Category Archives: Square Food Garden

Tuesday Thoughts- Groceries and Summer Goals

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When we returned home, I knew that I wanted to get busy on preparing food for the school year which is one of my summer goals.  I was very hopeful that we would return to a ton of ripe tomatoes. That did not happen but I still knew this was one of the weeks that I wanted to focus on getting things in the freezer.  Sunday morning Matt and I went to the store. I had planned to re-stock our pantry and see what deals I could find.   I was so excited to find that Food Lion had lots of good things on sale.  One item that I wanted to get in the freezer this week was at least 4 Baked ziti.   Without tomato sause I did not think that was possible. Buy 2 Get one Free made the Ragu jars $1.33 each so we purchased 12.  The ziti pasta was on sale for 54 cents along with a 25 cent digital coupon!  English muffins were BOGO and we found sausage patties on clearance. This was probably one of the high spending single trips to Food Lion in 2 years or more. I spent $201. But this should assist with 12 dinner meals and at least 3 breakfast meals.

Monday morning this summer have included a trip to the Bargain store as everything is $3.  Followed by grocery shopping with my Mom.  I had planned to grab a couple of items that are usually cheaper there.  What I did not plan to grab was chicken breast. These were on sale for $2.29 a pound. I decided to go ahead and stock up. I ended up spending $78 at Aldi with over $50 of that in Chicken breast. I came home and with help from the kids I bagged up 2 bags of Italian chicken for the grill, 1 bag of chicken teriyaki and 5 bags with 2# pounds each. We also started Pineapple Chicken in the crockpot for dinner.

Today I have spent most of the day chopping veggies. Matt and I made philly cheese steak casserole (one for dinner and one to freeze). I will also get omelet bags in the freezer this afternoon.  Tomorow the plan is to make 5 Baked Zitis. We also got 15 English muffins in the freezer yesterday!

It feels awesome to be able to work toward a goal and stay on budget!

Wordless Wednesday- Garden Update

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The garden looks awesome and is the size that I remember. Given that information, this is likely the last picture update for the year.

The sunflowers are taller than the tomatoes. We are starting to see lots and lots of little tomatoes.  Which is so exciting, in reality we are probably 3 or more weeks behind where we normally are. I am hoping we get lots and lots of tomatoes!

The plants behind the greenhouse are starting to look better. I have planted a variety of vegetables. We are going to decide if this is a good spot to leave this or if we need to move to a different spot next year.

Watermelon and cantaloupes.

Both of the Green stalks have filled out nicely. I definitely like them for flowers, herbs and strawberries!

We are finding 2-4 cucumbers a day right now!  YAY YAY YAY!

Cucumbers

This week I have harvested and frozen 4 quart bags of green beans.  This is the first of 3 plantings!  I am so excited for these!

We are also starting to find small peppers!

We are harvesting squash and zucchini on a regular basis but they are small!  We also have a spaghetti squash and a butternut squash!

Love Love Love summer produce!

Summer Goals

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I wanted to be able to share and remember what I spent my summer doing. I feel like the last several years have been a bust. 2022 was the Summer of being sick and Haley’s wedding. Between my car breaking down and my surgery the summer was not alot of fun!  2021- was a year of trying to catch up. Things had not returned to “normal” yet from COVID and it was just different.  2020- COVID.

I had put in my mind several goals for the summer and now that we are almost 2 full weeks in, I am going to share with you.  This are in addition to my regular monthly goals.

  1. Get 100 dinner meals and an assortment of other food items prepared for simple cook and eat meals. This is not a new concept for me as I usually have lots of items in my freezer to use but I want something easy and really non-thinking.
    I am proud to say that I am making steady progress on this goal. I have 4 Taco rice casseroles, and 3 pizza crust in the freezer. I also canned 22 pints  of green beans and 16 pints of black beans.  I purchased meat on sale and have 3 meals of pork chops and 2 meals of grilled chicken as well.   This morning I put 6 “boxes” of brownie mix in the pantry for easy desserts as well.  I honestly under-estimated the time it would take me to work on this goal. First, each new recipe has to be tested.  This adds at least one extra day to the process and second my family is picky. They like what they like and to find something that all 5 agree to is getting harder and harder.  I am starting to think the hardest part about this goal is finding 20 recipes that we all agree on!
  2. Organize the office and shred any paperwork that is no longer current and relevant.
    We are making progress toward this goal as well.  I have actually cleaned and shredded two hanging file folders in addition to shredding church paperwork from 2017-2019.  An added benefit is that we are using the shredded paper to line our chicken coop. The paper adds an extra layer which is allowing the chickens not to walk in mud continually.  In the fall, my plan is to remove the layer and place in our garden beds as free fertilizer.
  3. Redo our master spreadsheet.   No progress
  4. Organize and delete pictures from my phone in order to free up space. I must make sure that I have the pictures on my Ipad first.  I would also like to order several additional photo books once I get the pictures organized.
    Slow progress as I am working to delete first pictures that are not sentimental such as garden pictures and other documents. The next step is to actually compare and delete pictures.
  5. Earn a $50 gift card from Fetch. This basically means I need to scan each of my receipts all summer long one every 24 hours.
    I currently have 22,000 out of 53,000 I need.

Garden Update/ Tuesday Thoughts

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This past weekend ended up being both busy and fun!  We had a swim meet on Saturday which really wiped us out for the rest of the day.
On Sunday, after church we spent some much-needed relaxing time at the pool!
Monday, I ran around the world and back.  I did manage to pick up half a bushel of green beans from the farm stand I LOVE!

All of this meant that I really have not had time to take pictures to post with the update.  But this morning, I headed out to do a little bit of garden work and take pictures but wait of course my phone is dead!

I was SUPER excited to be able to actually harvest several things this morning!  So excited I had Kendall take a picture to share!

Chives, lettuce, a handful of green beans, 2 squash, 2 cucumbers, a zucchini and snap peas!   It is small but at least we are getting things from the garden!

The other garden news is not nearly as exciting or happy!  We found 2 tomato worms on Sunday. Unfortunately, it was after they had stripped at least 2 plants of the leaves and consumed half of my biggest tomato.  We fed them to the chickens as protein!  I have been keeping a watch on the plants to make sure there are no more and so far so good.   Our tomato plants are now taller than me and we are starting to see little tomatoes forming!   I really want a good harvest this year but I am going to be contend with what we are given at least that is what I keep telling myself.

Final thought- One of my big goals this summer is to have a year’s supply of food on hand for the next school year. I want to complete this as doing a little each day as long as possible.   That is actually my reason for purchasing the green beans.  Zach and Kendall have helped with snapping the beans and we have canned 23 pints of green beans. This is one jar every two weeks which is likely what we will use. I am going to use our home grown beans to freeze to make fried beans.

5 Things Friday

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  1. This is my first full week of summer break. Unfortunately we have spent more time than usual inside due to the weather.  Kendall said it best today after we spent some time at the pool. “It finally feels like summer.”
  2. I don’t know if I mentioned it recently, but I really LOVE my Electric Pressure Canner.  This is so simple and easy to use. Canning was not something I would have considered even two years ago but this summer, I want to can at least once a week.  I love the convivence of just opening a jar for broth and soups. I can’t wait to can spaghetti sauce and salsa! This week I used it to put away 4 quarts, 7 pints and 9 half pints of chicken broth.
  3. The rain, along with worm casting and blood meal have a HUGE difference in the garden. I can’t wait to post pictures of the changes this week!!
  4. The swim meet that was supposed to occur on Tuesday will be bright and early tomorrow morning.  I am excited to watch all three kids compete. In other swimming news, this afternoon Braxton was able to swim without a float!
  5. In not so great news, I have overspent the grocery budget!

Garden Update

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Last week ended up being rather busy as my last week of work. I was actually surprised at how busy it was.  I did not post an update even though I had the pictures on my phone.  At least I am off to a better start this week.

I mentioned before that I am slightly disappointed in how the garden is looking and growing. So I decided to try an get a better result. First, I used the some miracle grow water can fertilizer on Wednesday of this week. I added one pack to each water can so everything go a dose of it.  I really did not notice much of a difference, so I continue to do some research and order “Blood Meal” from Amazon. This is a appears to be a game changer. Matt and I added it last night and this morning I am telling a difference in the coloring of the leaves and the size of the blooms. The instructions say that I can add one time a month.  We will definitely add again in the middle of July.  Now to the proof. The squash is the biggest so far!

I can spot a difference in the cucumbers as well. We are starting to see lots of little cucumbers form!

Beans and watermelon are starting to grow!  I did replant a section of beans this week as well.

I did not add the Blood meal to the tomatoes because they appear to be doing fine! Even seeing some tiny ones

And last but certainly not least we are picking blueberries so far we have brought in the house a quart and a pint!

Five Things Friday

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  1. Today is my first day of Summer break!  I have exactly 9 weeks to enjoy some downtime, catch up on cooking, preparing meals for next school year and getting the house back in order.
  2. This past week has been extremely fast and more busy than I imagined. Zach and Kendall are both at camp. Lily has worked every day multiple shift and we had our first swim meet.  My work was overloaded so I did not get to catch up on the things I had on my list including posting pictures from Lily’s graduation and party. These should appear next week!
  3. We harvested a quart of blueberries from our bush today! This is so exciting because I should say that a quart made it inside.
  4. The garden is not doing as well as I had hoped. We already have an attack of squash bugs!  We did spray for bugs and fertilize on Wednesday. I am planning to pull out the yellow green bean plants as it appears either this was not a variety that grows well or the whole pack was bad. I will try another pack of seeds because I really really want green beans to grow!
  5. The chickens are fully intergraded. They are all going into the coop at night before the door shuts!! We are consistently getting 5 eggs a day!  But we are still attempting to trap both racoons and at least one possum that continue to visit!

5 Things Friday

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  1. I have 8 days before my summer break. 4 days both next week and the week after. Lily graduates’ high school in one week and both Kendall and Zach finish next Friday.
  2. Zach has dental work scheduled for next Wednesday and I have taken the whole day off for it. I am really not looking forward to it!
  3. Lily’s car messed up on Monday and we have been sharing a car all week. Hopefully her will be fixed this weekend.
  4. We started swim team practice this week which is fun and exciting for everyone. But we are all most excited for Braxton to swim!
  5. We have eaten our first squash from the garden!  It was small but delicious!  I am hoping for many many more!

Garden Update

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I really had thought that I was not going to post a garden update this week due to the very limited progress that I was seeing on Friday due to the lack of rain for over a week.  However, after 2 days of steady beneficial rain things are definitely looking up! I can tell the biggest difference in the bed in front of my office window.  We have been getting a handful of sugar snap peas a couple of times this week but I was getting worried about my zucchini.  But now we will at least get a couple of zucchini from this bed! I am still a little concerned about the yellow plants on the end but progress is good!

The cucumbers are hanging on and the transplanted ones have grown another block!  I am disappointed that after planting 50 pea seeds. I have one plant.

I did purchase 6 green pepper plants and 3 squash plants from our local farm stand so now the beds look full for the short run!

The biggest changes are in the tomato beds. In the front bed we have 3 plants over the top! Sunflowers are in the front!

The longer tomato bed is catching up! It is about a foot deeper so I am glad to see the progress.

Finally the watermelon have made progress as well.

Now hopefully we get some good sun to jump start this growing!

Sunday Gardening Update

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We continue to have both success and failure in our garden.

So as usual let’s start on a positive note…the GreenStalk planters are almost completely full.  We are getting some nice color and strawberries to eat!

On a failure note, something is eating our strawberries. We actually moved a camera down low to figure out what is enjoying bites of strawberries.

We have 2 separate patches of green beans growing. I am amazed at how tall they are!

Even more cucumber seeds have germinated! We have a full row of cucumbers around 25 total plants!

In less than a month we should have at least one gallon of blueberries!  I am even more excited that we have three smaller starts growing as well. The ultimate plan is to transplant these to open spots in the bed so we will eventually have a wall of blueberries!

All 5 of the squash plants are growing but this is probably the most exciting thing I have seen all week…. tiny squash!

I don’t have any germination of the Cherokee purple tomatoes behind the house but the banana peppers and summer squash are growing!

Tiny snap peas are hanging on the pea plants, we will likely start eating this week!

Our first tomato has reached the top of the bed!

And several more are close behind!

Watermelon and cantaloupe are starting to spread!

Now to the biggest failure, we are now down to 7 green pepper plants from our original 14!  I did learn today that peppers do not like temperatures below 50 so this might have something to do with the problem. As a last ditch effort, I add some fertilizer to the plants tonight.  But the bell pepper plants we purchased as well as the one that we started that are in the vertical green stock planters are looking awesome!

Plans for the week
1. Purchase and transplant at least 3 if not 6 green peppers from the farm stand.
2. Sow at least one more packet of green beans.  This will be a month spacing between which should be perfect.
3. Thin out the basil seedlings putting some in the green stock planter as well as spacing those remaining in the bed out to allow for better growth and development.

The chickens deserve their own update this week so hopefully I can get that posted on Tuesday or Thursday!