Frugal Tip

Frugal Tip of the Week

Tuesday June 30

When your a grower of vegetables and flowers collecting

seeds is a very important job. I wanted to let people know

about Blossom Swap.

http://www.blossomswap.com//www.blossomswap.com

This is one of my gardening links

I have posted on my blog. Its about swapping what you

have with someone else and you each get something.

People swap seeds, plants, magazines etc.

For those who are just starting out they can provide

postage. What a great tool to have!

After, your growing season don't forget to collect your seeds.

This will payoff.

Sweet Peas

Saturday June 27

Sweet Peas

This was my first picking of my peas this year. What a

great harvest. Getting out in the garden very early in the

season has payed off. How early you ask, the end of

Februrary I was getting my site ready. I thought

I would be ready to put the peas in right at the

beginning of March. Wrong, here comes snow.

The peas went in after the snow,

According to my picture dates that would mean in the

first week of March.

If there were no stores to buy food from how hard

you would work to get the first crop in.

Maybe, next time I will just put them before the

snow melts. That would start the germination nice

and early.

We are having a great harvest due to good planning.

Colorado

Friday June 26

My trip to Grand Junction Colorado.

The second week of June I was getting ready for

a trip with my husband to Colorado. Getting the

rest of the house ready for my departure. This was a

big undertaking. Thanks for a church family everything

worked out. My dear husband had a business trip out to

Grand Junction, so I joined him on this trip.

Due to me growing up in the midwest it was like

seeing old familiar places again.

This picture is me standing on the top of Grand Mesa.

It was very windy up there and quite chilly.

I have been on the east coast so long I think

I had forgotten how enormous the mountains

are. The last time I was here was when I was

a child.

We stayed in Grand Junction which was really nice.

I got to visit the town. There were so many

fabric stores in this area, it was amazing.

While my husband worked at the hospital I

was able to check out this fabric store.

This store had fabrics I can only look at online

at home. The people were so friendly there it

was just amazing.

I truly feel God brought us there and he blessed

our time together.

Yogurt

Yogurt

Saturday June 6

Making yogurt took one day.

I used whole raw milk for this recipe.

8 cups of whole raw milk

1/2 cup yogurt culture

(store bought)

Place in crock pot for 2 1/2 hours on low.

After, the two and half hours turn off and leave

in the crock pot for 3 hours. Then, add your yogurt

culture and blend. Place towel around crockpot to

hold the heat in, and leave overnight.

The next morning put in container and refrigerate.

You have yogurt.

Now, you can't tell me you don't have time for that.

The kids and I had strawberries and yogurt for a treat.

Although, they added powder sugar to sweeten it up.

Enjoy!

Strawberries

Strawberries

Wednesday June 3

Today I did my first picking of the strawberry bed.

Not too bad for the first picking.

I love growing strawberry's. The main

reason I like to grow strawberries is for

my freezer jam. As I do not buy jelly

from the store. Its just one of those things

I do. Growing up in the midwest no one

we knew would buy jelly from the store.

Right now I have one large bed. Which I

believe is 9 rows. The bed measures 17 ft by

17 ft, there is small paths to walk down. We place

straw in the aisles to keep the weeds down.

This year we used leaf mulch at the beginning

of the season on the strawberry bed. Which acts also

as a mulch for the strawberries. We make

leaf piles and let them decompose for 2 years.

Since, we get a ton of leaves on our little homestead.

We might as well use them. We have sandy soil where

we live so you must continue to build the soil up.

The one thing we changed this year was inter planting

onions in the strawberry bed. I purchased onions seedlings

from a company in Texas in early spring.

This is called companion gardening. It is also about

using your space wisely. There is a book that I like,

its called Carrots Love Tomatoes.

http://www.amazon.com/Carrots-Love-Tomatoes-Companion-Successful/dp/1580170277/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1244070610&sr=1-1

In this book she talks about how to plant good companions to

all sorts of plants. Flowers and herbs along with your vegetables.

What a grand idea.

This year I also have added flowers in the

strawberry bed also for a little color. As you can

see there is a row of chamomile along the Iris bed.

The new flower that I added this year is Salvia.

This is planted along the last row of strawberries,

along with the Iris row.



This picture shows an additional bed of strawberries

that I transfered in early spring. When I was fixing

the rows in the big bed, there are always extra plants.

In this picture you can see the onions we inter cropped.

Beside this bed I have an old cattle fence we use for

climbing flowers. This year I planted climbing Nasturium

next to the fence.




This picture is my very first bed of strawberries.

I began other beds of strawberries due to this bed not

producing very well. What I am finding out is that my

soil is very poor quality. After I applied the leaf mulch

and compost this year they are taller plants.

Happy Gardening!