I began the September Home Grown Challenge almost two weeks ago and with only one 24 hour break, when I went to Chicago, I have been dining in on home grown fresh food. We are streaming along. The food is glorious. I do buy the raw milk that I would usually get from Daisy from down the road but other than that we are eating food off the farm all day every day. I have only allowed myself coffee, tea, (though drinks are not part of the home grown challenge yet), flour, olive oil, salt, balsamic vinegar and a little sugar.
Everything else is off the farm. Even this apple custard pie. It will be served with whipped ricotta cheese flavoured with home grown honey. Picking apples off the little trees that I planted myself has a wonderful feeling of accomplishment.
The ricotta cheese was made the cheats way with 1 gallon of raw milk heated to the first bubble, 1/4 cup of home made apple cider vinegar and a little salt. Stand, cool, strain, eat. Perfect. Today I will make a regular farmer’s cheese for the weekend pizzas. This means I will have to add rennet to my allowed list.
I am spending more time in the kitchen but this is not unusual at this time of year.
Summer Sauce to eat with home made noodles. Thank goodness the chickens are laying so well. The meat freezer is almost empty awaiting its October replenishment. Our only meat is lamb, which is not as exciting as it sounds so I am creating some fantastic vegetarian feasts.
The second to last row of potatoes is gone, I might make it to the end of the month but no further, so I am conserving them. My Irish eyes are crying.
My answer to all this talk of autumn: My last planting of sunflowers has begun to flower. Autumn is not here yet.
The bees have found their syrup.
Great Aunt Sis’s lamp stand. Finally come home to The Coupe.
My notes so far underline what I suspected, we are not growing enough of everything, we need more vegetables, better spacings and less herbs in the beds. Pots for herbs from now on. I am going to combine and extend three of the smaller gardens into one very big old fashioned garden, cutting down on the varieties. Less staggering and more bulk planting. Less pretty, more food. Staggering plantings helps me keep fresh food in the kitchen, but I need fresh food in the kitchen as well as fresh food going into jars.
I also want to add carrots and parsnips to the gardens.
Having said that, I think I should be able to coast along to the end of the month eating what I grow quite easily. I am the only one who is sticking to the home grown diet and it does not take much to feed one person. Though there won’t be much variety the food is absolutely clean, no preservatives or additives at all. The portions will be smaller but are as high in nutrients as you can get. Bliss. And we all eat too much anyway.
The next two weeks will be the challenge!!
You all have a lovely day. Take good care!
your friend on the farm, celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
98 responses to “The Home Grown September Challenge is a Bliss-full Challenge.”
The sunflower is my favorite photo. You have captured the promise of its potential.
There are some truly wonderful vegetarian feasts to be had. We eat very little meat because girl-child is a vegetarian, and I don’t miss it very much.
Johns daughter was vegan when she lived here.. i know what you mean! c
Cinders, we are finally back from Mich. and flying over the midwest really gives you an idea of how many huge tracts of land have been industrialized…is that a word? You having taken back your small parcel and turning it back into a healthy, productive, living, piece of earth is nothing short of wonderful and amazing! Was it just an abandoned farm when you and your John started your lives together there, or was it their farm that you have so beautifully transformed?
I’m making your custard this week-end but with pears like you mentioned because we have so many right now…It looks delicious!!
fantastic, you should have told me i would have waved!! this was an old farmhands cottage, family owned, John had lived here 13 years .. alone.. before I came, so you can imagine! c
[…] was just telling my friend Celi that nothing apart form herbs, a fig and some roses can grow in a little super-heated, south […]
I can’t help smiling when I see a sunflower. You remind me of a sunflower yourself, Miss C.
What I can’t understand is why fruit trees around here (suburbia) aren’t really producing healthy fruits. For instance, a peach tree on the corner, a pear tree next door, they drop generally rotten fruit. How is it your fruits and vegetables are so beautiful AND edible. Are they all pest-free?
No , we certainly are not pest free, organic is never pest free, I wonder why they are not fruiting, lack of water? hmm, that is a mystery.. c
You are doing really well so far. Do you store potatoes for the winter? We have to harvest ours and figure out how to store them as we planted quite a bit compared to last year. Parsnips out of the garden is the best way. So good. I hated parsnips until we started growing them. A huge difference!
I would love to store potatoes in the basement if I could grow enough.. but it gets so hot, and potatoes hate hot feet! c
We don’t have that problem in our basement but I do worry about mice or other critters. Need to figure it out as we are starting to harvest as we go now.
Don’t the herbs go CRAZY when in the ground? I hate to kill a happy plant, but I have enough Oregano and Sage to supply most of my town. I’m happy-ish to see that the one plant I have that is ahead of yours is my sunflowers! Tho it seems my first-bloomed has gone mouldy and not to seed, poo – I was looking forward to feasting the birds on the seed-head when winter comes.
Oh! I forgot, I was going to ask if almond trees would grow in your zone? We usually do low-to-no carb and almond flour works nearly as good as wheat, especially for sweet pies. Fab with apple or pumpkin, anyway!
miserably almonds make my throat itch and then swallowing gets hard to do, so I do tend to stay clear of them, but I love the smell of them.. c
Oh, poo! I was just asking my son if anything bothers him like that, because walnuts and blue cheese make my tongue itch! Explaining that feeling to someone who’s never felt it is nearly impossible! That’s a real shame, I use ground almond as a replacement for breadcrumbs in so many things 😦
I use flax seed flour as my replacement, no itchy tongue and muddled talk! I understand the feeling, it is not nice!
We are with you in spirit in your Sept challenge – I have just been loving the comments and contributions from the Farmy Lounge. While it’s not a challenge, in any sense of the word, we also a month or so ago, made a few changes to our habits so that farmers market produce is our predominant source of food, we’re eating up the freezer & pantry stash, making home made pizzas on a Friday night instead of getting takeaway, eating in instead of out, taking more lunches to work than ever – every day if we can… and we feel great and are so happy to have shrugged off the last of the illusions & apathy that had us patronizing supermarkets. Last weekend, for the first time ever, I turned 2 kgs tomatoes into crockpot tomato sauce with basil, garlic and onions inspired by your posts. It’s taken not much effort at all develop a new routine. The rewards are fantastic, and we are living better for less cost. An unexpected bonus of our increased DIY food efforts is the G.O. my partner, now is more involved in food prep, and spending time next each other at the kitchen bench. So, a huge thank you to you and the Farmy Commenters for helping me see how possible & desirable it is 🙂
Well that is just stunning, i feel a little tearful actually. kitchens do bring people together and the money you can save by taking your lunch to work is astronomical not to mention the health benefits.. I love that you think that the Fellowship and i have had an influence but i think you were well on your way. You are clever and so kind. Just that wild book you sent me says you love food! Anyone who loves real food is SO ahead of the game already! I bet your crock pot sauce is divine.. that scent in the winter is so uplifting.. c
I was doing a lot of reading and not much else… seeing it in action, people living it is what made the difference 🙂
Sounds like the challenge is going wonderfully, how about growing chickpeas for flour? Here the flour of ground chickpeas is called besan but I think it is also called gram in other places. I think it will grow in your area, it is then dried and ground.
A wee update on the piglets, they are now just over one month old and doing really well I think. However Baby has got a touch of the Charlottes going on. She has not become aggro just very pushy around feed time. Additionally she is getting out of places, again at feeding time, although so far she is respecting the electric fence. I have a quiet large pen where she and her little ones reside with fences made from roofing sheets that must be about 80cm high, I usually let her out into the bigger electirfied pen to feed but last night she plopped straight over the top of that and into her much larger electrified when I was bringing her her dinner. She tore a bit of the metal and was very lucky I think not to tear her teats, anyway only thing I can think to do with that is put some barb around the stop stop her. She has also taken against the dog, last week she broke into the garden then had fight with him poor old fella. It is making life very difficult and a bit stressful. One more week and she is back off to see the Boar so the babies can be weaned and the boys will be desexed. I am hoping that after weaning she will not be so food focused (she cannot be hungry I am feeding her too much for that and physically she is fine) or bored or whatever and she will calm down somewhat. I will have to wait to see because she is really to big to have around if she is going to be this pushy all of the time.
yeah.. barbed wire won’t stop her.. might be dangerous.. I left the piglets too long on Charlotte, maybe your Baby is ready to wean them, if they are strong and eating you can wean them from four weeks on (so i read) . (i went 8 .. WAY too long) and castrate those boys asap, the bigger they get the harder they are to hold and it hurts more. She is a good sow though, she has brought though all those piglets. I would wean them tomorrow, she wants out. All those babies can wear a girl down. When I weaned them i enticed Charlotte away, very fast, right out the back with a bucket of feed where it was quiet. She was gone before she knew it. Once she got some quiet she settled down a little. They do get big. Do you feel brave. i feel brave sometimes raising pigs! c
Darling, you are a STAR. All power to you, you’re doing so well! xx
Morning celia! c
Do you enough tomatoes left for a tomato sauce from the 1939 edition of the Edmonds cookbook?
OH YES! I have piles still coming, and I am sure this teensy weensy cold snap will only be for the week. I would love to make a tomato sauce from a recipe made when all the vegetables were organic! Do you have a link?.. c
I inherited al the matriarchs cookbooks……..no-one in NZ wanted them.
are they all MAD!?..c
Well I think so yes! The Edmonds cookbook has the spine neatly taped and tied with a lovely blue ribbon.
I send you my favourites with a little comment about each. Hope you enjoy.
I have another oak seedling growing; I’m so pleased. On looking up the oak for you I found it was on endangered list; the lowest risk category fortunately.
Your apple custard pie looks divine. I’m glad you’re learning to make the farmy more manageable and sustaining. The bees look happy. Love the sunflowers!
Sunflowers are the essence of happiness..do you think? I just smile when i see them. c
Well, you are learning as time passes: what works, what does not and how to improve your self sufficiency year by year ~ must feel SO good!Perchance this time next year the whole family will be willing to go along . . . 🙂 ! Love those sunflowers also and stupidly wonder how you use them . . . ?
sunflower seeds for all the birds.. and the bees like them too!..morning eha darling girl.. c
It all sounds so healthy, as well as sustainable. I love the photo of the bee with golden wings, zooming in to the sugar water. Congratulations on a successful challenge: it’s certainly been a good trial run.
i love it all. we RV travel, so you see how it is. ;-0. My favorite is the bees……
Do you have little pots of herbs in your RV.. I have always wondered if they would grow in a travelling environment.. c