One Hundred Dollars a Month - Page 1627 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.

10 Ways to Keep Deer Out of Your Garden

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By Mavis Butterfield on April 15, 2013 · 39 Comments

I know many of you deal with deer using your garden as an all-you-can-eat buffet and trampling everything in their path as they do. While a little bit of nature right outside your back door is awesome, having them in your garden is not. So, here are 10 things to try to keep deer out of your yard:

Get a dog. Their bark and chase should keep the deer at bay. {Though, I admit, I am not sure how frightening Lucy would be to a deer 8 times her size}
Clean out your brush. Yep, you read it right. Deer are repelled by human hair, so clean out your brush and string your hair around your yard like tinsel.
Use row covers. They can’t eat what they can’t get to.
Sprinkle hot sauce on the plants the deer are munching on.
If possible, plant the items deer are most attracted to closest to the house. That way, you can keep an eye out and hope they won’t be brave enough to make their way up close.
Plant a barrier of garlic, chives, mint, lavender, etc. Pungent herbs will mask the odor of more pleasant smelling {to deer, at least} munchables.
Plant thorny plants where deer tend to enter your yard. A little prickly inconvenience goes a long way in deterring them.
Plant thick hedges as a border around your garden. Unfortunately, this blocks your view, as well as deer, but in desperation…
Not to state to obvious, but when all else fails, fence them out.
String fishing line around prized plants. It keeps them out and confuses them. I can neither confirm or deny that it would confuse me too. Ha.

Do you have a problem with deer in your yard? How do you keep them at bay?

~Mavis

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Can You Grow Potatoes in a Square Foot Garden?

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By Mavis Butterfield on April 15, 2013 · 4 Comments

Yesterday was an amazing day with lot’s of sunshine. I was able to work on a few garden projects and one of them was planting a few more vegetables in our square foot garden.

As of today we have 14 of the 32 squares planted. The sugar snap peas and celery we planted 2 weeks ago are doing great.

Mr. Gnome Guy has been able to keep the baby slugs at bay in the mini strawberry patch.

While we were cleaning out the garage over the weekend I found a few more seed potatoes. Against my better judgement I went ahead and planted 2 squares with 1 seed potato each. Carrots may love tomatoes but potatoes sure don’t.

I should probably pull them up and plant them somewhere else. We’ll see.

When I attended the Seattle Tilth Edible plant sale last month I picked up a cheddar cauliflower plant. I’ve never grown orange cauliflower before so I’m pretty excited.

I also transplanted a few snow peas {which are great in stir fry} I had growing in tiny pots in the greenhouse.

So far we have peas, celery, radishes, carrots, onions, beets, Swiss chard, strawberries, cauliflower, broccoli and potatoes growing. Maybe some kale too. I can’t remember. Ha! Luckily I am pretty good at identifying leaves, so I guess I’ll just have to wait a few weeks until and see what I’ve I planted.

This exactly why using plant markers is such a good idea.

Okay, so what do you think? Should I remove the potatoes? Or just go for it. I mean really, how much damage could 2 little potatoes do anyway?

~Mavis

For more information, check out All New Square Foot Gardening. It is an amazon bestseller and the author is basically the king of square foot gardening.

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Mondays with Mavis – How to Feed Your Family for $100 a Month

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By Mavis Butterfield on April 15, 2013 · 23 Comments

Last week was really weird. I barely left the house. On Monday I picked up 40 pounds of chicken from Zaycon and spent an entire afternoon and a good part of the next day cooking and processing the meat.

When The Girl Who Thinks She’s a Bird found out we were getting a boatload of chicken, she immediately requested a chicken pot pie. So instead of just making one for dinner, I went ahead and made four. 3 for the freezer and one for that evening.

If you are not into freezer meals, you should be. They make life a heck of a lot easier. Especially when you have teenagers and everyone is going in different directions all the time. Being able to grab a meal out of the freezer, or toss something in to the crock pot is a huge lifesaver if you ask me.

I’ll try and get a picture post up today or tomorrow and show you some of the meals we ate last week, but for now, here is what I purchased over the last 7 days.

Zaycon Chicken – $42.60

I had a few Zaycon credits so I was able to save a little money on a 40 pound box of chicken breasts. You can earn Zaycon credits 2 ways, by referring people or by helping out at a Zaycon event. Either way, I think it’s a great way to save.

Fred Meyer – $6.63

We had frozen peas in the freezer and canned gravy in the pantry so all I needed to make the pot pies was some corn and carrots. I found an awesome sweet potato recipe online and had these wild plans to make a gourmet dish but I just didn’t have the time to make it. Maybe next week.

Fred Meyer – $1.99

Mr. Produce Guy gave us a bunch of strawberries last week and I whipped up a batch of strawberry chipotle jam with some of them. I had everything on hand except the hot peppers.

Mr. Produce Guy – FREE

Free Produce rules!

As you can see I hardly bought anything last week. We are officially out of milk, bread, butter, yogurt, potatoes, carrots, cheese, cereal, or anything else good as my kids would say.

I need to go grocery shopping BIG TIME. Sure, we have a bunch of chicken, elk and salmon in the freezer, as well as a bunch of strawberries, but we are pretty much out of everything else.

I’ve been so busy with my garden and concentrating on growing food rather than buying it that I’ve turned in to Old Mother Hubbard.

I guess it’s time to go shopping and fill the refrigerator and cupboards again.

Buying and growing food. What a chore.

~Mavis

Total Spent This Week $51.22
Total Spent This Year $647.55
Total Spent This Year on Garden Seeds/Supplies $781.98 {I bought a Meyer Lemon Tree, Rhubarb crowns, 6 Fruit Trees , 15 yards of soil}, Walla Walla Onions and 90 pounds of seed potatoes. Plus, supplies to make my own potting soil.

Go HERE to read more Shopping Trip Stories.

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Mavis’ Top Garden Books – Real People, Real Stories

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By Mavis Butterfield on April 14, 2013 · 7 Comments

{Spring 2009}

In spring of 2008 we built the house we live in now. Over the summer, I created our first garden bed {12’x20′} and filled it will tons of tomato, cucumber and zucchini plants. Even though we had moved to a wooded neighborhood, it still never occurred to me the deer who roamed freely up and down the street would bother my t garden.

Until the day came I looked out the window and spotted a lone deer in my garden. She had just finished off my last tomato plant and was smiling at me. I was beyond peeved. Gardening season was over for the year as far I was concerned.

Over winter, I read the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Lifeby Barbara Kingsolver. It changed everything. All the sudden I didn’t just want to dabble in gardening, I wanted to grow it all. And I was going to need a very tall fence. {This was also around the same time the Handsome Husband starting talking about wanting to move to a condo.}

I spent almost the entire winter of 2008/2009 reading up on gardening, food miles and simple living. Which in hindsight was pretty funny because we had just built this big house in the suburbs and now all I wanted was to move to a small farmhouse to grow vegetables and raise a couple of chickens. I was ready to downsize even before the paint was dry.

{Spring 2009}

Books are funny that way. They change you. And sometimes if you are really lucky, hidden beneath the pages you’ll find what you were meant to do. What makes your soul happy.

For me that was gardening. Growing more than just a few tomato plants here and there has given me some sort of purpose over these past few years, and I can’t help to think it’s because I found the right books to read, at the right time.

Here is a short list of my favorite books about gardening, home life and everything in between.

I hope you like them as much as I do.

~Mavis

See You in a Hundred Years– I learned I never want to plow a field with horses.

Plenty: Eating Locally on the 100-Mile Diet – I learned I need to live within 100 miles of a sugar cane field.

Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer – I learned I never want to live near gang members or have a goat.

The Dirty Life: A Memoir of Farming, Food, and Love – I learned having a CSA would be a tremendous amount of work and I am happy just growing enough food for my family, friends and neighbors.

The Amish Cook: Recollections and Recipes from an Old Order Amish Family– If could could have internet, and a washer and dryer, I think I could totally live like the Amish do. The Handsome Husband however, is another story. Ha!

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