Update of Square Foot Garden

Posted on September 24, 2015 by Sheila

This summer we have spent a lot of energy updating and expanding our square foot garden. I am excited that at the end of September we are still enjoying some of it’s benefits. Our large tomatoes have all died except for one plant that is actually laying on the ground, however the cherry and grape tomatoes are still going strong. We have plenty to snack on and I am still freezing some, usually once a week.

A couple of weeks ago, on a whim, I decided to try my hand at fall planting. I picked up 9 cabbage plants and 9 lettuce plants.

I was able to pull a couple of leaves last week to use on a salad last week and plan to use some for my lunch tomorrow.

Since I was not sure how these, the cabbage, would turn out, I decided to plant 4 in a bed with soil that I had purchased locally and 5 in a bed of “Mel’s Mix” which cost with shipping $18 a bag , but is recommended in “Square Foot Gardening.”

These are in “regular” soil.

Mel’s mix

As you can tell there is a huge difference. But does it justify over $10 a bag?? I should also clarify that these are located side by side so the only difference is soil.

After removing the corn stalks, we are suddenly growing peppers.

Finally, this is the part of the garden that I am most excited about….sweet potatoes.

The purple blooms have started this week and with hopefully a month left of growing. I can hardly wait to see what we harvest when it is time to dig up the potatoes.

Labor Day Project

Posted on September 7, 2015 by Sheila

The project for today was to finishing “reclaiming” the old deck wood at the edge of our yard, check out more of the story here.

Our square foot garden did not produce the corn we had hoped for this year and one of the reasons that we think may have been part of the problem was the amount of “shade” our bed was getting. So a perfect use of this wood was to make a separate “corn” bed in direct sunlight with no shade. Next up I really wanted to add a second layer to the beds we had previously built and ran out of wood. Matt and I spent all morning working on building the box, then after yet another trip to Lowes, it is finished. I am really pleased with the results and officially declare the square foot garden finished!

You can see how the shade is covering parts of the garden in the above pictures.
I did go ahead and purchase an additional 8 bags of dirt that I will use once we have harvested all the pepper, lettuce, cabbage, and tomatoes to make sure we have a good soil base. The dirt was on sale for half price at Lowes so I wanted to make sure I had enough. I also decided to purchase some mums to help with my fall flowers as well. I hope they will live a nice long time as it does not appear to be “fall” anywhere in the near future according to our weather forecast.

5 Things Friday

Posted on September 4, 2015 by Sheila

1. I decided to try my hand at fall gardening, so yesterday I purchased 9 lettuce plants and 9 cabbage plants. I decided to test my “Mel’s Mix” and regular soil with the cabbage plants. I planted 4 in regular soil that I purchased at Lowes, the remaining 5 are in the “Mel’s mix” that I have to have shipped at the cost of $18 a bag. Worst case scenario nothing grows and I just wasted $7.

2. We have been extremely busy this week. My work picked up as well. Tonight is actually the first night this week that we are home. I am so tired and just want to hide out all night.

3. We spent around 2 hours yesterday in Lowes, picking up items to finish up some projects around the house. I am always amazed at what we forget each time we go.

4.The kids are out of school on Monday for Labor Day. I am covering inpatients which means that we can sleep in for the next 3 days.

5.I am planning to spend at least an hour or more enjoying my garden tub tonight!

5 Things Friday

Posted on August 21, 2015 by Sheila

1. The kids start to school on Monday. We had a meet the teacher night last night and everyone is excited. In anticipation of this we are following the school night schedule around here including bedtimes! This also means that I am trying to get some filling/quick breakfast made over the next couple of morning to help in the mornings. Did I mention that Tuesday and Friday will be the first time in 10 years that ALL my children will be in school?

2. Yesterday, was a sad day. We spent most of the day outside working in the yard and square foot garden. The reason it was so sad is that I ended up pulling up and throwing in the compost pile, about half the corn, the cucumber plants and about half of the tomato plants. We have had such a dry summer and with us being out of town last week, so no extra watering, they were dead. It was bittersweet because I was able to harvest enough corn for dinner last night and 2 small watermelon that we used for dinner today. We should continue to get a couple of tomato in daily and maybe just maybe a green pepper or so.

3. I was able to leave work on or before 5:30 every day this week and even managed to get home by 5pm this evening! I know this is hard to understand but it is a HUGE deal for me and something I plan to continue.

4.I want to spend most of tomorrow at the pool as it will only be open for 3 more weekends. I have not checked the forecast but heard it included storms.

5. I was able to get an additional 2 GB of data and $20 knocked off my Verizon bill tonight just by asking!

Saving on Sunday

Posted on July 26, 2015 by Sheila

Opps! You are right today is Sunday. I did not get much saving done yesterday because we spent most of the day enjoying the pool. Kendall had a friend in addition to Lily having a friend spend the night so I got not a lot accomplished except for spending time with the kids. I am starting to realize and trying to enjoy more time just hanging out with the little kids, I know in a flash they will be too busy to hang out! Now back to saving. I did do some shopping today, even with all three little kids in tow. Matt is working for cheerleading so I decided the sales were good enough and we needed most items.

First stop today was CVS. It has been 3 weeks since I last went to CVS, I hope they will not be having another test market of no sales ad in the near future. Today I purchased 7 bottles of shampoo, a bottle of detangle, 2 bottles of Tide free and clear, 4 bottles of body wash,2 sticks of deodorant and a battery powered toothbrush for $36 with a 65% saving, I also have 10 ECB to use in the future.

We also stopped by Aldi to grab fresh produce including cantaloupe, watermelon, grapes and cottage cheese that I need for a recipe. Total spent at Aldi was 18.47

We are continuing to get lots of tomatoes from the garden. I have managed to replenish the shelf of stewed tomatoes and discovered an awesome recipe for spaghetti sauce. I adapted it to the crockpot and hopefully will make at least a batch a week for the month of August. Currently, I am freezing in containers to make Baked Ziti with. My plan is to make 12 of these and then just freeze spaghetti sauce, even the kids say this is the best sauce they have eaten.

How did you save this month?

Sunday Menu Planning and other Random thoughts

Posted on July 5, 2015 by Sheila

I have really enjoy this 4 day break. One of the main things that has happened is that I am finally caught up. This upcoming week is a relativity slow one for us. Cheerleading is on vacation, so the kids have swim team practice each day and piano on Friday. My work is also slowing down as everyone (all 3 of us) are working this week a regular schedule so I should be able to get home early most days. As I posted earlier, we are growing the stockpile which means lots to choose from when menu planning.

Breakfast-Cereal, Poptarts, grits, toast and breakfast burritos at least one day.

Lunch- Salad (lettuce is already prepared, tomato and cucumbers from garden), sandwiches, hot dogs or left-overs. I am really encouraging Matt and the kids to eat sandwiches or left overs this week so that we can not waste any food.

Dinner– The exciting news here is that I should be able to eat most night with everyone prior to swim practice! First time all summer.

Saturday- Lunch: Potato salad, Mandarin salad, pasta salad, watermelon. Dinner- Potluck at the pool.

Sunday- Lunch- Leftovers from the week including Chinese, steak or salads from yesterday. Dinner- Pimento cheese and bacon sandwich on sour dough bread.

Monday- Grilled chicken, sides will be leftovers from the weekend.
Tuesday- Falafel in the crockpot. The plan is to wrap these up and eat at the swim meet.
Wednesday-Salisbury steak, rice and watermelon.
Thursday- Options include leftovers, shrimp or chicken nachos . (I will make the decision Wednesday night based on what the refrigerator is looking like and my mood.)
Friday- Pork chops, veggie and fruit.

With our garden in full production, the goal is to freeze a small amount each day, eat as much as we want for lunches and not waste any food!

Growing Our Stockpile

Posted on July 3, 2015 by Sheila

My primary area of focus for the month of July is going to be to grow/replenish our stockpile. The only constraint is the $700 food budget.

The rationale behind this decision has several different aspects. First, July should be the month in which our garden produces the most. Next, and more importantly is that we are running low on items that can no longer be neglected. As we made our menu list for the week, we realized that 4 of 7 meals were going to be chicken. Zaycon also notified us this week of a change in the delivery date of our ground beef order, unfortunately this is our week of vacation.

Our first stop was the “local” meat processing plant- Shuler Meats. We ended up purchasing $230 worth of meat. This may seem extremely high but in reality this meat in addition to the chicken we already have will last 3-4 months. We purchased 30# of ground beef, chicken drumsticks, NY strip Steaks, cube steak, round roast, beef stew and sausage. Looking at the numbers we have enough meat for 47 meals, that is an average of less than $5 a meal or less than $1 a person per meal. Wondering what we did with all this, glad you asked! We took 20# of the ground beef and fried it up, freezing it in 1# packs for use in many common recipes and for quick meals like tacos and hamburger helper. The other 10# we made into “Salisbury steaks”.

We have also made trips to Aldi, Costco and Food Lion in the last two days as well. Aldi had an awesome deal on blueberries so I have froze several pints of these for future use. I also purchased a couple of bags of dried beans that have been cooked and frozen. Throwing away food is the biggest waste of money in the US, so I ended up steaming and freezing spinach as well as a bag of apples that became fried apples/apple pie filling to prevent their waste.

Out of our garden, we are getting an abundance of cucumbers, I have made several batches of “cucumber relish” and discovered an awesome recipe for “refrigerator pickles” that the kids love so I currently have 3 gallons of these. Tomatoes are one of the easiest items for me, I simple dice and cook we use these for any recipe that calls for diced tomatoes, tomato sauce or stewed tomatoes. I have even been known to add seasoning to these for recipes that call for Italian style tomatoes. I am able to finish and freeze at least one batch ever couple of day.

The final and smallest way, I am growing our stockpile this month is couponing. I am determined to stick to our budget but hope to add a couple of snack foods for future list if the right sale occurs. Do you have any plans to grow your stockpile this summer?

Saving On Saturday

Posted on June 27, 2015 by Sheila

This week I have several things to share!

First up is the garden, I have already been able to make: 3 batches of Cucumber relish, most of which is frozen to be enjoyed the rest of the year. 4 bags of squash to be used for squash lasagna. 2 bags of frozen tomatoes (they first started getting ripe yesterday, so I am hoping that by the end of the week I can add 30 or more bags to my freezer. 1 gallon of pickles, we will be taste testing these to determine if I can make more or not.
We have enjoyed fresh produce almost daily with just enough squash to fry up at least once a week, green beans once a week. I know that if the temps don’t cool off soon and we start getting more rain then I am most likely at end of both cucumbers and squash but I am praying to see much improvement this week. I was so disappointed today that I ended up finding the first batch (6) green peppers that are rotten. We still have several watermelons, a cantaloupe and at least one pumpkin growing!

Next up for saving was my quick trip to CVS on Sunday. I will be really honest and say that I am becoming a little more disappointed with CVS each week. This week I purchased 3 cases of Diet coke and paid $0, out of pocket! The sale was 3 for $12, I used a free 12 pack purchased with coke points, 2 ECB from several weeks ago and the $8 remaining dollars came off a gift card that I received several weeks ago for purchasing $30 of certain products.

Finally, Harris Teeter is running a super doubles event this week. They will double all coupons up to $2, with a limit of 20 daily. I ended up spending $34.08 but saved $74 or 70%. This may sound like a high amount but I ended up with 12 boxes of Hamburger Helper, 4 boxes of Suddenly Salad,4 bottles of shampoo, 4 cans of hair spray, 2 bottles of spray gel and 2 bottle of mouse along with several other items. I am so excited because we use ALOT of hair products around here!

How are you saving money?

5 Things Friday

Posted on June 19, 2015 by Sheila

1. The closing on the re-financing of the house is set for Monday morning at 8am. I will be so glad to get this finished. The company that was eager to help and answer questions up front has turned out to have very sad communication skills. We found out the date of closing when an attorney called to schedule with us around 2pm this afternoon.
2. With the rain the last several days, our garden may not fail! This evening we picked another batch of green beans (plan to use on Sunday), several cucumbers (made another batch of cucumber relish) and more importantly we found a pumpkin, several watermelon and a cantaloupe growing along side of our green peppers. We should also start with tomatoes in the next week.
3. I have managed to demolish our new food budget of $700 this month. I purchased 40# of ground beef to be picked up in July, which puts me currently at $792 for the month. Uggg when does this get better?
4. If the weather cooperates, we will be spending the majority of the day at the pool tomorrow, I am in need of some rest and non stress time BADLY!
5.Both the girls are practicing piano in the morning before I head to work. I was able to recognize one of the songs that each was working on. I am so pleased and proud of the way they are learning music.

Random enough?

Saving on Saturday- Garden

Posted on June 13, 2015 by Sheila

Today’s harvest

Saving this Saturday is hopefully one that continues all summer long. We are starting to get in some items from the garden. This week, I froze my first batch of cucumber relish and we are enjoying cucumbers and squash on a regular if not daily basis. I am hoping by the end of next week to start freezing some squash as I only have one pack of squash lasagna left. Our square foot garden is the larger and prettiest it has ever been. I am hoping to not only freeze tomatoes but also make some salsa as I have ran out of both of these items.