1.)Plant a garden.
I'll use flower beds and flower pots to start and raised beds for this purpose as it progresses.
I figure I can grow flowers or I can grow food. I have lots of flowers and it's time to replace them with somethig that will be useful to my family for more than astetics - food to sustain us.
Here are some blogs that will help me.
I think it would be wonderful to have my back yard look like the yard of this house. There are many blogs about homesteading that have good information about what worked for them.
There used to be the Victory Garden, why have things changed? We could all use a little garden to help with our food costs. Wouldn't it be nice to eat a salad that you grew of fresh veggies or fruit? Heck, even Mrs. Obama is growing a garden at the White House!
A couple years ago I wanted more shade trees in the back yard so I planted fruit trees. So far I have gotten minimal fruit from them, (around a dozen pieces) but surely that will increase over time and as the trees age they will produce more fruit.
I have wild strawberries and onions that grow as part of my backyard grass. Instead of mowing them down, I will cultivate them and use them as food this year.
I have picked and eaten the strawberries in the past.
They don't produce very many but they sure are sweet.
2.)Learn to can food.
All kinds of foods, not just make jelly.
During the aftermath of hurricane Ike, there wasn't much of a selection of eats. For weeks there were no stores open, no gas stations working to buy gas to drive around in search of rumored-to-be-open stores some 20 miles away.
Red Cross canned chili and ravioli gets really old really fast and there was no fruit, bread or milk. It kept us alive ..... but had I had a stash of canned fruits and veggies stored on upper shelves so as to avoid the flood, we could have eaten those and had fruits, veggies and better-for-us foods.
No electricity at my house for 12 weeks and no running water for 4.
Canned foods don't need refrigeration and dashboard sunshine heated the canned chili just fine.
We've had Ozarka delivering water for years, so we had plenty of clean drinking water. A healthier selection of food is something I can provide and I want to learn how THIS YEAR.
I have a lot to learn about native fruits and vegetables. What will grow best in my climate and what to plant for each season. I already know we can grow Satsuma fairly easily. There are huge grapefruit trees just 3 blocks from my house and nearly everybody grows tomato and peppers around here. Squash grew in a side flower bed last year, all on it's own and pumpkin grew in the jack-o-lantern spot one year from a few seeds that accidentally got planted.
The yard has the potential and has been hinting at me - It's up to me to be a gardner, I guess.
3.)Get organized.
With less clutter, this should be easier to implement than it has been in the past. A house that was full-to-running-over made it near impossible to get things de-cluttered and organized in years past. For 2010 we are starting out with lots less and are insistent on keeping less as the rule we live by. It'll certainly mean having less to throw out in case of another flood and it will be less to keep track of, less to find a place for, less clutter. (Have you seen the Hoarder show?!?!)
Hopefully with less to organize, organization will finally happen.
It'll take some work to make it part of my routine, but it's a goal I want to accomplish.
Lots of changes coming for my family in 2010. Lots of things done differently than in past years. Probably lots of trial and error but there will be lots of learning along the way.
It's what keeps us young.
~*~
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