01 July 2025

The Vegetable Challenge has begun

A kitchen counter with a white bowl filled with mixed green marinated vegetables, next to a small brass weighing bowl filled with lettuce leaves and a small pile of green flat podded peas on a chopping board.  There is a wire bowl of onions and garlic, an old fashioned bakers scales and a few jars, knives and kitchen cloths behind
The makings of a salad, June 2025

Official start date:  21 June, 2025.  Official end date:  21 January 2026.  

Rules:

  • No vegetables to be bought during the Challenge--with the exception of onions.  
  • "Salad" fruits such as cucumber/tomatoes/etc, are allowed but highly discouraged and will be noted.  No restriction on non-salad fruits (apples, bananas, etc).  
  • Vegetables obtained for free, i.e., gifts/trades/foraged/etc are allowed, so long as no money is exchanged.  Vegetables bought before the start of the Challenge are allowed.

A large green-blue pointed cabbage to the centre with a bolting light green lettuce to the left;  both are growing under bird netting;  there are leaves of other plants around the perimeter
Greyhound cabbage nearly ready (butterhead lettuce past ready!), June 2025
My last Challenge unofficially lasted seven months, but only officially reached the six month mark;  I am setting it for seven months again--hoping to extend it longer actually--but will leave seven months as the goal.  I feel this should be achievable--and I hope eight months or even the full 12 will be too.  I will do my best to keep on growing and preserving up to and beyond the official end date.
A small garden bed with short rows of cabbage alternating with lettuce, both growing under netting.  There are other vegetable plants growing in rows both parallel and perpendicular, with a few flowers interspersed
Packing it in: cucumber at the very back, then courgette, cabbage and lettuce;  spring onion at the bottom left, June 2025
I think I could have started this Challenge a lot earlier this year actually--we've been eating garden/allotment veg almost exclusively, barring some seasonal produce bought crazy cheap (£0.09 per kilo?!) at Christmas and Easter, which we mainly either froze or fermented for later use.  I'm now freezing and fermenting my own seasonal produce too.  Let's go!

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