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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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Mavis Garden Blog – Pictures of Heirloom Tomatoes

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Even though I am not a big fan of the heat, I am a HUGE fan of tomatoes.  And to grow tomatoes, well, you need heat.  This year I planted over 25 varieties of heirloom tomatoes.  Some I grew from seed, and others I picked up at local Farmer’s Markets, Nurseries, or plant sales.

I am hoping to be able to harvest around 500 pounds of tomatoes this summer.  Crazy, huh?

But, if I am able to actually meet my goal, I’ll be sitting pretty all winter long with quarts and quarts of tomato sauce for pasta dinners.  So bring it on Mr. Sun.  I can take it.

Here are a few of the different kinds of tomatoes we are growing in the backyard this summer.

Are you growing tomatoes this year?

If so, what variety are you most looking forward to harvesting?

Here are a few of my favorite books on the topic of tomatoes.

The $64 Tomato By William Alexander {I loved this book}
The Complete Guide to Growing Tomatoes By Storey Publishing
Carrots Love Tomatoes By Louise Riotte
The Heirloom Tomato: From Garden to Table By Amy Goldman
Tomato: A Fresh-from-the-Vine Cookbook By Lawrence Davis Hollander
Tomatoland By Barry Estabrook

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How To Grow Your Own Food – Mavis’ Vegetable Garden Tour

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There is so much going on in the garden lately, it’s hard to keep up on my picture taking.  I feel like I’m barely keeping my head above water with trying to take care of all the different veggies we are growing this year.

The Irish Eyes sunflowers I planted are blooming like crazy.  The bees LOVE them!

The Roma tomatoes that started off with blossom end rot are on the mend.

Swiss Chard?  Ya, it’s still there.

The bean teepee is rocking.

The vines are super healthy and the Italian beans I planted should be ready to pick in another 2 days or so.  I planted 5 hills of Hubbard Squash at the base of the teepees this spring, and they are now starting to climb the teepee poles.  It’s awesome!

I’m hoping for about 20 -25 Hubbard Squash this fall.  What I’m going to do with all that squash is another story.

The Walla Walla onions are doing amazingly well too.  This is the first year I have been really successful with onions.  I think the cold and damp spring we experienced up here in the Seattle area really made a difference this year.

It seems like we are picking green beans every day now.  Which is good, just labor intensive.  This year I planted both bush and pole beans.  Maybe it’s all in my head, but I think the bush beans take longer to pick.

And the pumpkins… Oh Happy Day.  Every time I look out the back window, I see a mini forest of pumpkin vines.  I’m hoping to get some serious poundage from these babies.  I think I planted 11 different varieties.  I wonder how many I’ll get?  Hopefully a couple hundred pounds.

I think in the next week or two things are going to start to get a little crazy around here.  With the temps the way the are, and all these vegetables growing like mad, I may need to hire some help to pick all the veggies that will be rolling in.

Ha!  We’ll see.

So how are YOU coping with the heat?

Are you doing most of your gardening at 6am these days?

At night?  Mavis wants to know.

The Week-by-Week Vegetable Gardener’s Handbook $10.17 – Amazon

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Mavis Garden Blog – What Do You Do With Squash that is Dying on the Vine?

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I was hoping you could help me with something.  I’ve been noticing a few dead squash on my hubbard squash vines and was wondering what YOU do with them.  Typically I just break them off.  But now I’m thinking maybe that is not such a good idea.  Should I be cutting them off with a sharp knife, or leaving there to rot?

What do you think?

Thanks for you help!

~Mavis

 

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Easy Pasta Salad Recipes – Pasta Salad with Green Beans, Tomatoes and Roasted Peppers

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Ice cream may have been on the menu for dinner last night, but tonight I will be serving this yummy pasta salad with green beans, tomatoes and roasted red peppers.  And you want to know the best part?  My cooking duties are done for the day.  I don’t know about you, but the last thing I want to do is hang out in the kitchen on a hot say like today.  So whenever I can make dinner at 8 am and have it sitting in the refrigerator until dinner time rolls around, is just plain awesome.

Ingredients

1 {16oz} box Bow Tie Pasta {or whatever you like to use}
1/2 pound green beans, trimmed and blanched
6 oz cherry tomatoes
2 oz Parmesan Cheese
1 red pepper, roasted, {I used a canned variety}
1 sweet onion, chopped {I used a Walla Walla sweet onion}
1 carrot, chopped
2 tablespoons pine nuts, dry roasted
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

Directions
Cook the pasta, drain and set aside to cool.  Blanch green beans and set aside to cool.  Chop your veggies, add the pasta, the vegetables, the Parmesan cheese and toss.  Add olive oil, balsamic vinegar, red pepper flakes and salt and pepper to taste.

Serve immediately or pop it in the refrigerator for latter. If you chose the later, I highly recommend you spend the rest of the day watching movies on Netflix and eating popsicles.

I suppose if I was really cool, I’d learn how to make my own pasta with one of these CucinaPro Imperia Pasta Machine that’s available on Amazon.com.  Ahh, maybe someday.

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Mavis Butterfield Etsy