My Self Sustainability Challenge

As requests to join Gael Glen's Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program roll in, I remain undecided about whether my child care responsibilities are going to permit me to run one for the 2019 season.  As I continue to ponder, I have adopted a new farm related challenge for myself for the spring and summer months.  Whether this will be in addition to, or instead of, a CSA program remains to be decided.

I am interested in pushing myself to get closer to being a self-sustainable homestead.  My requests for a dairy cow continue to be denied, so we will never be completely self-reliant.  However, since it is so easy to become lazy or distracted, I have decided to formally challenge myself to do better in the area of self-sustainability, particularly in relation to the food we eat and grow.

From March 1 to October 1, 2019, I am going to reduce the amount and variety of foods that I purchase for my household from the grocery store.  Specifically, I am going to eliminate all processed or highly refined foods from our grocery cart. I know that these terms can be ambiguous and triggering for some, but I simply mean moving away from the chips, granola bars, sugary oatmeal packets, store bought cookies, crackers and baked goods, candy and chocolate, soda, store bought ice cream and popsicles, hot dogs, chicken fingers, french fries, school snacks like pudding cups and bear paws, sugary cereal, sugary yogurt, taco shells, cake and pudding mixes, canned soups and salsa, processed cheese slices, Kraft dinner, Zoodles, maple beans, salad dressings, etc.  We do not eat a ton of this stuff but we certainly eat some of it.

For the next several months, I am going to focus on shopping for the raw ingredients that will enable us to eat as much as possible from our gardens, freezers, and pantry.   For example, we will continue to buy milk, cream, butter, plain yogurt and cheese.  From this I can make our own favoured yogurt, creme fraiche and buttermilk as needed.  We will buy flour, bran and oatmeal to make homemade bread, baked goods, etc.  I will eliminate buying sugar (until it is time to feed the bees, of course) and use honey and maple syrup instead.  All meat will come from our freezers.

We will continue to buy fruit that we cannot grow or that is not in season (our boys eat lots of this healthy food) but I will limit buying vegetables in order to focus on eating those that we have grown ourselves.  Every year we grow much more than we use but we have never really focused on meal planning to use the maximum amount of what we grow.  I want to try to eat as much of what we actually produce as possible.  So, if we have peas in the garden that are ready to eat, I will not buy corn on the cob from the store to eat instead, for example.  Even if it looks so golden and juicy and delicious...note to self: plant lots of sweet corn.

This leads into the second component of my challenge: I want to commit to engaging in staggered plantings.  Instead of planting for volume this year, I want to prioritize continuity.  This will ensure a continuous supply of a variety of vegetables for the duration of our growing season.  It is so easy to just plant one huge plot of peas on May 24th and then buy peas from the store before these are ready to harvest and after the harvest is over.  This year, I do not want to buy peas.  Instead, I want to plant a row of peas every week or two throughout the season to ensure a continuous supply.  This sounds easy enough but I know from experience that it is difficult to both leave garden space unplanted at the beginning of the growing season and to keep up the continuous planting all season long.

It is my hope that this self sustainability challenge will motivate me to make healthier choices when grocery shopping as well as to keep up with the planting as the season progresses.  This will hopefully result in healthier meals for my family, reduced grocery bills, and the opportunity to move closer to a self-sufficient farm/homestead.  As with anything farm-related, I expect that this challenge will be a lot of work but who knows when I will have the chance to try something like this again.

What do you think?  Does this sound doable?  Did I miss something?   I am open to suggestions or advice regarding the tenets of my self-sustainability challenge as outlined here.  If anyone else is interested in undertaking this challenge with me - let me know!  Sharing recipes and meal plans or comparing grocery receipts could be very motivating.  Here's to pushing myself to be better and do better.

No potato chips?  Boo.