, potato & dessert every night yet no one was overweight. Sometimes I wonder if it’s the over processed food that people eat as much as the portion that’s the trouble. Most food manufacturers have labs that add flavor enhancers to packaged products that set off the ‘eat more’ signals to the brain.
“Do you think this is one of the reasons people are eating more, piling up their plates and having second helpings and getting fatter at each meal? Because they cannot see to the end of the row?”
Do you think that the average person out there is even thinking about this? I think not. It is the million dollar question, and my better sense thinks you are correct. I’m glad you are doing this Celi, and I look forward to your insights and results.
i totally agree lynda. i dont think most people are thinking about things like this. and i think that it is sad that people just take food for granted, they dont even know where it comes from, who much work there is in one bread/tomato/cucumber… keep sharing your thoughts on this with us celi, i find it very interesting
I so admire what you are doing! I see you have aubergines…if you are not afraid of deep frying, here’s a great (economical) dish we eat a lot in Spain. Thinly slice an aubergine and cut the slices in half. Heat plenty of oil and make a batter of flour and water with a pinch of bicarb and salt. Coat the slices in the batter then deep fry them until golden then sprinkle with salt and drizzle with honey. We use molasses here but the combo of salty and sweet is amazing 🙂 They’re called Berenjenas Fritas and are usually served as a starter but I make a huge batch and call it supper 🙂
Reblogged this on Mehaffey Farm Blog and commented:
This blog by cuts right to the heart of the matter. My friend Celi is attempting to eat only off the farm during the month of September.