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One Hundred Dollars a Month

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.


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Green Gardens – Rooftop Gardens in the City

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Herb garden on a Southern California rooftop.  I wonder how many people live in this building?

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This organic rooftop garden is growing on the roof of a restaurant in Chicago.

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Akashi, Tokyo rooftop garden at St. Luke’s International Hospital.  Very pretty!

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Rooftop garden in San Francisco.  I wonder if it’s used as a putting green?  Great selling point.

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Gardening in storage totes is a pretty clever idea.  Great for people who are living in an apartment with a small deck.

Have you ever tried growing anything on your roof before?  I think it’s a pretty cool idea, but the Handsome Husband would totally have me committed if I started growing squash on the roof.  He might just have to put his foot down on my gardening madness.

Which one is your favorite?  I think mine is the second picture.

Have a great Friday,

♥ Mavis

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Raising Chickens – Meet Hilda and Matilda our Newest Araucana Chicks

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I’ll admit it, I am a total sucker for baby chicks. So yesterday when I stopped by the Garden Sphere in Tacoma for a few packets of Crosby’s Egyptian Beet seeds for my late fall garden, the words “do you have any baby chicks?” flew out of my mouth before I could close it.

I don’t know what happened, but I instantly fell in love with two baby chicks in particular.

This is Matilda.  I had never seen a yellow and black Araucana {Easter Egger} chick before so of course I had to bring her home.

Hilda was also very unique looking.  When The Girl came home from school yesterday and saw the chicks she fell in love with them.  Before I could tell her their names she said, “We should name the grey and black one after the owl in Winnie the Pooh.  What was the owl’s name?”

“Owl.”

“Oh, maybe that’s not such a good name for a chicken.”

Ha!

The only downside to picking out baby chicks is having to leave so many of them behind.  If it was up to me I would gladly take ALL of them home {well, all the hens anyway}.  Someday I will live on 10 acres and have 100’s of chickens {and a few lambs}.  But for now I have to exhibit a little self control because I live in suburbia.  Which is really a shame, because raising chickens is so much fun.

Thanks Lisa for helping me pick out my chicks!  It was fun to see you again!

P.S. If you are local and looking for chicks, The Garden Sphere has them in stock.

GardenSphere {253.761.7936}
3310 N Proctor
Tacoma, WA 98407

Go HERE for More Chicken Updates

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Mavis Garden Blog – Growing Vegetables in a Greenhouse

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Wahooo!  The fall peas have broken through the surface and are on their way.  If all goes well we should be swimming in sugar snap peas buy Halloween.  Yee-Haw!

Do the pea plants look leggy to you?  They look a little leggy to me.

The Romaine lettuce I started in pallets a few weeks ago is doing really well too.

I thought for a while there the spinach I planted wasn’t going to pop up, but it did.  As soon as the spinach seedlings get a little bigger I think I’m going to set up another pallet garden inside the greenhouse and get it going in it’s own space.  I’m excited!  I’ve never grown spinach in the fall before.

Cucumbers dangling from the greenhouse ceiling.

Strawberries growing in gutters.

And a few more heirloom tomatoes.  All in all I think the greenhouse is looking pretty good these days.  But I can;t help but wonder how long I can keep everything growing in here.

Have YOU ever grown tomatoes or cucumbers in a greenhouse before?  Do you have any idea how long I can expect then to continue to grow?  Will they make it to Thanksgiving {I can hope right}?

~Mavis

See More Greenhouse Photos HERE

Read more about my Greenhouse Pallet Garden HERE

Are you thinking about growing vegetables this winter? Check out The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener By Niki Jabbour. 

Jabbour explains how to make every month a vegetable-gardening month. She provides in-depth instruction for all of her time-tested techniques, including selecting the best varieties for each season, mastering the art of succession planting, and maximizing the use of space throughout the year to increase production. Amazon currently has it in stock.

 

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.

Mavis Garden Blog – Potato Tower Harvest #1

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Remember the potato towers I built earlier this spring?  Well last night I decided to knock one over to see what was inside. Now this potato tower was a little different than the other potato towers I have growing, somehow I got distracted, and never got around to adding more dirt to this particular potato tower.  So I knew the harvest was going to be really small.

But even thought the harvest was small, the soil turned out pretty darn amazing.

Potato Tower Harvest #1   8 pounds 8 ounces

Whoop T Do right?  Well, I agree.  But I’m also not worried one bit.  I have a feeling the other towers {the ones I added additional dirt to} will have produced a heck of a lot more potaoes by the time we harvest them at the end of the month.

Only time will tell.

So, did you try growing your potatoes in towers this year?  In a trash can?  In a ditch?  Have you harvested your potatoes yet?  How did your crop do?

Mavis wants to know!

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.

Mavis Butterfield Etsy