How Does Your Garden Grow ? ...

Of late, I've been eating, sleeping, breathing all things garden related. This year I've doubled the size of last year's garden ... and added a new separate section. I cheated a bit and ended up buying my tomato plants. With last year's poor production and short season, I got a head start with some nice four inch pots. In the photos you will notice the blue/green tents in the garden. These are my wall 'o water plant covers that help to get the plants growing quicker. Today, I was able to remove them as the plants have grown to the top. I replaced them with wire cages. We planted eight tomato plants this year. Several varieties.

Here's what is growing:

tomatoes
potatoes
red & Spanish onions
walla-walla onions
scallions
turnips
radishes
thyme, Italian parsley, basil, cilantro, tarragon
mint
carrots
sugar peas
rhubarb
strawberries
asparagus
blueberries
raspberries
corn
cabbage
peppers
garlic
watermelon
cantaloupe
cucumbers (two varieties)
zucchini & yellow crooked neck squash
pumpkins (two varieties)
green beans
lettuce
apples
sour cherries

later we will plant

rutabagas
winter squash

Most of my 'babies' have at least sprouted. The radishes are ready to eat ... but then, they are always the earliest to harvest.

Lest we have hail or pests, this year is off to a good start ... LORD WILLING AND AMEN!

My 'Thrifty Garden/Home' has been hard at work ... just haven't had time to do much posting though. Friday found hubby and myself sale-ing at the local rummage and garage sales. I had a great score and scooped up a box of soap-making supplies including this book. For the past four months, I've been dabbling in the soap making business: Laundry (liquid & powder), shampoo, bath soap, liquid hand soap, etc. With this newest book, I can turn basic cold pressed soap into milled specialty soaps. You know, those bars that cost a fortune at the spa shops. I haven't purchased laundry, bath soap, nor shampoo since last year. OK, let's come clean; it's a fun and rewarding scientific experiment/hobby that gives you a luxurious product made by your own two hands.

This week started out with great weather, so I've been able to work two days in the garden enlarging it by two and a half times the original size. There is plenty of room now for corn and two rows of potatoes (in trenches). Five or six raspberry plants and two blue berry bushes were relocated to a permanent home there. Rows were hoed for strawberry plants ... and tripod steaks were erected for pole beans and cucumbers. Everything and every plant is now being drawn up in my mind (and on paper ... a safer bet ;). Welded wire fencing was installed around the entire area to keep the deer and moose out. A gateway was left open for easy access ... some type of actual gate will be installed in a few weeks. It's a good start and I thank the Good Lord for the great weather. At the end of the day I'm feeling a 'good' tired from all the digging and pounding in fence posts. I'll post a few pictures soon.

Oh Darn!! :) Running a thrifty home means making do with what is at hand (or foot :) I actually went to the fabric store while in town to get some darning thread to mend hubbies white socks and was shocked they didn't sell any ... I then asked for cotton floss instead (which they had an abundance). The store worker said I was the 10th person in the last few weeks asking for darning thread. Seems that more people are making do with less and fixing rather than tossing. If you've never darned a sock, give it a try. You can 'google' how to darn I'm sure*. I find it rather therapeutic and rewarding to mend. If you don't own a darning egg, you can use a round ended light bulb to stick in the sock.

[*This only means I'm too thrifty with my time and don't find it necessary to make a darning tutorial when you can easily find one on-line such as here, and here. I'm also too time spent to go dig through our family photo albums to find the one of my daughter Elizabeth ceremoniously receiving her great grandmother's wooden darning egg that was given to her in the early 1900's and used to darn the socks of eleven children and those of her farmer husband.]

photo credit here

The dreadful job of cleaning a sink. We have eight sinks in my home (including the two laundry sink-tubs). Since I've given up buying chemical cleaners I had to come up with a way to clean all of these watering holes. Five sinks are porcelain, two are some type of white composite, and one is a double stainless steel kitchen sink. Then we have four bath tubs (three are shower combos) made from acrylic ... and one tile shower stall in the master bath. I'll spare you the toilet count for a later post ;) (what was I thinking when I designed my home?) Needless to say, that's a lot of surfaces to keep clean. BTW, I don't have to clean each one daily ... some are cleaned weekly ... some only when we have company using them :)

My tried and true cleaner is ... are you ready? baking soda Just pure unadulterated BS (baking soda). I keep a small covered plastic container in each bathroom with this magic cleaner. It doesn't scratch even the shiniest of acrylic (that being my nice big claw foot bathtub). Simply sprinkle a bit on to a wet sink/tub surface and scrub with a wet cleaning rag ... rinse well. For my stainless steel kitchen sink, I use a light sprinkling of salt along with the BS. The sink comes out stain and spot free.

Buttery Spread. I've been experimenting with making a butter based spread for toast. I'm not a big fan of margarine ... yet butter is very expensive if you're on a thrifty budget, and it's impossible to spread on bread when cold. Years ago I read about a mixture that had equal parts of light olive oil and butter ... a half/half recipe. Yesterday I tried my hand at such a mixture and tested it out on my kids. They all like the end results. Not having any light olive oil, I substituted vegetable oil. Next time, I'll try using the light olive oil.

1 stick very soft butter
1/2 cup light olive oil (or vegetable oil)
pinch of salt

In a bowl, mix the two oils together along with a pinch of salt. I used my stick blender. Put in a covered container and store in the refrigerator. The consistency is soft enough to spread right from the fridge. My next attempt will be to make a light whipped buttery spread ... stay tuned.

Furniture spray wax can be replaced with a home made formula to easily clean your wood furniture. By mixing 1/2 teaspoon olive oil with 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (or vinegar) in a glass jar with a lid, you can dab a bit on a soft recycled cleaning rag when you dust (shake well before using). You can find similar recipes by searching the web. Bye-bye dust ... bye-bye expensive store bought products that pollute the air and take up space in the landfill. I like to think of it as 'salad dressing' for your furniture :) It really does work.

We've become a generation of consumers ... and less and less producers. The economy is in the tank ... and big gov. is encouraging people to spend, spend, spend. To me, this does not feel right (the spending part). I think there are too many factors involved to be brief here ... but the treadmill spending of the past several decades has come to an abrupt halt. During this time of uncertainty is an opportunity to make do with what you have, re-purpose items that would otherwise be tossed in the landfill, and think outside the box. Our forefathers had to get by with very few staples ... and yet they survived. This month I hope to focus on a few steps to shrink your grocery bill.

Today's money saver tip:

Cut back on your use of paper towels

My kids were the biggest offenders in wasting paper towels. How did I get them to use less? I put away the paper towel holder on the kitchen counter and replaced it with a two-ring fingertip towel holder. Each day I stock it with two clean wash cloths. At one time we used about 1-2 rolls of paper towels a week ... now a roll lasts us about three months. Another big waste was using them in the microwave oven to cook bacon. How about cooking bacon in a cast iron skillet?

Washing windows and mirrors.

This was another area that paper towels were used. Recycling your newspaper really does work well and is lint free. Before you use the paper, take a full sheet and rip it in half along the crease, then crumple it up a bit. It takes about thirty seconds or so to start absorbing the window cleaner, but once the paper is a tiny bit damp, it works wonders. You will have to wash your hands or wear cleaning gloves due to the newsprint. I toss the damp paper into the compost bin. You could also use non printed newspaper ... the type used for packing moving boxes. One box would last several years.

Here is a list of products we no longer buy:

• window cleaner
• toilet bowl cleaner
• pre-moistened cleaning wipes
• tub/sink cleaner
• floor cleaner (Pinesol/Mr. Clean)
• furniture polish
• disposable dusting products
• disposable floor cleaning mops/pads (swiffer)
• fabric softener/dryer sheets
• laundry detergent
• bath soap
• plug in type air fresheners
  

This coming month I will post some tried and true recipes you can make for pennies. You probably have most of the ingredients sitting on your pantry shelf.

Now don't think we're all covered in dirt that I've included 'laundry detergent and bath soap' to my list of products we don't purchase ... these are easy and fun to make ... stay tuned ... or do some research and find a simple recipe to replace your store bought product ... you really will save money and know what's in your cleaning arsenal.

In paper towels alone, we're saving a minimum of $60-75 a year.

An Irish Blessing .... for ye garden.

May the frost never afflict your spuds.
May the leaves of your cabbage always be free from worms.
May the crows never pick your haystack.
If you inherit a donkey, may she be in foal.

Trash to treasure gardening :)

Progress is happening in the portable greenhouse set up in my dining room. The French door provides light to all of the shelves in the unit. You can see here how the newspaper pots turned out holding some beefsteak tomato plants.

With the cost of water, soap, and power ... I've been cutting back on washing as many loads of laundry each week. I used to wash about 12 loads a week. Now I'm down to seven. How'd I do it? First, I really had to get after a grown adult child about using one or two clean towels a day. Now she gets one per week. Next, I have been 'pre-drying' damp towels by simply hanging them in the laundry room ... then tossing into the hamper until I have a full load. Washing just one or two loads most days makes the work less demanding on the weekend. To further cut back on electricity, I partially dry everything for 10 minutes in the dryer and hang them to finish drying. Hubby and a friend are helping to install some clothes lines in the laundry room. Plus with the purchase of a rolling laundry rack, it makes it much easier to dry clothes this way in the winter.

My 'oven' proofed seeds have sprouted. First popped up the marigolds. The beefsteak tomatoes are just emerging. A few petunias are sprouting as well. I have taken off the lid of the paper egg carton and placed the marigolds under a lamp for 'sunshine' and a little warmth. With some birthday money I picked up a patio sized 'greenhouse' with about four shelves and a plastic zippered covering. It needs to be assembled. the shelves are far enough apart to grow stacked trays of lettuce all summer long without using the cover. By placing the growing trays on the shelves, water should trickle down from the first tray and water everything growing on the lower trays.

Photo: style of greenhouse purchased at sprawlmart for $38

Here is the link for the 'newspaper seed starting pots'.

http://www.ehow.com/video_1745_create-seed-starting.html

Recycling for the garden. I've been collecting odds and ends to use for the garden. Empty toilet/paper towel tubes, plastic take home salad containers, paper egg cartons, yogurt cups, and dryer lint to name a few. Also the compost bin is filling up with veggie and fruit scraps, along with said lint, and strips of newspaper. In another day, this bin will be finding a dumping off spot in the back forty under a tree that has some dirt poking through the snow. The top two pictures show my tomato, petunia, and marigold seeds that I've planted using household 'trash'. I also discovered that my oven's lowest setting for proofing yeast bread makes to perfect temperature for germinating seeds (75-85 F) ... so don't be alarmed seeing my starter trays in the oven :). Let's just hope I don't forget about them and accidentally turn the oven on ;) After they sprout and get a bit bigger, the plan is to make little biodegradable pots from newspaper to plant them in while they continue to grow indoors.

Bottom photo: indoor compost bin. this gets dumped in a old kitchen waste basket mixed with newspapers just out the back door and later dumped again onto bare soil.

When I confessed about being a spend thrift yesterday, I wasn't referring to extravagant living. Just wasteful living. A mindset of I can afford to not bother with reusing and retooling (mostly in the food/household supplies area) Generally I don't buy just to buy. My wardrobe closet is not bulging at the seams, nor do I spend for all new items. Thrift and vintage stores plus garage sales have been my source to decorate and outfit my home. A few years ago we bought 'new' bedroom furniture. After looking at what was in the stores I wasn't impressed, especially with the price tags. The solution was to buy a nice wrought iron head/foot board and bargain hunt for dressers and night stands at thrift stores which we then painted off white and roughed up the finish with sandpaper, exposing little sections of 'worn' wood. The room came out great without spending too much money. The only other new item was a chase lounge purchased with one of George Bush's tax rebates to help 'stimulate' the economy. Bed linens and drapes were bargain shopped on line at Overstock.com and Country Curtains. Most accessories are items we had in storage ... a wall clock and mirror were bargains at Target and Walmart. The brass metal bed table lamps are bargain Lennox lamps from TJ Maxx. I was brave and evenutally hand painted the solid yellow brass with metallic paint in a oil rubbed bronze finish. This most likely devalued the lamps ... but I like them all the better. Existing yellow brass dresser pulls were given the same paint treatment.