Garden Challenge

[patience]

Saw this on another forum and liked the idea.

Can you make a meal out of what is in your garden NOW? Salt, pepper, and misc. ingredients normally found in the kitchen, I'll overlook. Got small livestock you could eat? On the hoof is okay--I'm assuming you know how to get from there to the table. Veggies? Wild plants? Herbs/wild greens?

We could come up with an old hen to boil/bake, some eggs, kale, chard, cabbage, onions, a green pepper, sage and other herbs, mint for tea, dry field corn to grind for meal/cornbread/dressing (yup, got a grinder). I think we could make supper tonight, a breakfast omelot, maybe catch a fish or two for lunch tomorrow and have chicken soup for supper tomorrow.

What can you find on your place, or nearby to eat RIGHT NOW? I'm not digging into the preps for this, just what is on hand from the outdoors at the moment.

[shannaredwind]

Well, there's not too much left in the actual garden we can eat. Everything has pretty much frosted off. We got our killer frost about 2 weeks ago.

There is still some broccoli, more then we could eat in a meal. Probably about 50 heads of cabbage we have yet to cut. There are a couple of hills of volunteer potatoes that we never bothered to dig, but I don't expect there's much under them and there are a few in some drowned out rows. There is also a field of matured snap beans that we could take beans from and cook up in soup or whatever. I do have mint growing in various places for tea and it's possible there's a couple of wild apples on trees and some hickory nuts around.

I'm not sure if it counts, but since our garden had to be taken in, I'll include stuff that's in our cellar. We have about 12 bushels of squash and at least 500 pounds of potatoes, a basket of hot peppers and 10 stalks of brussel sprouts. (We're market gardeners-hence the huge amount of squash and potatoes...they're the last of what we're selling off)

We could add boiled cabbage to the meal as well.. or a cabbage salad, but only if we could use the dressing, I have nothing else we could use.

We could have some squash soup or baked squash with maple syrup (does that count as from the garden? We produce it, but in Feb and March)

Boiled brussel sprouts or broccoli with salt and pepper would be good (with butter too would be better, if that counts as misc.

I've never done up the beans from the field, so I don't know how they taste, but I know they are edible and we could eat them if pressed.

So, we would be good for all the food groups, but we have a complete lack of meat or eggs. I suppose we could catch a fish, but I hesitate to eat fish out of the river near our house.

If I don't use anything from the cellar- We'd be eating the dry beans, broccoli, cabbage and a few really little potatoes from the volunteers and a few stray plants in a couple of rows that drowned out and we didn't bother to dig. Unsweetened mint tea and maybe a scabby wild apple for dessert.

[remembergoliad]

Right now, I think we'd have a couple of very small radishes, a few leaves of spinach, a pair of squirrels (if I could trap 'em) and some rose-hip tea.

Contrary to what son believes, the pizza plants haven't even started bearing yet

[patience]

Well, right now the only thing out in the garden is some kale that wintered over and some small Egyptian (walking) onions. But the pantry is full, so I guess that counts in winter. That is how it's done for self reliance, anyway, right?

When I was kid (long time ago--right after dirt was invented), we used to look over our meal and see how much of it we had to buy at the store. It wasn't much, usually. Salt, pepper, coffee, flour (had wheat, but didn't grind it for ourselves), sugar, and that was about it. We had a milk cow back then, so all the dairy stuff was provided and had chickens and pigs, so bacon or ham and eggs for breakfast was always there.

No cow now, but we do have chickens, and I have a welding shop, which in our neck of the woods means I can trade for just about any farm produce we need. It is the community that really counts, IMHO. Our neighbor grows sorghum cane and I am rebuilding a cane press. When he gets the boiling setup finished, then together we can make sorghum syrup without him having to hire the processing done. I grow my own tobacco and roll cigarettes from that. Even made a couple cob pipes, too. Grew some mint to add to the smokes because I liked the menthol variety.

We are working toward more self reliance, but taking it a step at a time. The wood stove I built is going now so the heat bill is really low.

What else do you produce, or do for yourself? Sewing? Canning? Solar? Wood heat? Alternative cooking means?

[crf78112]

Today would be a good day to eat out of the garden here. Got squash, potatoes, tomatoes, sweet peppers, chilies, jalapenos, green beans, corn, and collards right now. Watermelon or cantaloupe for dessert. Got chicken, rabbit or squab for meat.
A little slow now but getting the fall garden ready now.

[seraphima]

Interesting idea, this thread, especially in January here in SW Alaska! We do have kale, rutabagas, celery and chard in the ground and ready to pick. Chives, sage, mint, thyme, blooming pansy flowers (for salad), and could dig up some of the garlic cloves planted for harvest next summer. Wild greens include purslane, some hardy dandelion leaves hiding here and there, and sorrel. Fish out of the ocean not far away. Deer coming in to eat the kale. Seaweed, baidarkis and other beach weeds and animal edibles. Rose hips still on the bushes, plus some currants. Comfrey root and horseradish in the ground. Oh, and in a pinch, the tulip bulbs are edible too.

[seraphima]

Sorry, dupe.