programwitch / flickr
With shorter days and longer nights approaching, it’s time to start preparing your garden for fall. Before you begin planting, there are many tasks that need to be completed. Here are some fall gardening tips to get ready for the next growing season and continue to save money through gardening.
Rearrange
Here’s one of the toughest jobs you must accomplish, but it must be done. You need to get rid of all the diseased or damaged plants that have stopped producing and look tired in your garden. This is work – some of your spring plants may be monstrously (more…)
deb roby/Flickr
Here is an update on what produce is currently in season and a resource for what to plant in your late summer/fall garden. The below list of in-season produce is a good indicator of what fruit and vegetables will have the best prices. Greater supply…lower prices. Plus, in-season produce is often grown closer to home than out-of-season produce, which we import from Chile, Mexico, and other countries. Expect prices for early summer fruits and vegetables to rise.
The following list of fall fruits and vegetables comes from FruitsAndVeggiesMoreMatters.org. The list includes many hardy lettuces and squashes. If you can’t remember what is in season, price is a good indication.
Acorn Squash
Belgian Endive
Broccoli (more…)
Yazmin Cruz
This is a post by BargainBabe.com writer Yazmin Cruz.
The Frugal Festival was the first time I had been to any kind of swap. That day, as volunteers and I sorted through clothes, the anticipation built in the room. Come the swap start the anticipation turned to excitement as hundreds of people rushed in the doors to swap. I didn’t swap then, but got my first swapping experience this past weekend.
I was invited to a garden swap in the Milagro Allegro Community Garden in Highland Park, California where gardeners exchanged everything from tools to produce.
I must admit I was a skeptic. I didn’t think I’d end up liking it as much as I did. I don’t even like participating in Secret Santa come Christmas time because I usually end up with the worst gift. But not this time.
The swap was free of charge and was organized much like the Frugal Festival. There was a specific area for everything people brought to swap like plants, seeds, magazines, produce and “worm tea,” which is worm pee used for fertilizing.
I arrived a little late but was still able to exchange the seeds I had brought with me. I had all kinds of seeds including dill, broccoli rabe, kale, and lima beans. I also had seeds that I’d harvested myself like basil and cilantro seeds.
Here’s my haul and approximately how much I saved:
- “Organic Gardening” magazine – $3.99
- “Sunset” magazine – $4.99
- Heirloom cucumber seeds – $2
- Organic Plums (10) – $6.90
- Organic Tomatoes (2 lbs.) – $5
- Aloe Vera plant – $4
- Organic Bay Leaves – $4
- Organic Pineapple Sage – $2
Total Saved: $32.88
My goods.
I am now a believer – swapping is the new shopping. If you’ve never participated in a swap, you must. BargainBabe.com writer Bobbi wrote a post on how to get the most out of a swap that is essential to read before heading to your first swap.
I already leafed through my magazines and found yummy recipes using my tomatoes and bay leaves, and I can’t wait to try my pineapple sage tea, which I hear is good for anxiety. The only thing I wasn’t able to get was the worm tea, but I hear the community garden is looking to have swaps every last Sunday of the month and you know I’ll be there.
What kind of swaps have you participated in and how much money have you saved?
Have you ever seen such a bizarre looking cucumber? It grew through a light plastic mesh fence I installed to protect my Rhode Island garden, which I planted on an earlier visit. (Did you miss my post about moving across the country?) Everything seems to grow very well in the Ocean State so I’m satisfying my gardening itch for sure. The smaller plants I culled from my garden will go into my homemade composters.
You can still see a little of the black mesh, which the cucumber partly swallowed. It took me a few minutes to cut the questioning vegetable free. I plan to use it in one of my favorite salads, which I copied from a friend who isn’t fond of measuring spoons.
Favorite cucumber salad
1 cucumber, chopped small
juice of two lemon (or to taste)
chili pepper (few dashes)
cayenne pepper (if you like it spicy)
If you can, marinate everything for an hour, but this is optional. You can also add diced red onions or a diced tomato. Has anything as strange as my cucumber grown in your garden?
Related posts:
How to save money by gardening
Recipe for easy dessert with fresh strawberries
HomeDepot.com
If you’ve ever contemplated composting at home you know that the plastic bins that hold household and yard waste are expensive, impossible to move, and rodent-prone. I know a low-cost solution!
Store-bought compost bins, like the one above, cost more than $100. (Would you believe Home Depot sells a composter that is $398?) Once the bins fill with waste, they can burst at the seams but are too heavy to relocate. The containers are open on the bottom, enticing raccoons and rats to dig a hole for easy trash access.
However, it is very easy to make your own composting bins from empty buckets. DIY power! Here’s what you need:
- 1 or more 5-gallon empty Homer buckets with lid (they are about $3 at Home Depot)
- A screwdriver
- A 1/4 or 1/2 inch drill bit
Put the lid on the bucket and drill 11 holes into it with the screwdriver and drill bit. Try making an inner circle with 5 holes and an outer circle with 6 holes on the lid. Next, turn the bucket on its side and make 15 more holes, spreading them out. Flip the bucket over and make seven final holes.
Voila! You have your very own composter. The holes let moisture out and the 5-gallon buckets are light enough, even when full, that you can easily turn and shake them to hasten the composting process. The tight lid deters vermin. If you want to collect the juice from the composter, it is smelly but great for plants.
Once you fill your bucket with a mix of food waste and green debris, the compost will be ready in about six weeks. Expect the volume to shrink to half its original heft.
hoyasmeg/Flickr
This is a post by BargainBabe.com writer Yazmin Cruz.
Composting is a free source of organic fertilizer essential to properly take care of your garden. For many, composting is a daunting task because they think it is messy, pricey and time-consuming, but in my experience not one of these myths are not true.
Myth #1: Composting is difficult.
Composting can be difficult if you do not know what you are doing. Once you get the hang of it there isn’t much to it and messing up is pretty hard. Composting is simply the process of breaking down plant materials to form humus, (as opposed to hummus, which you eat). Homemade compost is the best fertilizer your plants ever had. There are different types of composting: hot composting, cold composting and vermicomposting.
I am most familiar with vermicomposting as that is the kind done at my community garden. Vermicomposting is very similar to hot composting in that you must mix wet and dry waste in a bin and turn it every now and then to create heat and accelerate decomposition. The difference is that hot composting does not require worms. In cold composting grass clippings and leaves decompose and as you may have guessed it, this process takes more time. There are specific things that are appropriate for composting and certain things you should never compost.
Myth #2: Composting attracts flies and smells.
One of the reasons many people don’t want to compost is because they think it attracts flies and is smelly — after all it’s a pile of waste decomposing, right? Wrong. I have a small compost pail in my kitchen and it hasn’t once smelled bad when I have properly taken care of it. The same goes for the flies. I did once have an infestation of fruit flies but it was because I forgot about my pail for about a week in a half. My pail has a filter so it didn’t stink up the place but it did smell pretty bad when I went to drop it off at the community garden. Haven’t had any problems since but I try to consistently take out my pail full of food scraps every two or three days.
Myth #3: Composting requires a lot of space.
Composting can be accomplished by apartment dwellers. It’s just a matter of finding the right spot in your home. I was composting at home before I decided to take my food scraps to my community garden. I decided to stop composting at home for selfish reasons. If I contribute food scraps to the community garden compost I am able to use more compost for my plants.
Do you compost?
By Bobbi Burger Brunoehler of Bobbisbargains.
basykes/Flickr
I recently received an email asking me where to get a chair re-upholstered at an affordable price and I instantly thought of a very unknown resource – occupational centers and technical schools. These are public schools that teach older students occupations like:
- furniture upholstery
- fashion design
- web graphics
- auto body repair
- landscaping
- floral design
- construction
- baking/cooking
- hair and beauty
- and much more
Most of these schools connect folks like you and me with students looking for experience at low fees. Many of these students are looking for experience and to build a portfolio and referrals. The work might not be perfect, but if you get a student who is just about finished with their studies, you could get a great product and a great deal.
I used a student to help me with my home landscaping. He was awesome. He educated me on different plants and helped me to pick out what would grow in my yard. He was very reasonably priced. As a matter of fact, I paid him more than he asked because he charged so little for all the work he did.
In California these schools are part of the California Association of Regional Occupational Centers and Programs (CAROCP.) In the Los Angeles area, these schools are called Los Angeles Occupational Centers. The mission of these occupational centers is to “provide exemplary career education, career development, and workforce preparation that contribute to student academic and career success and to the economic development of California.” These schools are also a resource for you to find classes at a very reasonable price. Classes for eligible students are around $50.
In New York State, there are New York Technical and Vocational Schools. I don’t know if their tuition is as reasonable as the California schools, but the advice about hiring students remains the same. I’m sure that there are similar schools in every state in America.
And who knows, the student designer that you use to help you create a custom wedding dress might just turn out to be the next hot thing. Think how lucky you will be to have one of their early works. You’ll be able to tell people that you knew they were headed for greatness.
Have you ever hired a student to do work for you?
Related posts:
Home improvement: DIY a waste of time?
One of the downsides – or perhaps you think it’s an upside – to growing your own food is funky fruit. Check out this lemon I found in my backyard!
It reminds me of a neti pot, hehehe. This lemon’s bizarre shape made me realize that so much of the food we consume is picture perfect. You would NEVER see something like this for sale at Albertsons. Shoppers expect “normal” looking produce, which means a lot of food must get thrown away, which in turn raises prices. So if you knew buying a lemon like this would contribute to lower prices, would you take it home?
*clairity*/Flickr
Have you noticed how incredibly cheap strawberries are right now? They are one of many fruits in season so the prices are fantastic. I’ve paid as little as $.79 for a pound! Here is a quick and easy recipe to serve fresh strawberries as a dessert or snack.
1 package strawberries, sliced into quarters with tops removed
1/2 juicy lemon, remove seeds and squeeze over berries
1-2 T powdered sugar, depending on how ripe your berries are
1 T chopped mint leaves
You can serve over ice cream if you want but they are delicious by themselves!
What is your favorite strawberry recipe?
meddygarnet/Flickr
There was a cool story about doing home improvement on your own versus hiring someone in the latest Real Simple (April). The story was strangely skewed toward hiring someone to do the job, however, and missed the benefits of doing projects yourself.
First, the story says, consider three factors before making a decision.
1. Peer pressure. Whatever your family and friends do, you are more likely to do. So if everyone you know colors their hair at home, you will feel pressure to eschew the salon. Similarly, if your family has always hired contractors instead of doing it yourself (DIY), you’ll probably hire, too. Follow your gut and make the decision that is right for you, regardless.
2. Your positive attitude. People assume their DIY project will go well but often underestimate the time and skill it takes.
3. Your perspective on your free time. People believe they have more time than they really do. (What??? I don’t know anyone whose schedule isn’t jam packed.) We have a hard time measuring time and “are willing to take more risks with it” than we are with money, the story says.
Then Real Simple suggests you answer four questions. Can I realistically pull this project off? (i.e. learn the required skills?) What kind of time commitment is really involved? (Double estimates from a contractor.) How much will this task cost to complete myself? (Supplies + calculate your hourly rate.) And lastly, how much will I really enjoy the process?
I wager that doing home improvement projects yourself (which is a lot like growing your own food) has many benefits that the story missed…
1. The enjoyment of learning how to do something challenging that you didn’t think you were capable of.
2. The money saved over time from learning new skills. Snake a toilet once, and you’ll never fork over $200 to a plumber again.
3. The confidence from pulling a project off. What an accomplishment!
An important part of the DIY v. hire debate is determining how much your time is worth. See the post below to calculate your hourly rate!
A friend of mine is obsessed with saving water. She has made significant changes to her home and lifestyle over the past few years that have reduced her water usage – and bill – by noticeable amounts. I asked to see a recent water bill and an old one but her water-saving habits pre-date her water bill collection. (She tossed the old bills out.)
This past summer, my friend took her water-saving methods to the next level because she had plans to install a vegetable garden, which would use more water. Her goal was to maintain her current water usage. So far, she’s been successful!
Here are some of the big and small things she does to save H2O.
- Collects water runoff from her garage gutters and angles them into a trash bin. That water feeds her vegetable garden, which feeds her.
- Installed a tankless water heater, which heats water as you use it. (More of an electricity savings.)
- Replaced her clothes washer with a super low-flow, front-loading washer.
- Stopped watering her back lawn for six months until the grass died, then covered it with gravel and pavers, except for a boxed in vegetable garden. Now it has a zen rock-garden feel to it.
- Her main shade trees produce fruit, including oranges and limes.
- She planted herbs like mint, basil, thyme, oregano and rosemary instead of decorative plants. This shaves a few bucks off her grocery bill.
- While the shower heats up she collects the cold water in a bucket and uses it to feed her vegetable garden.
- In the front yard she has rocks, paver stones, and drought resistant plants instead of grass.
Resources for saving water and living sustainably:
PathToFreedom.com – a site written by a family in Pasadena, CA that has turned their property into a working micro-farm. The site is loaded with helpful info and inspirational stories.
Gardeners.com provides a long list of drought-resistant perennials from their readers, including oriental yew, evergreen boxwood, tachys byzantina (lamb’s ear), ornamental grasses, Mexican sage, eucalyptus, lavender, blue catmint, and jacaranda.
Lighterfootstep.com, a site devoted to reducing one’s carbon footprint. I’m digging this story on 30 things you should never compost or recycle.
Related:
A greener way to flush the toilet
Water-wise: bucket, sink or dishwasher?
UPDATE: Reader Janet says she has experimented with drastically reducing her water bill, too!
For kicks my DH and I decided to see how little H2O we could use month to month. The two most extreme things we do is capturing 4-5 gallons of water from each shower per day. This is used to irrigate the backyard plants.
The other thing is to hand wash dishes (yes, I am aware most people save H2O by using a dishwasher). For an entire sink of dishes I start with a cereal bowl full of soapy water and scrub each item. Once all are scrubbed, I fill a large pot with warm water and 1/2 cup of vinegar, I use this as a pre-rinse to dissolve the soap before rinsing under the faucet. All the water is captured and we use less than 2 gallons for the entire load and the dishes are squeeky clean. This water is also used in the backyard.
We have averaged 2- 3 units of water a month this summer!
Here is a photo essay of my first recession garden harvest and the tasty dinner that we cooked from it. Recipe for Hubby’s fantastic Basil Chicken dinner to follow!
Stirring ingredients in the wok.
I’ve got extras if you want one!
Ingredients for Hubby’s Basil Chicken:
Canola oil
Half onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, diced
Whole chicken cut into pieces, on bone or cut into strips (Tip: buy whole chicken on sale and ask the butcher to cut it up for you.)
~20 basil leaves, washed and dried
1 T soy sauce
2 t lime juice (to brighten the flavor)
1 green pepper, sliced thin
10 cherry tomatoes, halved
2 t fresh black pepper or to taste
1 t salt or to taste
Directions:
Start rice in separate pan or in rice cooker. Prepare and chop all ingredients. Salt chicken lightly. Heat the wok on high until it is almost smoking. Add 1-2 T canola oil and heat. Saute the onion with a few leaves of basil. Add the garlic and let it cook for 1 minute.
Toss in a few pieces of the chicken. If you add it all at once the wok will lose too much heat. When the chicken is mostly cooked push it to the side and add a few more pieces of chicken and basil. Repeat until you’ve added it all.
Add the soy sauce, lime juice and mix. Add the green peppers, tomatoes and mix. Salt and pepper to taste. Cover and let the bigger chicken pieces cook through, about 5 minutes. Serves 4-6.
