Category Archives: Square Food Garden

Snow Day In North Carolina

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Yes, we finally had our first official snow fall in North Carolina last night. We woke up this morning to around an inch on the ground.  Matt took the little kids out to play before 8am because he knew it would be gone by this afternoon.  I had a really easy day at work, so I spent most of the morning at home as well as a large chuck of the afternoon.  Guess how I enjoyed this “snow day”?  I worked on the Square Foot Garden and took some pictures.  The kids have really enjoyed helping me “make” the containers out of newspaper and they really like watching things actually grow.

The small green plants are broccoli that we planted about 3 weeks ago. Today we planted Green Pepper and chilles.

This is the new addition to the square foot garden. The plan is to purchase soil this week and begin transplanting broccoli plants in a week. I hope to be able to get 2 harvest form the broccoli before the heat kills it!

What We Have Been Up To!

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Things got really busy (read crazy) around here this week. Lily’s cheer leading squad is FINALLY going to try some competitions. The first one will be at the end of the month. They decided to add an additional night of practice so now we have somewhere to go every night of the week. In addition, I ended up working last 3 nights this week and on Thursday, I was at the doctor’s office and pharmacy til 6:15pm.  So here is a quick update on what things are going on around here:
-Our tax refund came in, so we had gutters installed on the house. This finally finishes the addition and is also a nice addition to the rest of the house with matching colors.
– We have re-furbished wood from our previous deck for another square foot garden box and our broccoli plants have started to grown. We only have a success rate of 50% with the seed so hopefully when transplanted they will survive.
-Lily has two new pair of glass from Vision Works and we are extremely happy with them. Kendall will also be receiving two pair later in the week.
-Haley has strep throat and a sinus infection. She has been sick for about 2 weeks  not and has already missed 3 days of school this semester.  I was really surprised by the strep throat because she has not ran a fever. Hopefully by Monday, she will be back at school, healthy and happy.
– I have schedule my surgery for March 5th.  Trust me you don’t want the details but I will be out of work of a week. So this should get interesting.
-At church tomorrow, both the little girls will be playing bells and Matt is taking part in a skit. I am teaching the Beginner’s Childrens Church. Matt and I spent about 2 hours today, cleaning out a room that we have now been moved to. I have lots of ideas to make this a fun, educational experience for this age group and just need to find the time to implement most of them!

An Educational Afternoon

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I mentioned that on Sunday, I began to work out a plan for our square foot garden this year. One of the new things I want to try is to grow broccoli. The main reason is that it is a “cool weather” vegetable. Meaning it can be planted early in the spring and then again in the fall with several harvest each time, this would significant increase my use of the gardening box. I went ahead and ordered some seeds on line. They arrived today, I was home around 2:30 and decided to turn this afternoon into a learning opportunity for the younger kids.

We first all watch a video on how to make paper pots from Budgetsavingmom.  Lily was in charge of searching the newspapers to find some without color, each of the 3 little ones got to tear apart the newspaper pages as well as “help” make the pots. Lily actually made her second one alone. Zach and Kendall were learning about positions (before and after) as well as turn taking. After finishing the pots we went out and filled with potting soil. Lily was given 2 word problems to keep her on top of things. Next we all planted the seeds and I watered. Hopefully they will sprout in around 10 days and we will be planting outside the first of March.  I am going to keep an eye on the weather and maybe getting all the plants outside by the first week of April?. But alot will depend on when the estimated last frost is, I have been reading that this can vary as much as a month in our area.  Finally after putting the pots in a cardboard box for easy transportation, Lily was able to use the calender and write the date we should have sprouts by followed by Zach and Kendall working on their names by signing their names. The total time we spent on this mini project was about an hour. But it provide the most teachable moments that I took advantage of in a while. It felt awesome to just be a mom but also know that I was spending quality time with the kids this afternoon.

Productive Free Weekend

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We once again had a weekend with no major things to accomplish or events to attend. Haley left on Friday for Winter Retreat with her youth group, Amanda was at school and work and Lily did have a skating party on Saturday afternoon. Lily loved trying to skate and actually got around the rink a couple of times.

On Saturday, I was able to get FREE toilet bowl cleaners at Walmart. I had read about this deal on several website, and decided to try it. I asked to “price match” a sale at Family Dollar for $4 and then had a $4 off coupon. We actually got 2 of these and they are really working great. I was disappointed to find that they were out of the 3 other free items on my list. Also on Saturday,I cooked the 10lbs of chicken I purchased earlier in the week. I was able to freeze 10 cups of shredded chicken as well as 22 bags of chicken broth.

Sunday in North Carolina was rainy and COLD. The temperature was around 35 all day. So to get things warm, I decided to start planning for my “Square Foot Garden.”  We have been debating on how big or small to make it this year. I also wanted to stick to items I know we will use. I had purchased several packs of seeds 2 years ago and want to try to start from starch again this year. The good news is that I actually got myself organized enough that this should be possible and if not then I can always purchased at the right time for growing. I did order broccoli seeds to start right away as well as some green chili seeds to try my hand at. I will also be raising some tomatoes this year as well. Otherwise, I hope to purchase enough corn to freeze as well as we will be participating in the Food Coop again. I am excited that I actually am ahead of the game this year instead of waiting to the last minute to start. I also hope this means it works and produces enough for freezing.

Finally on Sunday, Matt and I got all the tax papers together. I am currently waiting on 1 more W-2 then I can spend 3-4 hours filing online.

Sounds relaxing right?

The Good, the Bad , the Crazy Week in Review

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I knew that this past week would be busy as normal and so when I thought about posting for this week, I came up with this list format. Hope you enjoy…

The Good

-Lily has had a blue or purple light/dot all week, so she got a prize. I had lunch with Lily on Thursday and Matt meet briefly with her teacher Thursday night. Lily is very well-behavior and is exceeding in reading and writing! We don’t have a good reading level on her yet but at the end of first grade, all students should be reading on a Level I, currently Lily has passed Level E with plans to test at Level F this week.
– I got to have a meeting with my supervisor at work this week, so I am feeling alot more at ease about my position and there is a chance that by the end of the year, I may only be working 1 job which still will keep us on track financially.
-After a somewhat rough start to the Bible Quizzing year, Haley has joined a team from the church in Greensboro. We had our first competition on Saturday. Haley did awesome and is currently 6 out of 27 quizzers. This also was an awesome event for me. I came home not exhausted and I really enjoyed interacting with the quizzers.
– We are still gathering peppers from our Square Foot Garden
-I was able to make several good trips to CVS this week, including today (Sunday) where I spent $10 and saved $36 or 78%. I was also able to bring home 3ECB which is only 1 less than what I started with. I hopefully will be able to do the same transactions on Amanda’s card later on in the week. One of the big sale item is Diet Coke cans!
-Kendall and Zach are both enjoying “preschool” at least once a week!
-God has supplied all our needs. See the bad to understand more.

THE BAD

– Haley is currently grounded from the computer and the phone.
-On Wednesday night our dryer developed a sound that could give anyone a headache and it sound like it could stop at any moment, add to this it was taking 2 hours or more per load. We knew we needed to buy a replacement. Matt was able to locate and purchase a dryer for $150. After bringing it home it is much better than we expected. It is a higher end “digtal” dryer that is quiet and dries even a full load of towels in an hour. This was a huge answer to prayer so that we can hopefully purchase the new windows and start our debt snowball next month.
– On Saturday, about an hour prior to leaving for Greensboro, we discovered a flat tire on my car. Thankfully, my parents came over and help Matt with the little ones so he could get the tire fixed and back on the car.
– We discovered late Friday night that “Angel Food Ministries” will not be disturbing food in September. This is one of the main ways we have been purchasing meat over the past year. We are both shocked that after 17 years that have stopped. Our prayer is that they will be able to reorganize and begin again before the end of the year but we have no information to go on so at this point it is very doubtful.
The Crazy Hairstyle

Haley is entering the Crazy Hairstyle contest at Youth tonight and she really wanted to win and to have it posted here! This leaves a smile on my face after a long week!

What’s Happening?

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I have been so tired several night for the past couple of weeks that I have been in bed around 9pm.

It is daylight from 5:30ish am until 9ish pm, this makes going to bed prior to 9 really impossible.

Last Thursday we took both little girls for an eye appointment. Lily’s eyes are improving but we are going to continue patching four hours a day for another 4 months. Kendall has begun to cross and we have started patching her right eye 1-2 hours a day.

Kendall HATES the eye patch. The first day she asked to take it off 4 times and actually took it off and threw away behind my back. We have added coloring and stickers to the eye patch and she at least tolerates for an hour without removing but still ask if she can take it off at least one time.

After the eye appointment, we spent time and money at IKEA. We bought a shelving unit for our bathroom and some nice baskets to go on it. Matt has stained and assembled, it makes that area feel more complete.

I also made a trip to Walgreens on Thursday, spent 4.50 and made 5.50 in register rewards. I also discovered on their rain checks they actually list the price minus the Register rewards, so now I have to locate my coupons and return for cheap razors.

On Saturday, we visited both Food Lion and Costco as well as picked up a online order from Harris Teeter. I am very impressed with Harris Teeter and plan to try the online version again to see if it works on special events.

I have been working alot of hours close to full time so trying to keep up is hard.

Our square foot garden is producing!!! I plan to post pictures on Wednesday but so far we have been able to harvest and use a couple of squash, 5-10 cucumbers and enough green beans to serve as a side dish! Matt is still growing and using the herbs so this has been really awesome to have our own produce.

CVS has several fun deals this week including Diet Coke 2-Liters for 0.79 so I will be making 3-4 trips this week and plan a post with all the details on Thursday!

Haley has finished school, last Friday and will be volunteering at the hospital I work at, 4 hours a day on Mondays and Wednesdays all summer.

It is dark and almost 10pm so I am going off to bed.

Randon Thoughts Tuesday

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I am so glad I get to post this tonight. I have ALOT of Random thoughts right now.

Square Foot Gardening is over. Tonight we ended up going and pulling up the remaining watermelon plants as parts were dead. We left the pepper plants as they still have blooms on them and some small peppers. I also left the basil it is starting to flower but it smells so good that I will just go out and smell it. We definitely learned alot and hopefully next year will expand to 3 boxes and actually grow enough to enjoy several times. The key things for us to remember is water water water and we need to start the new plants inside in January.

Zach is so proud of himself for two reasons today. First he has learned to climb. He can climb in the small rocking chair, on Kendall’s bed and of course on top of the toys. He also has discovered he can drive out of Kendall’s cup. We are very careful that it has only water or juice but he is so happy just to get it.

Our eat out of the pantry challenge may end a week sooner than we originally hoped for and 4 weeks then my dream. The reason is that we are starting to run out of food such as bacon and juice. Haley also needs more Fruit2Os for school. I know that we will probably end up going to Costco on Thursday while we are in Greensboro. If we can buy only the items we are out of then I will be very very excited and happy. Maybe if we make a small trip then continue with the plan it will work out.

I have decided that I really really really dislike working at the Nursing home. I feel like I go in and really just loose track of time and never seem to get out at a decent time. I have already scheduled myself through the end of the year. I am hoping that I can at that point stop doing it on a regular basis but that will me a lot more work at the hospital. It is just so hard to juggle to two jobs. I have been scheduled to work every day at the nursing home next week so hopefuls that will keep me motivated to get our budget down.

Garden Update

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This is the entire garden

I am so excited this year to attempt a small garden. We agreed to try this and increase it next year if it worked. I am spending about 15 minutes a day with the watering and weeding. I have already decided that I need to start my seeds in February next year so they will produce sooner. Currently, the plans are for 2 additional boxes. This will allow me to be able to grow more and buy less next summer with less than 30 minutes a day spent on the garden.

A squash!!! The first of our cucumbers!

I am hoping that the cucumbers will produce all summer with 4-5 for us to pick a week. Last year we were able to pick one a week. I have 2 separate plants, one in front of the box and one growing up the back. The squash plant is huge but I only have 1 so it will definitely be tripled or more next year. I would love to pick at least 4-5 squash a week.

A green bean.

I now realize that we will barely get enough this year especially of the green beans to use of maybe a meal but at least I know I can grow them..


This is a banana pepper. Matt spotted it first and he is excited to see how they taste. Pepper will definitely be increased next year as well. I am sad to say that I doubt we will be harvesting any green peppers. I had planted 4 different stalks in the garden and I am down to 2 growing and they are small and growing slowly.

Square Foot Gardening

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I still have not had time to sit down and blog about my trip to CVS on Sunday. I had hoped to do that today but I found some more exciting news this morning as I was pulling out of the driveway to take Haley to school. We have growing veggies in our square foot garden. The picture above is what it looks like from the road. The back should hold vines of cantaloupe, watermelon, and cucumbers by the end of the season. We decided to try it out this year and if it worked then expand (triple) for next year. I was worried about anything growing. I was even more concerned when something dug up my orka plants and now they both have die. But this morning I noticed green things sticking up threw the dirt. My green beans and squash have both sprouted! I also checked my plants on the back deck and so far I have cucumber, sage and basil to transplant in a few weeks! Here are the picture below.