One Hundred Dollars a Month - Page 1674 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.

Money Saving Tip – How to Find Free Containers For Your Garden

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By Mavis Butterfield on March 2, 2013 · 25 Comments

I posted this story last Spring but I thought it was worth posting again in case any of you are looking for some free containers for your garden.

Yesterday, I went to the Home Depot to pick up a gallon of stain for the garden boxes. As I was waiting for my order to be processed, I headed over to the flower section to see if there was anything I was interested in. On the way there I passed by a man who was carrying a black 5 gallon plastic pot. The kind of plain Jane pots trees come in when you buy them at a nursery. Knowing I needed to find a bunch for my greenhouse, I excitedly asked him where he found the black plastic pot.

“Over there” he pointed, as he walked by, “and they are only $9.42 each”. I stopped dead in my tracks. Did he just say $9.42 each? For a plastic pot? I thought I must have heard wrong so I went to take a look. Sure enough, Home Depot was selling the common black plastic pots for almost $10. Holy canolies Batman, who on earth would PAY for a black plastic pot I thought. What a dip. I smiled, let out a little laugh and then headed outside to the nursery area. After all, I had 15 minutes to burn until my stain was ready so I took my time walking past the tables and carts of flowers and shrubs .

And then BAM! I found gold. Did you know the Home Depot has a “recycling” program? Oh yes, yes they do Bob. Of course this is all news to me, but apparently if you purchase a tree, plant, flower, yada yada, at Home Depot, you can bring the growing container back for recycling. Wowza! There should be a press release on this for the cheapskates like me out there. Not to mention “I’ll happily pay $9.42 for a plastic pot” guy in his brown leather shoes and pressed chinos. Not that he would want to necessarily put a used {dirty} container in his sports car or anything, but still, knowledge is power.

So in stealth like fashion I quickly scooped up all the buckets I could carry {I didn’t want to leave the pots unattended to look for a cart} and headed over to the cashier stand. Yada Yada Yada, “Can I have these?” “Suuuuure” she said, obviously unaware of the riches I was holding in the form of black plastic pots. “Knock yourself out.”

Wahooo what a find! Not only did I get a boatload of large black plastic pots for the greenhouse from the Home Depot, but I also stopped by the Albertsons bakery department and asked if they had any cookie or frosting buckets they wanted to get rid of. Mr. Master Baker {who has seen me before} simply pointed to the back of the bakery and said “Take whatever you want.” And so I did.

You know what they say…

One mans trash is another man’s treasure.

How about YOU? Have you scored any awesome freebies lately?

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Quinoa Salad with Cranberries, Spinach and Feta

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By Mavis Butterfield on March 2, 2013 · 5 Comments

Because I was out playing in the garden all day today I whipped up a bowl of this Quinoa Salad with Cranberries, Spinach and Feta for dinner tonight. I don’t know what it is about the combination of these flavors, but I sure do love this salad.

Ingredients

2 cups Quinoa
4 cups Chicken stock
4 oz Feta cheese crumbles
2 cups Fresh spinach, chopped
1 cup Dried Cranberries
1/3 cup Ken’s Steakhouse Balsamic and Honey Salad Dressing

Directions

Place the quinoa and chicken stock in a rice cooker, turn it on and cook.
Let Quinoa cool 1 hour and place in a large bowl.
Add spinach, cranberries, feta to cooled quinoa and mix well.
Add dressing and stir to coat.

Looking for more recipes featuring Quinoa? Amazon currently has Quinoa 365: The Everyday Superfood By Patricia Green in stock and ready to ship.

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 Peppers {Start to Finish}

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By Mavis Butterfield on March 2, 2013 · 3 Comments

I just planted a flat of pepper seeds under grow lights this morning. I’m so excited! My goal is to grow enough peppers for canning homemade salsa.

This year I am growing

Brief description: Hot Peppers are typically used to add a little “heat” to a variety of dishes. They can be stuffed or used in sauces and salsas. Their flavor ranges from mild to hot, depending on the variety you choose to grow {the seeds inside the fruit are typically where most of the heat resides}.

Where to Plant Hot Peppers: Plant in a sunny spot, in a container, raised or garden bed.

Planting Seeds: Plant seeds 1/4″ deep. When transplanting, plant seedlings about 2 ft. apart. Peppers, like tomatoes, are very cold sensitive, so if starting indoors, make sure they have a nice warm place to grow. Avoid transplanting outside until temperature is at least 65 degrees.

Growing Tips: Don’t over fertilize peppers, it will cause them to get more leaves at the expense of the fruit. Also, don’t allow them to go through any sort of drought–they are not very tolerant of abuse. Most peppers will require some sort of support. Cages work great.

How to Harvest: To harvest, cut pepper off at the stem. Wear your garden gloves when you harvest these guys, a broken pepper can cause absolute warfare if you unknowingly touch them and then your face!

Are you ready to start your garden but you’re not sure when you should plant your seeds or set out your transplants? Head on over HERE and you’ll be taken to a handy dandy chart that is broken down into what vegetables should be planted {or transplanted} each month in your area.

Anyone can do this. Dirt + Seeds+ Water = Food!

~Mavis

Here is one of my Favorite Hot Pepper recipes:

Bacon Wrapped Jalapenos

LKFLKU {Little Known Fact, Little Known Use}: Hot Peppers actually make foods safer. They naturally reduce harmful bacteria on foods.

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 Gardening 101: Creating a Pallet Garden

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By Mavis Butterfield on March 2, 2013 · 93 Comments

This year I will be planting a large salad garden and I thought it would be fun to grow my lettuce and other greens in wood pallets to change things up a bit in the backyard.

All you really need to do a little pallet gardening is a wood pallet, some good soil, and a few seeds. Using a wood pallet to start a garden can be a great space saver, plus as a bonus, there is no soil to til or weed. This is exactly the kind of project young children would love, especially if they could have their own wood pallet to work with.

What to look for in a wood pallet:

If you live in the Tacoma area you can purchase new pallets from Girard Wood Products in Puyallup, Washington for about $9 each. We purchased our pallets here for this years wood pallet garden. The photo you see above is a picture of some recycled wood pallets we found behind buildings last year.

Personally, I suggest using a new, clean, fresh pallet.

But if you like to live life on the edge,

Here are a few pointers when looking for recycled pallets:

Look for a pallet that has HT stamped somewhere on the pallet. This means the pallet was heat treated, or kiln dried as opposed to chemically treated.

Because you can never be sure chemicals were stored on an old pallet, or that there is some sort of bacteria lurking inside the recycled pallets, I would scrub the wood down with some bleach and soapy water and let it dry out before using it to plant anything.

Also, watch out for old, rusty nails or staples.

When I first pictured my wood pallet garden, I thought I would only use 3 wood pallets. But every time I walked by something about it didn’t look right. So I decided to expand the pallet garden to include 6 wood pallets.

One of the cool things about gardening, is there are so many different ways to grow food. So many containers to chose from, and more growing methods than I care to imagine. Everybody has an opinion, and their own way of doing things and I think that’s the best part.

No two gardens will ever been the same, or have the same growing conditions, but the desire to try new things is something we all have in common. Wouldn’t you agree?

So here we go. This is my new pallet gardening area. I planted more lettuce seeds this morning, and I’m ready to get started. Next on the agenda is getting the area mulched so it looks a little more put together and like it belongs in a suburban backyard.

If you an apartment or condo dweller and want to “grow up” a vertical pallet garden might be the way to go instead. Anyway you look at it, garden is about the coolest hobby on the planet.

UPDATE : As you can see by the photos the pallet garden was a huge success! I found that strawberries, herbs and lettuce seemed to do the best.

The bush beans did pretty well too.

Lettuce though… Not only did it grow well, but it looks cool too. 🙂

Will you be using any ultra-creative methods in your garden this year?

If so, please let us know in the comment section below.

~Mavis

Looking for a little more inspiration? Small Space Container Gardening by Fern Richardson is a great place to start. Amazon currently has Small-Space Container Gardens in stock and ready to ship.

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.