Challenges abound

I'm participating again this year in Sharon Astyk's Independence Day Challenge. This is her third year of hosting this challenge. I joined in quite late the first year but participated fully the second, although I have been pretty lax about posting updates this winter.

The challenge is fairly simple. You report on your progress toward Independence using 7 categories:

1. Plant something- this is pretty self explanatory.

2. Harvest something- again- pretty obvious.

3. Preserve something

4. Waste not- reducing food waste and waste of other resources

5. Want not- non-food preparations. I was pleased to find that you can even count those really good craigslist deals that you score or repurposing items.

6. Build community food systems- getting involved!

7. Eat the food- YUMMY.

I've also been meaning to post about my participation in another challenge hosted by Melinda at One Green Generation.

I'm kicking it up to the extreme edition. The rules here?

1. Grow at least 3 crops from seed- No problem here!

2. Plant the seeds in 3 other people- here for me is the real challenge. The goal is to inspire three other people to grow food from seeds. Unfortunately, most of the other people I know already garden- at least a little. I'm going to have to work at this one.

3. Share your progress in challenge check-ins.

and for the extreme edition:

4. Make it 'seed to seed'.

I was thinking about the Real Food Challenge. But that is something I already work on and I've got a lot on my plate right now so I may give it a pass this year.

Now, to just remember to report in on both of these challenges on a regular basis.