One Hundred Dollars a Month - Page 1561 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.

Sugar Snap Pea and Radish Salad

The links in the post below may be affiliate links. Read the full disclosure
By Mavis Butterfield on June 12, 2013 · 4 Comments

Last night I made a simple {I mean REALLY SIMPLE} pea salad for dinner and it was delicious. Fresh sugar snap peas are one of those vegetables that taste best when they are super fresh. If you have some growing in your garden, or you’ve got a neighbor who’s growing them that you can barter with, try this recipe for sugar snap and radish salad, you’ll love it. We sure did.

Ingredients

1 pound sugar snap peas, stringed
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil {ZOE is my favorite brand}
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
4 radishes, thinly sliced
3 ounces feta cheese, crumbled
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

Directions

Bring a pot of water to a boil and black the peas {about 1 minute}. Drain peas and run them under cold water to cool.

In a large bowl whisk together the olive oil, vinegar and salt and pepper. Toss in the peas and radishes and stir together until all the vegetables are well coated. Garnish with feta cheese and serve.

Looking for more great salad recipes? Check out the book Salad for Dinner. It’s packed with all sorts of goodness.

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.

Foraging for Free Food – Where to Find the Good Stuff

The links in the post below may be affiliate links. Read the full disclosure
By Mavis Butterfield on June 12, 2013 · 16 Comments

Have you ever wanted to go foraging for food but didn’t know where to start? Now, there is a map that shows you all of the places around the world that you can score free food. NPR featured an article recently that told about how two committed foragers created a map of the world that leads you to places with public fruit trees, free veggies–and for the really brave, dumpsters with a steady supply of food. Fallingfruit.org even allows locals to add to the map as they find free food sources.

At first, I thought this was going to be a dumpster diving sort of deal, but when I clicked on the map, there are tons of fruit trees on public land, blackberry locations, and really fun not-so-common scores, like currants.

And the best part? It’s totally FREE. Woohoo!

In the land of plenty, foraging just got a little bit easier.

~Mavis

Backyard Foraging: 65 Familiar Plants You Didn’t Know You Could Eat

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.

Growing Tomatoes, Basil and Cucumbers in a Greenhouse

The links in the post below may be affiliate links. Read the full disclosure
By Mavis Butterfield on June 12, 2013 · 4 Comments

Just before watering the plants in the greenhouse this morning I snapped a few pictures so I could show you what’s growing. Last year I had a lot more tomato and pepper plants in the greenhouse around this time, but it was nuts. I packed way to many plants in there and could barely move around, so this year I promised myself I wouldn’t do the same thing.

After all, plants need room to grow just like humans do.

Right now we have cucumbers, basil, Swiss chard and peppers growing on the left greenhouse wall.

Once the cucumbers get a little taller I’ll wrap some garden twine around them and create little trellis so they can grow along the top eves of the greenhouse and dangle down. I did it last year and they looked pretty cool.

This is round two of our greenhouse basil. The first batch was grown in a flat. This time around I thought it might be fun to try growing the basil in gutters. Have you ever tried this? I think it will look cool once it gets growing.

And Swiss chard. You can grow this ~~crap~~ yummy delicious stuff anywhere.

Check out the strawberries! We are harvesting juicy red berries from the greenhouse gutters every other day now. We had strawberry shortcakes last night and they were delicious!

Here is a picture of my beloved green zebra tomatoes. I LOVE THESE TOMATOES!

Last year the plants grew so tall they were coming out of the top vent in the greenhouse. It was crazy. But I’m looking forward to it happening all over again because these tomatoes are delicious.

And last but not least, here is a picture of the potatoes and chives growing alongside the greenhouse.

How is your garden growing? Do you co-plant anything with your potatoes?

~Mavis

You can see more pictures of our greenhouse and the progress we are making, in my Growing Vegetables in a Greenhouse Series.

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.

How to Grow Your Own Food – 6/12/2013 Garden Tally

The links in the post below may be affiliate links. Read the full disclosure
By Mavis Butterfield on June 12, 2013 · 10 Comments

This year I’m on a mission to grow 4,000 pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables in my suburban backyard. In 2012 I was able to grow 2,028 pounds, and in 2013 I’m going double or nothing. I have absolutely no idea if I’ll be able to achieve my goal. But, as with any adventure, half the fun is getting there. ~Mavis

*******

Did you plant peas this year? How are they doing?

The sugar snap peas we planted alongside the teepee poles are growing like weeds I tell you. Right now they are about 5 feet tall and bursting with pods. We’ve already picked them twice and we are about ready to pick them again. I keep thinking we are going to have stir fry for dinner but last night I made a pea salad {I’ll post the recipe in a little bit} and the kids keep munching away at the extra snap peas as well as packing them in their lunches.

Life is good! I love this time of year. Garden fresh strawberries and peas. You just can’t beat that.

Now, if we would just get the tomatoes to hurry up, everything would be perfect.

Oh, and I don’t want to forget the Swiss chard. We collected stalks of that too {for the chickens}.

~Mavis

Here is what I have harvested so far this year:

Basil – 7 ounces

Our second round of basil is poking through the soil in the greenhouse. I LOVE making fresh pesto.

Beets – 14 ounces

So far this year we have planted 2 batches of beets. I think I might start another batch next week.

Bok Choy – 4 oz

Check out this Asian Noodle Salad with Bok Choy I made. It’s pretty awesome.

Carrots – 3 ounces

I planted carrots again last week for the 3rd {or is it 4th?} time. Usually carrots grow like crazy in my garden but this year I’m having a problem getting them going. Or should I say growing?

Chives – 11 ounces

We are picking about an ounce a week to use in recipes.

Egg Count – 1,385

We collected 68 eggs this past week. What a bunch of slackers!!! 😉

Lettuce – 21 pounds 6 ounces

We harvested the last of the endive and freckles lettuce last week. Now all that’s left is the romaine we have growing in the pallet garden.

M icrogreens 5 ounces

I need to grow some more of these. My favorite way to eat microgreens is with egg salad sandwiches.

Oregano – 2 ounce

Peas – 2 pounds 10 ounces

Sometimes it’s really, really hard to get a basket of sugar snap peas in to the house. The Girl and I picked a bunch last night and immediately weighed them. What you see is what made it to the back door after snacking on them for a few minutes.

To me, fresh peas and strawberries, feel like the beginning of summer.

Potatoes – 2 pounds 9 ounces

Radish – 22 pounds 2 ounces

We have just enough radishes left for a salad and then they’ll all be gone! Eeeek! I totally forgot to plant more. Now I’ll have to add that to the list.

Spinach – 6 ounces

Sprouts –2 pounds 2 ounces

Here are instructions for growing your own sprouts.

Strawberries 2 pounds 10 ounces

Swiss Chard 2 pounds 8 ounces

Wheatgrass – 7 ounces

Total Food Harvested in 2013: 71 pounds

Total Eggs Collected in 2013: 1,385

If you are new to gardening or just want to learn more on the topic of organic gardening, my #1 favorite book is The Gardener’s A-Z Guide to Growing Organic Food By Tanya L.K. Denckla.

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.