Today, May 24, is National Scavenger Hunt Day! If you like hunts, but aren’t participating in a real-life hunt today, here’s a fun way go on a scavenger hunt in your imagination…with my middle-grade chapter book, The Secret Astoria Scavenger Hunt!
The story opens with…
“The human skeleton dangled from an invisible cord beneath a clear floor panel, light from the nearby fireplace flickering on the top of its skull…”
So where do The Goonies come in?
I dreamed up the story when I was in Astoria, Oregon, for The GooniesAnniversary Celebration. Here’s the whole story, with lots of photos of my inspirations, from my Scavenger Hunt Day post last year…
Now how about a garden scavenger hunt? If you’re growing your own food, scavenging in your garden will make your crops healthier and more productive!
I’ve talked a lot here about using lots of mulch and compost in your food growing areas. And more here about mulching…As you see, compost and mulch are actually the magic ingredients for raising food without chemicals!
Materials for mulching can be easily found with a garden scavenger hunt… leaves from deciduous trees; crop foliage, and grass clippings from untreated lawns (no moss-killer, herbicides or fertilizer).
Having a property in the woods, I’m big on harvesting brackenfern to lay on my beds. One thing I started doing last year: pulling out dandelions (without seed heads) and placing them around my blueberry shrubs. My shrubs have never looked healthier!
When it comes to compost, you can get creative too! A Scottish homesteader I follow (in Scotland, they call a homesteady property a “croft”) uses kitchen waste and wood chips just like I do. But as she lives on the coast, she uses seaweed and rushes as well. Seaweed makes a really nourishing mulch too!
My free ebook, Little Farm in the Garden has an entire chapter about mulch and compost—I hope you’ll take a look… You’ll find the free ebook at Amazon, the Apple Store, Kobo and all other ebook retailers!
Wishing you lots of fun as you scavenge in your garden!
