One Hundred Dollars a Month - Page 1472 of 2143 - I am your typical housewife living in high maintenance suburbia. I have a handsome husband, 2 kids and a flock of pet chickens. I try and feed my family with $100 a month. With the help of coupons, gardening and bartering I am able to squeeze the most out of our grocery budget and still manage to have a little fun along the way.

What Am I Suppose to Do With All These Potatoes?

The links in the post below may be affiliate links. Read the full disclosure
By Mavis Butterfield on September 5, 2013 · 43 Comments

Remember back in February when I bought 90 pounds of seed potatoes?

What was I thinking?

I mean really, did I not know what I was getting myself into? Well apparently not because yesterday Lucy the amazing puggle dog was outside helping me with the seemingly never ending task of digging up our potatoes.

And we’ve only just begun. Not including our latest harvest, we have already dug up over 210 pounds of spuds. Holy mashed potatoes people.

We still have potatoes growing in potato towers, beneath the pumpkin mounds and because we ran out of space, we even planted a few garden boxes with potatoes as well.

And now I’ve found myself in a dilemma. What am I suppose to do with all these potatoes?

If you have a favorite recipe, please,please, please leave it in the comment section below.

Thanks a million,

Mavis

This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting One Hundred Dollars a Month.

Pallet Garden Photos – Lettuce, Strawberries, Beans and Chard

The links in the post below may be affiliate links. Read the full disclosure
By Mavis Butterfield on September 5, 2013 · 12 Comments

I went out to check the pallet garden yesterday and boy was I surprised at how well all the lettuce and bok choy are doing for this time of year. Normally the end of August/ Beginning of September is pretty warm here in the Pacific Northwest, but not this year.

I’m getting a sneaking suspicion that we are in for some cold and snowy winter. Which is fine by me. I’ll still be able to grow cold weather crops like carrots, beets and other root crops outside and lettuce in the greenhouse, but I’m not sure what I’ll plant in the unprotected pallet gardens yet.

Maybe strawberries. If you look HERE at what this pallet looked like back in April, you’ll see how much the strawberries have grown this year. It’s really pretty crazy how they spread out so quickly.

These are my calypso beans. I plan on drying these as soon as they dry up.

Swiss chard. Ugg. I think when I re-plant my pallet garden I’ll move these down by the chicken run and plant them really close to the fence. The chickens LOVE Swiss chard {and kale} and it will give them something fun to do when they think I’m not looking.

Here is how the pallet garden looks right now. Do you think it’s too late to plant another crop of lettuce? Should I go for it, or save the lettuce seeds and just plant lettuce in the greenhouse instead? What do you think?

~Mavis

Want to learn more about wood pallet gardening and how I put mine together? Click on the pallets above and it will take you to my first pallet garden post of the year. You’ll also learn what to look for when choosing a pallet.

This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting One Hundred Dollars a Month.

Roasted Heirloom Tomato Salsa

The links in the post below may be affiliate links. Read the full disclosure
By Mavis Butterfield on September 4, 2013 · 5 Comments

Looking for something to make with all those heirloom tomatoes you’ve got piled high on your kitchen counter right now? Well this recipe for roasted heirloom tomato salsa should do the trick. Just be aware though this salsa will disappear quick!

Ingredients

2 pounds heirloom tomatoes,chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced {best freakin’ garlic press on the planet}
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 jalapeno, split, seeded and diced
3/4 cup cilantro leaves, chopped
1/4 teaspoon cumin
2 tablespoons lime juice
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper

Directions

Rub whole heirloom tomatoes with olive oil and place on very hot grill until the outsides are nice and charred.

After the tomatoes have cooled, peel back the blackened portions of the skin, slice the tomatoes in half, remove any seeds and dice the tomatoes.
Place half of tomatoes in a mixing bowl. Add the other half tomatoes, garlic, onion,jalapeno, cilantro, cumin and lime juice in a food processor and pulse until you reach the desired consistency. Transfer pulsed mixture to the bowl with the reserved tomatoes and mix well. Season with salt and pepper and
serve.

This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting One Hundred Dollars a Month.

Square Foot Gardening – Giant Zucchini Alert!

The links in the post below may be affiliate links. Read the full disclosure
By Mavis Butterfield on September 4, 2013 · 7 Comments

Lucy and I were out in the garden this morning so I snapped a few pictures of our square foot garden and holy cow is it overgrown or what? You can hardly see the square foot garden dividers.

This is the giant zucchini we harvested. I’m not sure how we overlooked it when we were harvesting Swiss chard the other day {the Swiss chard bed is adjacent to the square foot garden} but somehow we did. Looks like a few {okay, 10} loaves of zucchini bread our in our future. 😉

The cucumber plants are doing especially well in the square foot garden this year. Next year I’ll have to remember to put some sort of structure in the garden for them to climb on.

Ahh the magical kale tree. It just keeps growing, and growing and growing.

Does anyone know how tall it will get? Do you think the kale plant could grow as tall as me?

I don’t know but I’m excited to find out.

Strawberry runners. Do you have these all over your garden? I need to dig them up and move them pretty soon before they start to take over the entire garden.

Okay, so I think this is a lima bean plant but I’m not sure. The leaves are so waxy I almost pulled up the plant because I thought it was a giant weed. Then I noticed the bean pods.

Carrot seedlings. I planted a big bed of carrots in another garden bed but I thought it would be fun to grow a few more in the square foot garden too. The carrots I grew here earlier this year did great, so why not plant them again?

And last but not least, the Roma beans. Yep, it’s time to harvest.

How is your garden doing these days? Is it winding down or just picking up steam?

Mavis wants to know.

Thinking about putting together a Square foot garden? See the how I built a square foot garden grid HERE. For more information, check out All New Square Foot Gardening. It is an Amazon bestseller and the author, Mel Bartholomew is basically the king of square foot gardening.

This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting One Hundred Dollars a Month.