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Friday, March 29, 2013

April Challenge...

I fellow crew member of Starship Earth posted this...I'm not taking credit for it, but we here at ECO-Tours fully support the effort. (I will try my best not to edit or editorialize too much.)
Welcome to the Local Harvest Challenge
Monday 1st April – Sunday 7th April (If you read this later, just choose a week and start!) 

Great to have you join up for the Local Harvest Challenge! (encourage family and friends as well.)
I’m looking forward to a week of discoveries as we get to know more of the story behind the things we eat. This week is about reducing the distance our food has traveled to come to us, but also about meeting the faces behind our food. Let’s support local growers and help build up a great (safe and resilient) food system.
For some of us, we’ll be buying in a different way this week, for others it will mean learning some skills to do things ourselves in a new way.
So what’s your challenge? (pick just one or several from those listed below...as you learn and grow, try another, then keep adding. They are all worth giving a try!)
1. Don’t use the supermarkets this week – shop at local independent grocers, butchers and delis.
2. Shop at a farmers’ market.
3. Source farm-gate produce. (direct farmer to consumer)
4. Shop at a local food coop, buy in bulk, take your own containers. (If you have no co-op available, buy something in bulk and split it among friends or family.)
5. Harvest and eat food from your own garden. (Because many of us are in the Northern Hemisphere, try sprouting in the cupboard. Don't forget to use organic, untreated seeds or beans.)
6. Eat (at least) 5 Servings of Local, Organic fruit & veggies per day.
7. Cook with seasonal produce.
8. Make yogurt. (it is fun and great for kids to learn about bio-phyllic bacteria!)
9. Compost your kitchen scraps. (We only avoid commercial banana peels because of the fungicide)
10. Start a worm farm.
11. Visit a local community garden.
12. Start an herb box or mini-plot. (can be a single pot on the porch, or something more in the garden)
13. Find out more about and try food preserving – bottling, drying, freezing.
14. Find out about Urban bee-keeping. (This is really awesome and educational.)
15. Like Local Harvest on facebook, or follow us on Twitter.
16. Join a relevant community network. (such as a permaculture group, transition initiative, seed savers network, slow food group or local ecological organization like ECO-Tours of Wisconsin.)
17. Read a relevant book.
18. Ask your local cafe' for their coffee grounds for your garden compost.
19. Ask your local grocer, deli or favorite cafe' to include more local produce.

In preparation, we encourage you to complete the Food Choices Audit here. There’s a spreadsheet to assist in documenting what you presently buy and where it comes from.
I’ll be in touch shortly with details on how you can blog your experiences. (since this is from elsewhere, I will not be following up with you, but...)You can see blogs from last year’s challenge here, (Local Harvest) and who is participating in this 2013 Challenge week on the map.
Thanks for coming on board, and making a difference with your food choices!
Cheers, Nick

Nick Ray
Local Harvest, project co-ordinator
nick@localharvest.org.au
0417 114 492
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You are receiving this because (ECO-Tours of Wisconsin encourages you to...) you’re doing (do) the Local Harvest Challenge. Yum!
If you want to make a difference (just for yourself or to the world); want to encourage children, neighbors and community to get involved; have a local business that could benefit from more customers finding out about your commitment OR just for fun, this is a great challenge to get involved with (share with your contacts, customers, school, etc). We are happy to be a part of this challenge. You might like to find out what it is all about, too. Go to: http://www.localharvest.org.au/take-the-challenge/.

Thank-you, BetR2 (fellow blogger) this is an important step toward sustainability. The time has come to grow toward the light, begin to transition and embrace Permaculture, ECO-Ethics, Trees.

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