Our May garden is just delightful! Granted I was traveling for the first two weeks of May so it’s been a really short month for me. We’ve also had much more rain and cooler temperatures than we normally have in May so working in the garden has been a delight. While I was gone, my … Read more
Our April garden is truly delightful! We’ve had quite a bit of rain so we haven’t had to water very often. The plants are growing and fruiting, and the heat isn’t too bad just yet. On a sad note, it appears we won’t have a citrus harvest this year. In January we had temps that … Read more
The March garden in zone 9 is usually full of a lot of summer seedlings with some hang over plants from the winter garden lingering on. It’s a great time. Not a lot is being harvested, but oh there is so much potential. I love doing these monthly(ish) updates and showing the good and the … Read more
I have a very special treat for you today, in addition to our own garden update, we’re going to go on a virtual garden tour of eleven other gardens! I always love seeing what other people are growing, and how they are growing food, herbs and flowers. Plus, on this tour you will visit gardens … Read more
When we planted our garden this spring (early to mid March) I knew I was going to have to just be grateful for whatever our garden produced this year. During our normal planting time Carl was in Manila, Philippines with MetroWorld Child which meant that the beds weren’t prepared quite like we like them because our … Read more
So, I know it’s a few days into May but I took these photos about a week ago and just couldn’t get the post written before April ended. But I wanted to share them with you and what’s going on right now in our garden. Our April garden is doing great! We’ve had enough rain … Read more
Right now we’re eating quite a bit of swiss chard and kale. Chard and kale are great because they grow year round here and they are my “filler” vegetables. And right now we’re needing that filler as we no longer have any broccoli or cabbage growing and the green beans and summer squash isn’t producing … Read more
Many years ago, I canned about 30 quarts of pear chutney. I had never tried pear chutney, in fact I had never even heard the word “chutney” before that day. But our pear tree was producing a bumper crop that year and I decided it would be fun to try something new. {ahem} No one liked it…not … Read more
Goodness our June garden has gone through a lot. We started the month harvesting tomatoes, squash and green beans. Then came Tropical Storm Bill which dumped 7 inches on our property in two days. Our ground was already saturated as we’ve already had as much rain as we get in a normal YEAR. Although I’m … Read more
f you are new to our Simple Savings posts, this is where I share all (or all that I can remember) the things we did to save money the previous month. These are usually very simple things and yet when you add them up, they can make or break your budget. But here’s the deal, … Read more
So much has happened in our garden these last few weeks and our April Garden is looking promising. Our sweet peas are producing; I just love the flowers. I didn’t plant a lot and I planted really late, kind of spur of the moment really, but we’ve been enjoying a few a day as an … Read more
If you are new to our Simple Savings posts, this is where I share all (or all that I can remember) the things we did to save money the previous month. These are usually very simple things and yet when you add them up, they can make or break your budget. But here’s the deal, … Read more
We have had so much rain this year so far and our plants are loving it! So far. We’ve had twice the amount of rain in March than we normally have for the entire month and we’re expecting more this weekend. It’s making for an interesting March garden. This is our Meyer lemon tree full … Read more
Twice a year I go through our seed stash. I should probably try to keep them a bit more organized through the year but that just doesn’t fit with my personality. If you have a large garden then growing plants from seed is the least expensive route to go. And starting seeds indoors will give … Read more
If you are new to our Simple Savings posts, this is where I share all (or all that I can remember) the things we did to save money the previous month. These are usually very simple things and yet when you add them up, they can make or break your budget. But here’s the deal, … Read more
One of our favorite dinners is pancit bihon, which is a Filipino stir fried rice noodle dish. {By the way, if anyone knows why Filipino is spelled with an “f” and only one “p” and Philippine is spelled with a “ph” and a double “p”, we would like to know. So far we’ve made up … Read more
Last week we got quite a bit of rain and although we normally wait until mid October to plant our fall/winter garden, it’s quite a bit cooler than normal so we are starting a little early. When I pulled our seeds out and started going through them, I thought about some of the gardening mistakes … Read more
I love keeping home canned corn on hand. Although canning corn takes a little bit longer than canning other vegetables does, it’s totally worth it. There’s nothing like the flavor of locally grown sweet corn during summer, and when you can your own corn you can enjoy that bit of summer all year long. We … Read more
Our June garden is just amazing this year! I’m trying really hard to enjoy it as I know we only have about another month of harvesting. We’ve been harvesting tomatoes, green beans, squash, zucchini, onions, basil and cilantro. We also harvested the buckwheat and are saving the seeds to replant. I’ll do a full post … Read more
Our garden is full and green and lush right now. I’m trying to enjoy it, knowing that sometime in the next 8 weeks it will become dry and brown and ugly. The pests have been relatively few although my crazy kale has aphids and the pill bugs seem to be multiplying like rabbits. Speaking of … Read more