One Hundred Dollars a Month - Page 1625 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.

Growing Vegetables in a Greenhouse – Spinach, Lettuce, Swiss Chard, Strawberries and Tomatoes

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By Mavis Butterfield on April 16, 2013 · 23 Comments

I snapped a few pictures of the greenhouse over the weekend and thought I would share.

The tulips and daffodils are still looking good. I’m been trying to decided what I’ll plant once the flowers die back. Ideally I’d like to have something tall in the flower pots. Something that will last all summer long.

What do you think would work well?

Check out the gutters. Don’t they look cool with all those veggies growing in them?

Spinach seedlings.

Swiss chard {I’ll have to start thinning these soon}.

Mesclun salad greens. They should be ready to harvest in about a month or so.

The heads of romaine lettuce are doing AWESOME. I was going to transplant these outside, but they are doing so well in the gutters I think I’ll leave them in there until it’s time to harvest.

The strawberry crowns I transplanted into gutters are thriving as well. If you’ve never tried growing strawberries in gutters before it’s a piece of cake. Just remember to make sure they have plenty of room to spread out and you’ll be fine. If I remember correctly I planted the strawberries about a foot apart.

First strawberry blossom of the season.

Even though the Chinese and purple cabbage is thriving in the greenhouse, I think I’ll plant the starts in the main garden this weekend. I need the room. My goal over the next week or two is to re-pot all the tomato plants we have growing inside under grow lights and move them out to the greenhouse.

Typically I plant tomato plants outside in the main garden around Mid-May. They need a week or two to harden off and placing them in the greenhouse for a few weeks should help with that.

How about YOU? When do you plant your tomatoes? Do you grow them for seed or are you happier buying tomato starts instead?

~Mavis

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How to Make Vegetable Stock

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By Mavis Butterfield on April 16, 2013 · 19 Comments

When life hands you more free vegetables than you can eat, make vegetable stock I say. If you’ve never made your own vegetable stock before, trust me, it’s super easy. You can totally do it!

Ingredients

14 quarts water
1 bunch green onions
1 onion, quartered
3 carrots, large, broken in half
5 celery stocks
10 mushrooms, halved
1 tablespoon Italian seasoning

Directions

Place everything in a large stock pot, cover pot and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 1 hour.

Strain.

Once the vegetable stock has cooled, use a funnel and place the stock in mason jars until ready to use. The vegetable stock should keep for 5 days in the refrigerator or up to one year in the freezer.

Have you ever made vegetable stock from scratch before?

Do you add anything special, or just use what you have on hand?

~Mavis

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Succession Planting – Grow More Vegetables in Your Garden

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By Mavis Butterfield on April 16, 2013 · 5 Comments

Do you do succession planting in your garden? If not, it is totally worth the bit of extra planning. Succession planting is basically staggering your plantings so that you get a continuous harvest of a particular fruit/veggie, rather than all at once and then you’re done. It’s also a great way to fill those spots that previously harvested food left behind {i.e. in the transition from early spring crops to summer crops}.

When it comes to getting a continuous harvest from a particular type of veggie/fruit, certain plants work better than others. Here’s a basic guide on succession planting for a continual harvest:

Green Beans – Plant every 10 days
Beets – Plant every 14 days
Cucumbers – Plants every 3 weeks
Kale/Colloards – Plant every 3 weeks
Lettuce – Plant every 10-14 days {this is my favorite thing for succession planting. It’s impossible to eat it all at once, so having different types of lettuce that will produce every couple of weeks is perfect}.
Melons – Plant every 3 weeks
Radish – Plant every 7 days
Spinach – Plant every 7 days
Summer Squash – plant every 6 weeks
Sweet Corn – Plant every 10 days
Carrots – Plant every 2-3 weeks {as weather allows, stop when it gets too hot and resume in late summer/early fall}
Cauliflower – Plant every 2 weeks {as weather allows, stop when it gets too hot and resume again in late summer/early fall}
Turnips – Plant every 7 Days

If you decide to try square foot gardening, succession planting is an awesome way to make sure you get the most out of your space.

What are your favorite crops to stagger planting? How do you space them?

~Mavis

Vegetable Gardening: From Planting to Picking

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10 Cool Uses for Coffee Filters

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By Mavis Butterfield on April 16, 2013 · 11 Comments

The HH is the only one who drinks coffee at my house, and since we now have a fancy new coffee maker with a reusable filter, I have left over coffee filters lying around. I couldn’t stand just letting them go to waste, so I decided to figure out some ways to put those babies to use.

Here’s my top 10 ways to use coffee filters for something other than brewing coffee:

Clean windows/mirrors. They are lint free and don’t break apart when wet.
Lay a couple on a plate and use them to soak up excess grease when cooking bacon, homemade fries, etc.
Cover plates/bowls with coffee filters when microwaving to prevent splattering.
Use to apply shoe polish.
Prevent soil from sneaking out of the bottom of planting containers. Place a coffee filter over the holes in the bottoms of your pot, plant as you would regularly. The plant will still have proper water drainage, but you won’t lose any soil.
Use to protect nice dishes. Place a coffee filter in between stacked dishes you don’t use very often to protect them from chips, scratches, etc.
Use them to filter used frying oil. Wait for the oil to cool and pour it through a coffee filter. You will be able to reuse the oil next time you are frying. How amazingly frugal is that?
Put some baking soda into a coffee filter and set it in the heel of shoes to get the odor out. “Oh, Monkey Boy! Where are you?!”
Use them to wrap Christmas ornaments to protect them during storage.
Use as an alternative to paper bowls for snacks. They are way cheaper and hold snacks like crackers and popcorn perfecto.

If you had a bunch of extra coffee filters laying around, what would YOU do with them?

~Mavia

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