July 30, 2009
I ran across a link to the USDA Food Budget today for June of 2009. I found it very interesting. Four monthly food plans range from Thrifty to Liberal to choose from. For my own family of 7, which includes my husband and I, 12 year old son, 9 year old son, 7 year old son, 4 year old daughter, and 3 year old son, even the Thrifty plan was hundreds of dollars over what I spend for us. The income we live on would probably be considered near the line of “US poverty”, but honestly, we have everything we need and live like kings compared to so many in the rest of the world.
The Thrifty plan is $925.90, the Low Cost plan is $1,212.20, the Moderate plan suggests $1,508.20 and the Liberal plan boasts of spending $1,823.20 per month. Can you imagine spending that much money on food? We’re a one income family and the Liberal plan would take up almost half of the paycheck.
I see the reason for this amount of money being spent on food is because of the two income working families. What working woman has time to cook from scratch when you have a husband to love, boss to please, business to manage, kids to discipline and train, manage the household including laundry and cleaning, budgeting, and then all the soccor games to attend to? That doesn’t even include any other activity. I, honestly, don’t think that is the load that women are supposed to carry, but some women are forced into these situations.
I’m not saying women can’t carry this load. I think we’ve all proven that we can do everything men can do plus what we do. But, isn’t it a little heavy? Isn’t it a little overwhelming? I’ve experienced both worlds of working outside the home and spending my time in my home managing it and raising my own kids. I’m not saying that I’m really, really good at everything I do yet (definitely not Martha Stewart), maybe some day, maybe not, but I will say that I have experienced a deep satisfaction that I don’t think can be found anywhere else being married with children that still need raising.
Now, what does that have to do with Food Budgets? Well, because I am at home, I do have the opportunity to cook from scratch. And not only from scratch, but using grass fed beef and organic chicken, raw milk and growing some of my own vegetables. No, we don’t eat like this all of the time, but for the majority of the time we do. It’s fun for me and when my kids get sick they are only sick for a day or two. So, in the long run it will even save us money.
I am really digressing from what I wanted to say when I first started this article, so let me cut to the chase now. I want to start keeping track of the money I put into my garden and the amount of money, figuratively speaking, that comes out. I want to prove that putting in a decent sized garden, while still living in a regular metropolitan city lot (mine is about 1/8 of an acre, maybe a little less) is profitable, both for my family’s health and for our pocketbook.
So, over the next few months I will not only be showing what I will be doing to the garden area, but also what I spend and the amount of veggies that actually come out.
I have never kept track before, so this will be a fun experiment for me. I hope you all will join me on my upcoming adventure!
[ 5 Comments ] Posted on 07.30.09 under From My Garden, Gardening Tips
CNN Article
April 01, 2009
My dad, aka Farmer Darrell, sent me this link to a neat article from CNN. Check it out and tell us what you think!
‘Recession gardens’ trim grocery bills, teach lessons - CNN.com*
[ 4 Comments ] Posted on 04.01.09 under Gardening Tips
February-Preparing Our Soil
February 02, 2009
We have been and will be working hard at getting our soil prepared for the spring garden that we’ll start planting in a couple of weeks. My 9 and 6 year old boys helped me clear out my diseased eggplants that I started last spring (anyone know what diseases that eggplants get and how to get rid of it?) and my 4 pepper plants. My 6 year old was very, very proud to be able to dig out the pepper plants all by himself by using a big shovel.
I told him to leave my one, huge jalapeno pepper plant that was loaded with about 20 peppers and just as many blooms, but I think he forgot. He came up to me saying “Mommy look, look, what I did!!
But what can you say when the cutest, little sweet face looks up at you with eyes beaming of pride at the work that he had just accomplished… except “I love you, you sweet hard working boy. You did a great job!”.
Besides, I will be able to freeze those peppers and have plenty to last me until my new jalapeno pepper plant produces in a couple of months.
This week we are planning on tilling in my grass and compost that I have been saving for the last 4 months along with some manure from Home Depot. I am definitely a procrastinator and I should have done this a few weeks ago, but I didn’t and it will still be just fine. As long as I get my tomatoes and peppers in by the middle of February it’s all good.
How are y’alls spring garden plans and gardens coming along? I have way too much lettuce to eat in 2 weeks to make room where the tomatoes are going. Rushing the veggies out to put more in is the downside to having a small urban garden, but it’s still worth every second of time I put into it.
Oh, and FYI, remember to feed your soil lots of good stuff like grass clippings, manure or compost, let it sit a couple of weeks after digging it under, keep it moist during that time and then plant. Don’t plant right after you add the amendments because the soil needs time to release all of what the plants need.
I’ve gotta run so I can hurry up and dig in my compost before it’s too late!!!
[ 1 Comment ] Posted on 02.02.09 under Gardening Tips
January-Starting Tomatoes, Transplanting and Ramblings
January 22, 2009
This afternoon I finally finished planting my tomato seeds into the trays. Ideally, I wanted to do this a couple of weeks ago, but that didn’t happen. Sun Gold, Supersweet 100, Carbon, Paul Robeson, Brandywine, Porter, Ceylon and Green Zebra tomatoes are planted and on their way! I think you’ll like the Sun Gold’s and the Supersweet 100’s, Kelli. If anyone has a few Yellow Pear tomato seeds to share, I would love to have some…I forgot to save seeds from my own plants last year.
As I was planting my seeds, I noticed that one of my pepper plants had the start of a bloom at the top (like Hannah’s).
and was getting rootbound. Yikes!
So I looked around the house to see what I could find to upsize it into. And then I saw it…and I thought to myself, Staci, you are a genius! Ok, well, not really, but it is a really good idea! I cut out part of a milk gallon container leaving the handle so I can carry it. Isn’t that such a good idea? I think so.
It will be much happier for the next few weeks in it’s new home.
Ahhh, this is one of the joys of being a stay at home mom. I plant from seed to save money because my husband and I have chosen for me to stay home and raise our kids on a tighter budget, but then I receive so much more satisfaction from “having” to start my plants from seed. Funny how that works sometimes.
[ 5 Comments ] Posted on 01.22.09 under From My Garden, Gardening Tips
Importance of Light
January 08, 2009
As I was surveying my garden for the past month I noticed that the last 3 feet of my new garden plot is completely in shade. When I first tilled my garden it was totally in sun, but because winter has come, it is now shaded by our useless, inherited 12 foot tall oleander.
My swiss chard isn’t growing very well in shade. They are stunted. Starting out in full sun allowed the seeds to germinate and grow an inch, but now they are growing at a stand still pace in shade and are basically just staying alive.
They were designed to prefer full sun, meaning 6-8 hours of full sunlight per day, like these swiss chard plants on the other side of my garden which were planted on the same day as the chard in the shade…
These swiss chard plants are thriving beautifully, not yet fully matured, but they are definitely on their way.
As I was pondering this, I knew what I needed to do; chop down the useless, 12 feet tall oleander. If I don’t, this part of my new winter garden will be completely useless. I can also use the space where the oleander is growing to extend my garden later on.
It’s funny how God can use plants to speak to me, alongside His Word of course. The analogy I see is that if I don’t remove certain actions, behaviors or things from my life that are useless and poisonous it shades the part of my life that could be so much more useful. Jesus said, in John 8:12, “I am the Light of the world.” I can’t grow into the person that God wants me to be unless I yield the shady areas of my life to Him and allow His Light to saturate my life according to His Word by the power of His Holy Spirit.
Taking out the huge, 12 foot oleander won’t be easy and I will have to enlist people stronger than me, but it will be worth it.
[ 2 Comments ] Posted on 01.08.09 under From My Garden, Gardening Tips
Online Garden Coupon
December 30, 2008
I was surfing the internet trying to find some natural fertilizer (since I don’t own a goat, rabbit, horse, cow or chickens) and I ran across an online coupon for saving $20 if you spend $40. I thought to myself, hey, that is a really great deal and so I thought I’d pass it along to y’all.
[ No Comments ] Posted on 12.30.08 under Gardening Tips
Raised Garden Beds
December 28, 2008
Raised beds or sunken beds. Nothing like a little controversy to get your minds spurned on to think of why you do some things the way you do. I’ve heard of others who say that with our climate it is better to dig out your plot and make it sunken. How about you? Have you heard of sunken beds? I, myself, prefer raised beds and I’ll tell you why.
First of all, my garden plots always begin flat. It just takes them a few years to get up to the raised bed status. The garden in the photo above started out completely flat. By adding adequate compost and manure twice a year, my garden plot naturally grew “up”. If you dig a sunken plot it’s eventually going to slowly be morphing into a raised plot, so you might as well save yourself some energy from the get go and not dig out a sunken plot. It’s hard enough to break up the hard dirt, let alone dig out the dirt for the sunken plot. Our native dirt here is like a rock.
For those who don’t want to till the “rock” dirt, building a traditional raised bed takes less effort, but more money. Filling up a raised bed to begin with takes an incredible amount of compost and manure. If money is no option, go for the raised bed to skirt around tilling.
Whichever way you prefer to start your garden plot really depends on the amount of energy and money you want to put into it. I am “Mrs. Frugal”, so I prefer putting more energy and less money into my garden. My flat garden eventually becomes raised anyway.
By the way, I’ve just discovered a new garden site that has so much fun and useful information. Don’t check it out, though, until you have a chunk of time to look through it. I have spent way too much time wandering through all the articles.
I hope you all are thoroughly enjoying your gardens and if you don’t have a garden, just stay tuned and in the next couple of months my dad and I will walk you through how to get a spring garden plot up and going!
[ 2 Comments ] Posted on 12.28.08 under Gardening Tips
December: Start those peppers!
December 27, 2008
If any of you are wanting to start peppers from seeds, now is the time to do it. I started a few seeds a couple of weeks ago, but I will plant a whole seed tray of 72 pepper seeds today. Last year I waited too long to start my peppers, which was in the mid to later part of January. I didn’t realize that peppers grow a lot slower than tomatoes, but now I know to plant earlier!
I hope you all have a satisfying New Year!
[ 2 Comments ] Posted on 12.27.08 under Gardening Tips
Ugly Lights
December 13, 2008
My grow lights are not the expensive kind, but they work and have worked for the last couple of years just fine. Any produce you see from my garden (Staci’s for those that don’t know) has been grown by seed from me with my own grow lights…except for my basil plant. My wonderful father, Farmer Darrell, bought me that one.
So here we go…the photos are not that great because what I was taking a picture of does not look that great! Oh, and if you install 8 feet of 12 inch wide double shelves with 8 hanging fluorescent lights, make sure don’t do it in your spouse’s office. You might hear about how ugly they look like a broken record…but I am not taking them down! They are my babies! 
The lights that you see (above) are 2 four feet long fluorescent shop lights with hanging chains. Each shop light has 2 fluorescent lights in them; one cool and one warm to get a spectrum wide enough for the plants’ needs without burning them. Two seed trays fit perfectly under two side by side 4 feet long shop lights.
I’ll be starting my peppers any day now!
[ 1 Comment ] Posted on 12.13.08 under Gardening Tips, Seed Starting
Baby Beet Salad
November 20, 2008
As I was thinning my baby beets…
I collected the leaves that I snipped and made myself my first salad. And I don’t even have to fight off ten little hands because nobody wants it but me. :) Although, if I put ranch dressing on it for them they would probably eat it…but I still don’t want to share.
The beet leaves have a stronger flavor than lettuce, but I love it!
[ 2 Comments ] Posted on 11.20.08 under From My Garden, Gardening Tips
