Bread loaves baked:

68

Harvested from the garden:

fresh herbs
lavender, roses, jasmine
15 radishes
13 bowls of spinach/lettuce
15 stalks of rhubarb
6 bunches swiss chard
32 baby potatoes
25 potatoes
22 shallots
9 onions
9 bunches of broccoli
492 strawberries
53 handfuls of peas
371 raspberries
51 carrots
9 heads purple cauliflower
11 beets
345 blueberries
12 zucchini
467 cherry tomatoes
43 tomatoes
23 handfuls of blackberries
25 cups of beans
20 cucumbers
35 brussel sprouts
5 spaghetti squash
1 mystery squash
2/3 cup dried beans (turtle and speckled bay)
2 pumpkins
1 artichoke

Pounds decluttered:

445+5 boxes of books to be weighed

Canning

(500 ml = 1 pint; 250 ml = 1/2 pint, approx)

  • 7 x 500 ml; 1 x 250 ml jars bread & butter pickles (cucumber)
  • 2 x 500 ml jars bread & butter pickles (cucumber & purple cauliflower)
  • 3 x 500 ml jars pickled beets
  • 3 x 500 ml; 1 x 250 ml jars raspberry jam
  • 6 x 500 ml; 1 x 250 ml jars raspberry/strawberry jam
  • 6 x 500 ml; 1 x 250 ml jars strawberry jam
  • 5 x 500 ml jars strawberry/rhubarb jam

What was the plan again?

For one year, I was going to try to grow/ pick / bake / cook / preserve / prepare / invent as much of our food locally as possible. On a small city lot (33 x 122 feet) I wanted to tear up the grassy front yard and convert it to an edible garden. In the back yard, I wanted to plant most of two huge new beds with edibles, in addition to the existing 9′ x 12′ garden plot.

On other fronts, I aimed to shop locally more – from farmers’ markets to U-pick berry farms – to spend my dollars consciously and conscientiously.

I also wanted to start simplifying by getting rid of the piles of stuff that were breeding in the darkness of our basement – at least 500 lbs of it. This was (partly) in preparation for the greatly anticipated renovation-that-didn’t-happen-at-least-not-yet.

How it went

Many things were planted and some grew (see above and harvest) and I baked a ton of bread. Hit the U-pick farms for strawberries and raspberries (i missed out on the blueberries this year) and made jam and attempted some pickles. Managed to build boxes (with neighbourly input) for my raised garden beds, which ended up being 5 in number, including one on the side of the house. Go me!

Didn’t get the front lawn dug up and planted – in fact, it looks worse than ever. Didn’t sew a thing – not one single thing – and i’m still working on the second of two socks i started knitting in 2007. I did plant some fruit trees and things (asparagus, herb garden, artichokes, banana plants) for the longer-term (edible and aesthetic), and these will all hopefully make it through our unseasonably snowy winter.

I tried a bunch of things that didn’t work, and a few that did. I have a long way to go still. This is complicated by whether or not we will stay in our house for the long-term. One way or another, we’ll figure it out in 2009!