One Hundred Dollars a Month - Page 1884 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.

Mavis Garden Blog – Planting Strawberry Runners

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By Mavis Butterfield on August 24, 2012 · 17 Comments

Every year around this time our strawberry plants go wild and throw out runners. Now, I’m not sure what YOU do with your runners… But I try to save each and every one of them. One summer I had “rescued” enough strawberry runners to supply two of my neighbors with enough strawberry plants to start their own berry patches.

But this fall, I have something else in mind. After we harvest all the pumpkins from our pumpkin patch, I plan on filling the area with strawberry plants. Because we live in a pretty mild climate, transplanting strawberry runners in the fall isn’t an issue. Typically I will transplant runners in both the spring and the fall. But since I planted 500 new strawberry plants this spring, I have an abundance of runners right now.

If you have never replanted strawberry runners before, it’s simple.

This is what I do –

Carefully lift up the strawberry runner, leaving the roots intact
Place the roots in a 3 inch container and cover with moist potting soil
Leave potted runners where they are for about 6-8 weeks, watering as needed
When the roots are well established, snip the runner about 6″ from the “vine” and move to the desired planting area. Remove from the pot, plant new strawberry plants and cover lightly with straw or leaf litter until spring, to protect the new strawberry plants.

The following spring your new strawberry plants should emerge and you’ll be able to enjoy strawberry desserts all summer long. Wahooo… Three cheers for fresh strawberries that actually TASTE like strawberries.

~Mavis

P.S. Do YOU save your runners, or am I the only one?

P.P.S. Did you know you can actually BUY strawberry seeds? Yep, Amazon has them for sale HERE. Has anyone ever grown strawberries from seed before? I haven’t, but I’m curious about it.

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Mavis Garden Blog – Growing Lettuce in a Pallet Garden

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By Mavis Butterfield on August 24, 2012 · 7 Comments

Now before you go and freak out and tell me not to use pallets because they are filled with toxic chemicals, I want you to know the pallets I am using are clean, and free of chemicals. If you are going to try this, make sure you are using CLEAN pallets. Not ones that have had chemicals stored on them or pallets that have been pressure treated.

Okay-

So last night The Girl and I transplanted a few our wooden pallets {from our previous pallet gardens} to the greenhouse.

After putting the pallets in place, we added potting soil, swept it into the groves of the pallet, and added water {in hindsight I should have moistened the soil first, but I was excited}.

Then we added our tiny Romaine and Butter Crunch lettuce seedlings we started from seed into the open spaces of the pallet and added a little more water.

And now all we have to do is wait about 45 days or so until we are able to harvest boatloads and boatloads of salad. Wahooo! I guess all that free salad dressing I’ve been able to score all summer will finally be put to good use.

Here is a picture of one of our earlier salad pallet gardens. Pretty neat-o if you ask me. So what do you think? Is this a clever way of growing lettuce in the greenhouse all winter long?

~Mavis

If you you’d like to give wood pallet gardening a try, here are a few more posts about gardening with wood pallets:

How to Plant a Flower Garden Using a Recycled Wood Pallet
How to Make a Recycled Pallet Vertical Garden
How to Plant a Garden Using Recycled Wood Pallets

Looking for some healthy dinner recipes? Check out Salad for Dinner: Complete Meals for All SeasonsBy Jeanne Kelley on Amazon.com. It looks divine.

*If you live in the Seattle / Tacoma area you can purchase brand spakin’ new {and clean} pallets from Girard Wood Products in Puyallup, Washington.

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Recipe – How to Make Kale Brownies with Carrots

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By Mavis Butterfield on August 23, 2012 · 30 Comments

Wahooooooo… I just made a batch of kale and carrot brownies! Kale brownies. Have you tried them? Holy Canolies. There may be a way to eat this ~~crap~~ stuff after all.

Thanks for the awesome suggestion Kirsten! The Girl and I tried the brownies and you can’t even tell there are vegetables in there. Wowza! I wonder what else I can sneak kale greens into.

This is freakin’ awesome!

Ingredients

1 box Brownie Mix {I used Pillsbury}
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 large carrot {I used a handful of baby carrots}
8 leaves of kale
1/2 cup chocolate chips

*I used a boxed mix because I have a bunch on hand I picked up for free last fall. If you would like to try a similar recipe made from scratch try this one.

Directions

Pre-heat over to 350 degrees

Steam carrots and kale {I steamed mine in the rice cooker} and place the vegetables in a blender and semi- puree. Add eggs, oil and water and puree. Add brownie mix and hit the pulse button a few times until everything is blended.

Line a 9″ by 13″ pan with parchment paper {or grease and flour} and pour brownie batter into the pan. Sprinkle chocolate chips on top and stir in. Bake at 350 for 28 minutes. Cool. Slice. Serve with a sneaky grin.

The Sneaky Chef By Missy Chase Lapine $11.35 ~ Amazon

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Mavis Garden Blog – Vegetable Container Gardening

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By Mavis Butterfield on August 23, 2012 · 9 Comments

I thought I would share a few pictures of the vegetables we have growing in containers on our back deck. If you are limited on garden space, live in an apartment or condo but still want to grow a little produce, vegetable container gardening is the way to go. It’s quick, easy and tidy {my favorite}.

When I planted the two pots on our deck 2 months ago, I planted them both with tomatoes and beet starts. The beets did so well in the containers, we’ve already picked all but one of them.

However the tomatoes, are just now starting to emerge. The great thing about container gardening, is that when the temperatures start to drop, you can bring the plants inside to prolong your harvest a bit. These pots will be brought into the greenhouse once the weather starts to cool down, but if you don’t have a greenhouse, a mud room or somewhere inside where there is sunny window would be just fine.

In this pot I have another Roma tomato planted and lettuce starts below it. The tomato leaves give the gourmet lettuce leaves a wee bit of shade and help keep the soil beneath.

Anyway you slice it, vegetable gardening is cool, and anyone can do it.

Are YOU growing any vegetables in containers this year? How did they do? Are you planning on growing anything in them this winter? If so, what? I think I’m going to try to grow carrots.

Peace Out Girl Scouts…

I’m off to make some kale brownies. I’ll let you know how they turn out.

♥ Mavis

Here is another post I wrote about Vegetable Container Gardening

Easy Container Combos: Vegetables & Flowers By Pamela Crawford

Pamela Crawford, container garden guru and the queen of easy gardening, has done it again in this groundbreaking book. She shows you how to grow vegetables in containers with such easy techniques that even the worst gardener can have bumper crops of tomatoes! And, for the first time in any book, she shows how to make your vegetables look great, worthy of the nicest patio! ~ Amazon

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.