Category Archives: Square Food Garden

Wordless Wednesday- Square Foot Garden

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  • strawberries! The plan is to divide into a second box at the end of the summer. so we went ahead and put the box in place.
  • strawberries
  • volunteer lettuce and oregano
  • Sugar snap peas on the top that survived with help the last two frost and squash plants started from seeds.
  • Tomatoes
  • More tomatoes but this are going to be purple.
  • Cucumbers
  • Sugar snap peas and some zucchini plants that all came from seed.
  • Green Pepper

Saving on Saturday

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  • Instead of buying plants from the big store< Lowes, I decided to venture out and try and find a local greenhouse. After a little bit of searching on Facebook. I found one. I head out early Saturday because I heard they have sold out of plants very quickly. Let me tell you this was by far the best decision I have made. Plants were 3 for $1. I purchased 33 plants for $11 or the cost of one mosquito plant at Lowes.
  • Over the past year, I have been collecting different seeds. The reason, I just could not pass up a good deal. I paid as much as twenty-five cent for all the packets. Since we have some extra time with no extra activities, I decided to go ahead and see what I could start from seed. I have been able to successfully start, lettuce, cucumbers, zucchini, cherry tomatoes, cantaloupe, snap peas, peas and watermelon. I have also planted some green beans, dill and basil from seed as well. The only expenses so far has been dirt which I buy anyway.
  • Matt saw on-line that you could start tomato plants from slices of tomato. I was very skeptical because of the way I hear most vegetables are treated. However, we tried it with two slices of tomato and we have tiny tomato plants growing from them!
  • I have been listing items on Ebay for the past month. Originally, you could list up to 50 items a month without a listing fee. Now they have actually changed that to 200 items a month. This past week, I sold 7 out of 10 items! I also received the highest bid for one item. We are still responsible for a fee at the end but for March it was $12.45 so I am still making a small profit on most items and we are cleaning things out as they go.
  • I talk a lot about food and food waste. We have spent a total of $212 so far from our grocery budget. I expect to keep this number under $250 for the month! We are definitely trying to use what we have an still do some adventures eating and cooking this month!

4/10/2020

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  1. This week at home has been more of a struggle for me. I am not sure if it was the fact, I was stressing about some work issues or just this is the fourth week of Covid-19 or my Humira shot. But most likely a combination of all of the above. The good news is that I survived and am hopeful the work stress is behind me as well.
  2. I decided to go out shopping on Wednesday this week in order to avoid the crowds over Easter weekend. Again good and bad news. The good news is that we did avoid the crowds and used pick up for both Lowes and Walmart. The bad news is that it was insane at Lowes. I can’t believe how many people were there. We have spent a total of $77.42 on groceries so far this month. I fully expect to keep this number low this month.
  3. Yesterday, Thursday, the windshield of the van was replaced. It developed a crack from a rock in January and finally reached the point it definitely needed to be replaced. I also will need to get the car inspected and tag renewed this month. I know this will exceed my gas budget even with only filling up once or twice. My plan will be to use some of the gas money from May to help cover the expense as well. I will be at home until at least May 15th so between the two months we should have all the repairs and tags covered.
  4. The weather this week has been beautiful and we have spent a good chunk of time outside preparing the garden. We are expected to have another frost this weekend so if all goes as plan we will be doing a lot of planting next weekend. This also works out with the recommendations by the Farmer’s Almanac.
  5. Speaking of next week it should be a real test of patience and parenting skills. All three kids are out of school for Spring Break. I am off on Monday but have to work the rest of the week. In addition, there is a strong possibility that Guam schools will resume which means I am going to be working both jobs from home. A test of patience is the best description I can give.

5 Things Friday

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  • I think we are all starting to get use to everyone being in the house everyday. Matt and I both are currently working from home. Matt is going in to his office on Tuesday but I should be home through the middle of May! Zach and Kendall are working each morning on school work and Lily is continuing with her online classes. Lily is actually struggling a bit more than I expected because she is used to being home alone and not working around other people all day long.
  • We are actually eating out more than normal for us as we try to support local business. Matt went to lunch on his office day on Tuesday. I actually went into my office on Thursday and stop by our favorite Greek restaurant bring home a late lunch for everyone. Friday, we ordered from the local pizza shop and Matt and I splurged on ice cream to end our date night.
  • On our date night Matt and I ended up at Lowes. I purchased both mulch and paving stones to help work out in the yard tomorrow. My goal is to get most of the not plant work done this weekend and we will start planting in probably a week or so. I am planning to share pictures tomorrow after the work is done.
  • Family walks are a fun way for everyone to get out of the house and get some exercise. We actually walked 3 evenings this week.
  • The weather is still doing crazy swings from 80s to low 30s in just a matter of days. I am really fighting the urge to plant outside and have been bringing in our growing cucumbers and squash in on a daily basis.

5 things Friday

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  1. I am changing the way that I am storing left-overs. I am planning to start storing individual meals instead of putting all into one big container. I have several reasons for this. First, it will make heating up lunch either at work or home much easier for me. Second, it should also make heating up a meal much easier for the kids as well. I am hoping that it will also encourage everyone to grab and use up the items in the fridge.
  2. My plan for today is to spend a significant amount of time outside. The temperature is suppose to be close to 80 today. I need to get some massive weeding done in both the flower beds and also in the square foot garden. My next goal is to determine what seeds I can go ahead and start inside so that I can have a jump start on my gardening for the year. I am not sure how this will all work with school schedule changes due to the cornovirsus but I at least have a plan.
  3. I have 3 new recipes that I am planning to try this weekend. If I am able to get all three done, I will at least be caught up on my new recipe challenge.
  4. This weekend we need to finish the trim work in the hall, install thresholds and adjust one custom cabinet to fit the new floor. I have order new curtains for the pantry and will need to make alternation for them fit.
  5. I am very hopeful that I will have less stress over the next month once it is decide how schools will proceed from here. I don’t mind working and I don’t mind being at home but I strongly dislike the uncertainty.

Saving on Saturday

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I was able to find a couple of hours today to search out some awesome sale items, I want to share with you. My first stop was at Dollar General. I specifically chose this store to buy Hot Wheels cars that were on sale for Buy one Get one free. The selection at this store was really limited so I only ended up purchasing 10 cars with several of those being duplicate. I will send the duplicates to church to use. I was so excited to discovery that they were taking an additional 30% off items already on clearance. Summer items are at 90%. So I was able to grab 10 packets of seed for ONE cent each. I did get some cold weather plants such as lettuce and spinach that I hope to plant in February. My favorite find of the day were these signs that I paid SIX cent each for.

Look for them in the snow village soon!

Clothing was at 70% off so I found Matt a swim suit for $1.13 and Braxton an outfit for sixty-three cent. I decided I need to check out at least one more Dollar General before heading home. The second store had a much better selection of Hot Wheels cars so I grabbed one more but less of anything else. I did purchase one Christmas present for $1.34 for the older girls.

My final stop was at Food Lion to grab some carrots and potatoes. I did grab 8 2liter Dr. Peppers because they were $0.69 each. These are a huge treat for the kids and I will plan to take a coupe to our Thanksgiving dinner. I also grabbed a couple of Boston butts roast that we can use for pulled pork. The BEST deal of the day was on cupcake mix which were in the clearance section at the back of the store. The boxes of vanilla cupcake mix were marked down to twenty cent each. The shelf also had coupons for $1.00 off 2 boxes. I grabbed 20 boxes and used 5 coupons so that I was paid $1.00 to carry the boxes out of the store! Better than free!

Did you find any deals let me know in the comment section!

Tuesday Thoughts

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I am so excited that I get to spent 3 complete evenings at home this week! We have no football game(cheerleading) or cheer practice this week and only one baseball game. I am planning to get some extra cleaning done around the house as the things has gotten dirty and overlooked during the past couple of weeks.

We are hopefully that we have finally fixed the leaky shower problem. Matt re-caulked the shower pan on Saturday and I am planning to start using it again today. We have already purchased the tile to finish this project but need to find several hours in which we can spending working on it. We may be able to spend some time on the project on Saturday but that depends heavily on the weather as well.

North Carolina is finally experiencing some cooler temperatures. I finally turned off the air on October 3rd. This is very late for us as we usually can get a good week or so with no air in September. I am hopefully that we can at least keep the air and heat off for most of the month of October but we it can depend heavily on when the first freeze of the year is.

Matt loves his new job. The first week was a challenge especially with our crazy busy schedule. I am hopefully that we will be able to get into a good routine that will allow him to work his second job at least 3 evening a week so that we can have some time to work on projects around here on the weekends.

I have spent a total of $47 on groceries so far this month! I am super excited about this and hope to continue this streak for most of the month. I am making a Costco list and am holding out hope that the quarter back sale will appear at Food Lion soon!

5 Things Friday

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  1. This October has been the hottest on record. The last three days we have had temperatures in the mid 90’s. However that is suppose to change tonight. The temperatures are suppose to be dropping until lunch tomorrow. The predicated high tomorrow is 68*
  2. The square foot garden is still producing. This week we have harvested pimentos, green peppers and a single tomato. We are still getting sweet potato flowers so they are still all in the ground. I anticipate digging these up next weekend or maybe even two weeks out depending on our crazy busy schedule.
  3. Matt starts his new job next Tuesday! This will bring in a huge booster in income but a significant decrease in time to complete task at home.
  4. Matt has made our shower functional!!!!! He still needs to replace tile but the overall out of pocket cost of the project is less than $30. I am going to wait until it is completely finished and then post pictures and a number break down.
  5. Next week will be one of our busiest to date. We have multiple events and commitments Monday- Friday night.

5 Things Friday

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  1. I am tired. No other explanation need!
  2. First football game that Kendall is cheering at is tomorrow and she is beyond excited.
  3. The weather outside is still hot and muggy! We have not had any rain in over a month! Our rain barrel is half empty which is the lowest it has been all year.
  4. I am still harvesting lots of peppers and basil but the last tomato is slowly turning red. I actually have already pulled up the majority of my tomato plants because they were dead. I was hoping to get another handful but this appears to be the last one. I have planted 2 lettuce started in a cup of water, a packet of spinach and a packet of carrots. I am really hoping to harvest a few items into November and December. I am going to also try and let the basil self seed this year. We have had an abundance so I am very hopeful this works. We are anticipating a good crop of sweet potatoes. The plants are slowly starting to die but I want to stretch the growing time as much as possible especially with heat we are still experiencing.
  5. Lily is participating in youth theater this fall which is another addition to our busy schedule. She basically has practice every day from 4 to 6pm.