Surviving the hungry gap

As you know, I started the Vegetable Challenge pretty early this year, at the beginning of April and the hungry gap.  The hungry gap is when the winter veg and stores are running out but the new season crops aren't yet producing:  a problematic time to be focusing on self reliance.  We have food restrictions here in this house, and trying to achieve the Vegetable Challenge on top of that is, well, challenging.

We eat low carb, which mainly means we get our carbohydrates from vegetable/fruit sources.  It's helpful to get a good portion of our calories from them too, as they are cheaper than meat/dairy/etc.  During the last few summers/autumns it has been fairly straightforward to produce plenty of calories from the garden (though to be fair, overall it's not been the majority of our calories).  On the other hand, trying to do so during the hungry gap this spring has been difficult.

All of the recent fresh veg have been good, and very welcome, but mainly they aren't very filling.  If we had to survive off our own produce alone right now, we'd be pretty hungry.  Daily we've had enough eggs and greens for breakfast and a salad, some celery to flavor a stew, plus small harvests of purple sprouting broccoli and leeks to add interest once or twice a week.  My stores are down to the last jar of salsa and a small jar each of plum jam and apple jelly.  We still have plenty of cider though, so even if we were starving, at least we'd be happy.

I hope we are soon to ease out of the hungry gap with the start of the broad beans and peas;  I'm so looking forward to something a bit more substantial than all these leafy greens.