Today I signed up for this great little challenge on the web called the Back 2 Basics challenge. It is to simply get people growing AND preserving their own produce. They are calling the challengers “Harvest Keepers”.
By being a HARVEST KEEPER you are
- Providing nutritious food for your family
- Ensuring food security
- Improving quality of life
- Saving money
- Reducing food miles, fuel & energy dependence
- Reducing excessive packaging and effects of climate change”
The challenge also encourages you to keep a record of your harvest and how you preserve it. I thought this was a great idea as keeping a record of your harvest can help you plan next year’s garden.
I liked the idea of recording the preserved harvest so much that I decided to make up some charts to help me keep track of what I actually preserve this year. I ended up making two charts and I am including them at the end of this post for anyone that is interested in them and would like to use them. They are in Adobe format so you will need that to read them.
The first chart is to simply help me keep track of what I harvest, when I harvested it, what I did to preserve it, and finally how much I ended up with. The second chart is to keep track of the preserved harvest.
To use the second chart I will write what item was preserved in the left hand column. The boxes to the right of the item signify one preserve. So for example if I made 8 pints of blackberry jam I would shade in 8 boxes. As we eat the jam I will put an X in the box to show that it was eaten. I think this chart will really help to show what we actually consume of our harvest throughout the year.
One of the reasons we put in another vegetable garden this year was because we want to try to consume only what we grow and lessen what we buy at the market. This challenge goes right in line with what we are striving to do in our home. Hopefully I will learn a lot this year about what we actually consume so next year I will be even more ready for the harvest.
Hope everyone has a productive harvest this year! Happy Gardening!
Preserve Charts
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Thank you for the heads up on the Harvest Keeper challenge!! Our family just signed up as well. Your charts rock, too…I’m printing them right now!
Stephanie- Glad you found this post helpful. Thanks so much for the compliment on the charts- I wasn’t too sure if I should post them or not!
That would be an easy challenge for me, except the keeping track part. Some years I can do it, but this year I just can’t make myself keep track of anything.