Supermarket-free challenge in its last month
Home » Blog » Six Months » Supermarket-free challenge in its last monthWith less than a month to go on their six month supermarket-free challenge, Rachel de Lacey and Will Tong must be starting to think about the finish line. Is the supermarket calling?
Photo by Sonya Lethbridge
With the road side stalls drying up of the mid-summer crops, and the energy levels not so high, Rachel admits that there were a few times during the school holidays when she found herself looking somewhat longingly at the supermarket signs as she drove past.
“I kept wishing I could go in and buy cheese, toilet paper, crackers and a bottle of cheap Australian red,” she says. “And although I managed to curb my supermarket craving, it made me really think about whether I would want to go back to the supermarket once the six months is up.”
But whether or not the family returns to supermarket shopping when their challenge finishes, they've been so busy with the harvest season that they haven’t had much time to think about it.
“We’ve been stocking up for the winter months and it’s very satisfying. It’s easy to become out of touch with that feeling, but it feels so good, like putting savings in the bank for later. I know that the whole family will appreciate the ritual of opening a bottle of feijoas in the middle of winter,” says Rachel.
The last month has been primarily spent harvesting and storing things, and their cupboards are now full of preserved tomatoes, peaches, feijoas, as well as jams, chutneys, and apple butter. Their freezer is stocked with extra fruit and meat, and their firewood baskets are stocked with pinecones.
Unfortunately, their harvest from their garden was not as copious as they had hoped, as their large crop of tomatoes was attacked by a disease and they lost a lot of the yield they had been relying on for bottling. But the family has been determined to make the most of local harvests. To bulk up their tomato-bottling they visited a commercial pick-your-own tomato garden, where they scored tomatoes for $1 a kilo.
They've kept a constant eye out for bargains and have made sure to follow up on any offers from friends to come and pick their excess fruit. “We froze a whole lot of plums that we picked off a friend’s tree in summer, and bottled bulk seconds peaches that we bought for $1 a kilo,” says Rachel.
The next blog will be the last in the series following the deLacey-Tong family and their supermarket-free challenge. Check in to hear how the family celebrates the end of the six-month challenge, and to hear whether they will be gracing the aisles of the supermarket from June 1st.
Rachel and Will’s tips for stocking up for winter
- Fruit doesn’t need to be preserved with sugar. You can add the sugar later if you feel the fruit needs it, but many fruit are sweet enough without (once your taste buds have adapted!)
- Put bottling time onto your year planner. Bottling takes time, and often we forget to factor it in
- Don’t aim to bottle everything at first. Bottle the things you love, starting out small if you are new to bottling
- Freeze fruit to make into jam at a later date (especially once the weather has cooled—making jam in the middle of winter is much more pleasant than in the heat of late summer)
- Have preserving working-bees with your friends to make a tiring job into a fun social activit
Tue May 25, 2010 @ 03:08 PM
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