Gardening leads to thoughts on saving money...

It has been kind of entertaining to read the headlines lately. There is almost always at least one blurb about how to save money. The best part is that it is usually directed at people that in all reality have a fair amount of money along with a job. Most of the suggestions are good ones, but really don't go far enough if you truly have little to no income.

A little background: I grew up in what would be called a poverty stricken family if you looked at the finances. We didn't feel like we were in poverty and yet our income level was well below the standard poverty level. Now, I am not saying we were poor. We weren't. We never really wanted for anything, other than maybe some more money. We always had enough to eat and we had clothes to wear. We had a roof over our head and as kids we got to do plenty of extracurricular activities.

But...Here is where we did things differently from other people. I very seldom remember having new clothes until I was paying for them myself. Everything you wanted you had to save up for. There were lots of times I wanted to do something or buy something that just wasn't possible at that time. If we didn't have the cash in hand it wasn't possible. There were no credit cards, no home equity loans, and no car loans. We didn't drive new cars. Quite the opposite in fact.

In order to make ends meet there were things like the fact we didn't have insurance unless we were in school. Then we had the coverage through the school disctrict. It didn't amount to much but it did help. Mom and Dad made almost all of our food from scratch. We shopped for almost everything second hand. When something was purchased that was new lots of research went into it. It had to be something that was going to last. There was no t.v., no dishwasher, no microwave, and lights were used as little as possible. This meant our utility bill stayed low. Wood heat ensured the power bill didn't spike in the winter. It couldn't, there was no other option.

We had a small garden too. My poor mom though. We lived at 6200 feet so not much more than peas, potatoes, and carrots would grow. We did harvest lots of berries from the wild and we went hunting every fall. I know, not an option for most city dwellers but we weren't living anywhere near a city.

So, I'm finally getting to my point. I now garden in order to save money on our food. Especially as we have children of our own. I haven't kept very detailed records, but in my estimation I probably only spend about $100 on the garden in a year. I know I get more than $100 worth of food from it. Especially when you start to consider things like the herbs I have. Even parsley that is an inexpensive thing to purchase fresh. I think it is about 80 cents for a bunch of fresh parsley. Now if I were to buy a jar of dried parsly from the spice aisle that price jumps to $4.00 or more. I think I bought my parsly plant for about $3.00 and I can get several fresh cuttings from that plant every year. Plus if I let it go to seed then I don't have to spend that $3.00 next year.

I'm doing the same sort of thing with our baby food this next round. Green beans from the store in a jar cost about 80 cents a jar. I have more green beans than we can eat right now so I'm steaming, pureeing, and freezing them for baby food. Besides reducing the cost I know what is in my baby food now. Sure my time should be figured in to the cost as well, but I'm preserving food anyway this time of year and it really doesn't take any more time to set aside an ice cube tray or two of baby veggies.

Well, now that I have run out of steam on this subject. I'm tired of sitting in front of the computer, it is a nice cool day, and I still have beans that need picked. I think I'll go play in the garden.

August 7th--Full blown summer

When did that happen. The peas, beets, carrots, and lettuce are done. The potatoes ended up with scab, and the green beans are going nuts. I have volunteer tomato plants again along with lots of squash that decided to grow. I'm finally starting to get a cucumber here and there and I harvested the first of the zuchinni today. Some of the roma tomatoes are starting to color too. Soon I will be extrememly busy in the garden.

The cherry butter ended up being frozen. That way of preserving isn't nearly as pretty as canning, but sure is faster. None of the pictures really warrented getting put up.

And one last thing...Onions are going crazy and corn is starting to tassle.

July 18th-- Cherry Butter

I got some cherries the other day. 3 lbs of them. Beautiful ripe Rainiers. Then I realized that we shouldn't eat 3 pounds just like that. There are consequences to eating that many cherries... At any rate I have never really liked preserved cherries in any form so I've been debating what to do with these. Most cherry recipes are for Bing or some other type of dark or tart cherry, not the sweet, white, Rainiers. I did finally find a couple of cherry jam recipes that sounded worth a try, but they call for pectin. I don't have any in the pantry and I'm not going to the store while Bear is napping.

So on to the decision to make butter. I've made apple and plum butter, but not cherry. The pectin was the final decision maker, but as I was slicing to pit the cherries I realized another benefit to butter. You don't have to be super careful with the fruit. Bruised imperfect cherries can go in, unlike all the other recipes for preserving cherries that call for perfect fruits. Whew. I'm not good at being that careful. Yet another benefit: I can use my crock pot to cook the cherries. A plus for sure when it is supposed to be in the 90s again today.

If everything goes well, I will post pictures and more of a step-by-step of canning the butter etc. We'll see if the taste is even worth putting up. Starting this next month is when I really wish I was a stay-at-home mom. The harvest of the garden starts to really get going and I sure could use the time at home. Maybe I'll be able to save some vacation next year and take a week in the fall to put up canned goods. Right now I just have weekends. One way to help this out is to freeze things until I can get to it on the weekend.

Speaking of freezing things...I'd better get going on the big batch of blueberries that I got with the cherries. And next month the huckleberries ought to be ready! Mmmm...I love the glut of summer fruits and berries.

July 17th Carrots and Beets

They are out, washed, and sitting in the sink. Now I have to decide what to do with them. Do I turn them into baby food? Maybe pickle the beets? Stew the carrots? Hmmm... This is the bad part of the garden. Deciding which is going to be the best way to enjoy the bounty. Fresh carrots are a completely different animal from those at the store. Beets I like, but in small amounts, and no one else in the family likes them. I put them in the garden because they are easy to grow.

The peas are getting past their prime. That is an easy decision. Shell them and put 'em in the freezer. That is if I can get them past a little boy. For as much as he doesn't like the carrots or beets he LOVES peas from the garden. In the pod or out, but generally not cooked. Come to think of it though I haven't tried cooking the ones from the garden. They never made it that far.

I've pulled most of my lettuce and did pull all the spinach. So my first bed is almost done. A few carrots left along with the peas and green onions. Once the peas and bachelor buttons are done that bed is going to get cleaned up and I'm thinking I'll mulch over it with my compost pile. This bed has a lot of clay to it. Originally I was thinking of planting something else, but I just don't think it is going to happen this year. I'm not all that ambitous.

Besides, I'm going to soon have onions, beans, tomatoes, and corn to deal with. I'm not sure what is going on with my red potatoes. I think some sort of bug has gotten to them. They never flowered and they are yellowing and wilting. Either that or a disease.

My main bug of blame this year (and last) has been slugs! I have a veritable slug farm. Anyone need slugs? Maybe someone wants to rent a garden area to feed their ducks or chickens? I could keep some birds pretty darn happy for quite some time.

Well, I think I'm off to try to put some dinner together and make a decision about my beets and carrots. Maybe.

July 10th beginning to harvest

Peas, and beets. I just got done freezing a batch of peas. I have one jar of pickled beets in the fridge (they haven't been processed), and I've got some strawberries and currants in the freezer as well. I want to do jams etc with the strawberries and currants, but haven't gotten enough at one time. So I'm freezing them and then I'll go back and make jams, jellies, syrups etc later. Maybe even this winter.

I have some rogue pumpkins growing and I have an insane number of slugs. I need a duck or something to get rid of them. The slugs that is. At least I'm getting a harvest. It won't be long and I'll need to do some major garden clean up. Spinach and lettuce are pretty well done. The beets should be coming out soon too. Even the carrots are right there on the cusp of ready.

I need to figure out some baby food recipes using these things. Then they will be put to good use.

June 26th Photos Finally

Peas

Tomatoes

Petunias

Whole veggie garden...Almost 2 months since the last of it got put in.

June 19th

A little over a month since I got everything in. At this point we can't keep up with the lettuce or spinach. The peas are blooming, the potatoes will bloom any minute, the carrots are getting big as are the beets, the corn and beans are up, and the cucumbers and zuchini are doing battle with the slugs. (The cucumber is fairing worse than the zuchini but still making it). My tomatoes are getting short and stout. They don't seem to be doing much growing up. That and (I haven't done my research yet) they seem to have something going on with the leaves. Maybe a disease with all the moisture we've had? I've never had to deal with that as I've always had disease resistant hybrids and this year I'm doing heirlooms. I guess there is something to be said for the hybrids. I just hope everyone performs well this year.

We've gotten one strawberry so far. More will follow soon if we get some sunshine. The currant bush is loaded this year and it looks like the apples and italian prunes are too. I know I'm missing some here. Cabbage and brussels sprouts are up and doing well. They were an experiment. Started by direct seeding them even though everything talks about starting with transplants started much earlier inside. I have lots of random lettuce in places. Along with some random bachelor button flowers and what I assume is either a cabbage or brussels sprout since it is around where I had those last year. Again I have some random squash too. Maybe pumpkin? I composted the Halloween pumpkins last fall and the seeds didn't get broken down over the winter. Maybe we'll get a pumpkin or two this year?

As far as herbs go... I bought some local dill last year for something and ended up drying it. This spring I just shook the seeds out in a couple of places before composting the rest of the plant. They seem to have taken off just fine. The seeds I planted out of a packet last year didn't do anything. I have lemon balm coming up voluntarily. I put out cilantro and parsley plants. I planted lots of other seeds in a new raised bed but they sure are slow to come up and I didn't keep track of what went in. Besides, Bear and dogs haven't helped any. They like to tromp through the raised beds. Oh well, we'll see.

A bit more...The garlic and onions are doing well. The spearmint is up along the north foundation. Tom's flower bed is sprouting pretty well, and this year's lavender seems to like the new location. Maybe I can get it to winter over. Oh, I found comfrey in the yard too.

Well, I hear Bear starting to wiggle. I'll try to get a current picture of the garden on here sometime this weekend as well. It is supposed to be sunny enough to try it.