One Hundred Dollars a Month - Page 1722 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.

How to Grow Rosemary {Start to Finish}

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By Mavis Butterfield on January 17, 2013 · 19 Comments

This morning I planted a packet of Rosemary seeds and placed them under grow lights in the office. This is the first time I have ever attempted to grow rosemary from seed so I’m pretty excited. As I was reading the seed packet I noticed it said rosemary was deer resistant. Oh.Happy.Day. This means I can totally work these {soon to be} plants in my front yard landscape without having to worry about the deer eating it.

I LOVE that!

Brief description: Rosemary is an extremely fragrant herb, used in both beauty remedies and cooking/baking. Check out my recipe for turkey rub HERE, it totally rocks!

Where to Plant Rosemary: Grow in full sun {at least 6-8 hours of sunlight}. Rosemary is not very cold tolerant, and thrives in containers where it can be brought in during colder temperatures.

Planting Seeds: Sow seeds surface deep, using 5 seeds every 12-18″. Thin to 1 every 12-18″ when plants reach 1″ tall.

Growing Tips: Start indoors 10-12 weeks before last frost. If planting in containers, bring in for winter. Rosemary is a perennial in zones 8 or warmer. Otherwise you’ll have to treat it like annual unless you plan on growing it indoors.

How to Harvest: Remove sprigs with fingers. Wowza! That’s hard.

My Favorite Rosemary recipe: Rosemary Jelly. I made a batch this summer and love, love.loved it!

I read you can take sprigs of Rosemary and put them in a hot bath for a DIY spa treatment. I haven’t tried it yet, but it sounds totally amazing, have you ever tried it?

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Easy Slow Cooker Recipes – Baked Potatoes

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By Mavis Butterfield on January 17, 2013 · 50 Comments

Do you ever feel like you are the last person alive to find out about things? Well imagine my surprise when I was over at Girly Girl’s house yesterday and noticed she had baked potatoes cooking in her crock pot.

Mavis: Are those potatoes?

Girly Girl: Uhhh, yes.

Mavis: You can make baked potatoes in the crock pot?

Girly Girl: Are you serious?

Mavis: Oh.My.Word.

So, in case nobody ever told you {or you didn’t take a Home Economics in high school, or your mother never used a crock pot when you were a kid, here is how to make baked potatoes in a crock pot.

How to Make Baked Potatoes in a Crock Pot

Turn Crock Pot on.
Wrap washed potatoes in foil.
Place wrapped potatoes in crock pot and place lid on top.
Cook 4 hours on low for small potatoes, or 8 hours on high for giant potatoes.
Gather the family around the crock pot, remove the lid, and wave your hand in the air to catch all the high fives you will receive.

Seriously, please tell me I am not the last person on earth to find out about this.

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A Front Yard Garden: Eye-Sore or Rightful Use of Space?

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By Mavis Butterfield on January 17, 2013 · 48 Comments

Living in high-maintenance suburbia comes with a ton of positives and negatives. On one hand, I can walk down the street and be fairly confident I will cast my eyes on pretty manicured lawns. A Trans-Am on cinder blocks with a blue tarp covering it, or an old rusty RV in the front yard wouldn’t last 10 minutes in my neighborhood without someone calling a tow truck company.

On the other, living in suburbia does come with restrictions.

I can’t build a super cool salvaged wood shed for my garden tools in my front yard, or build any additional garden boxes on the side of my property. So when I read a recent New York Times article about gardeners across the nation who are facing the courts and even jail time for refusing to give up their front yard gardens {which are against HOA codes}, it peeked my interest.

{photo credit – Sustainable Transition}

The people in the article, who are all short on space, are growing gardens in their front yards for all sorts of reasons. Some simply don’t have the backyard space, and the front yard is their only alternative, and some just want to grow a few herb plants out front. Their neighbors have complained at the lack of “ground covering” {read: grass}, which violates their neighborhood codes. The opposing sides say it lowers their property values and is an eyesore. What? Vegetables an eye sore? What about all the people who have brown patchy lawns and weeds? Wouldn’t a nice maintained row of vegetables out front look better? Am I off my rocker here?

Anyways, the article got me thinking about my YOU.

Many of you grow gardens in containers or small corners of your yards. Do any of you have gardens in your front yard? Do you think people should be allowed to turn their front yard into a garden if they live in an organized neighborhood?

Do you think it’s possible to get everyone in a neighborhood {or at least the majority} to agree on an answer?

~Mavis

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Mavis Garden Blog – Removing a Rock Border

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By Mavis Butterfield on January 17, 2013 · 19 Comments

Yesterday afternoon I headed out to the garden to start work on expanding the rock border in front of our viburnum hedge. It was a little tough going because the ground was still a wee bit frozen, but I did manage to dig up all the old bark to make room for the expansion. I’m thinking about planting some sort of flower border in front of the viburnum hedge this year, and I need to not only move the rocks forward, but clear away the excess bark that has built up between the rocks over the last few year.

One of the greatest inventions ever, is landscape fabric. Home Depot carries it year round, but Costco usually gets giant rolls of the stuff in around early March every year, and that’s when I stock up. The landscape fabric in this particular area was laid down 3 years ago and as you can see, it’s still holding up great.

My goal is to remove all the rocks on the left side of the garden {seriously, who needs a gym membership when you can lift rocks all day}. I plan on moving a few to the right of the garden boxes to beef up the area, and then move the rest somewhere in the backyard {I have not figured that part out yet}.

Once the rocks are gone, I’ll be able to expand the garden area to the left of the raised garden boxes and grow more veggies this summer. I’m not exactly sure what yet, but this area is slightly slopped so I’m thinking some squash vines would look pretty cool. We’ll see.

What do you think?

Is moving the rocks a good idea? Or just crazy work for a gardener with cabin fever?

~Mavis

Need a little help planning your garden this year?

The Essential Garden Design Workbook is tailor made for gardeners and is accessible, practical, and can be used to create a garden from scratch and to redesign an existing garden. You’ll find easy ways to measure large spaces, estimate the height of a tree, and find the right proportions for a deck. There are also tips on space, light, and color. Includes hundreds of easy-to-follow line drawings and diagrams.

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.