Hannah From Northwest Minnesota Sends in Her Garden Photos

A big THANK YOU to everyone who has sent in their photographs and stories. I hope by sharing other people’s pictures and stories here on One Hundred Dollars a Month we can all have a rock star garden this summer. Keep them coming!

Hello!

I have been reading your blog now for a couple years. We live in Northwest MN. Zone 3. We moved to our property three years ago. We live on 3 acres. Surrounded by trees.
The flowers are all south facing. We have a porch on the south side of the house–so a perfect place to sit and have coffee in the morning and see the flowers. The previous owners were teachers so they spent their summers outdoors…can you tell? We have been maintaining the gardens and started the vegetable gardens.

This year we did soil testing and added back some missing nutrients to the soil. We can tell that has helped a lot. There are 5 raised beds which we have all our vine crops–watermelon, zucchini, cucumber, pumpkin and squash.

In the main bed we have 20 tomato plants, pepper plants, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, onions, garlic, kale, lettuce mix, beets, kohlrabi, cabbage, peas, beans, three kinds of potatos.

We have deer that have been visiting the garden this year so we had to plant the broccoli and cauliflower three times! Since then, we have been spraying our garden with blood meal and a peppermint spray to keep the animals away. This has worked!!

I’m most excited about or pepper plants. We planted green, orange and red peppers. Each plant has over 4 peppers on them and they are nicely sized. Some even tipped over due to the fruit size, so we had to stake them up! I think this will be the biggest harvest we have ever had!

We have three children so we do eat a lot from the garden. I will be canning tomato sauce, tomato soup, stewed tomatoes, pizza and pasta sauce. Oh, and salsa…can’t forget that! The kids do get excited seeing new flowers open up and see the fruit on the vegetable plants! They even don’t mind helping to pull weeds!

Thanks for your tips and ideas on gardening and saving $!

~Hannah

If you would like to have your garden, chicken coop, pantry or something you’ve made featured on One Hundred Dollars a Month, here’s what I’m looking for:

• Your Garden Pictures and Tips – I’d especially like to see your garden set ups, growing areas, and know if you are starting seeds indoors this year. If so,  show me some picture of how you are going about it.
• Your Pantry Pics – Submit at least 5 HIGH QUALITY pictures of your pantry/fridge/cabinets, as well as a short blurb {at the very least} about you and your food habits.
• Your Chicken and Chicken Related Stories – Coops, Chicks, Hen’s, Roosters, Eggs, you name it. If it clucks, send us some pictures to share with the world.
• Cool Arts & Crafts – Made from your very own hands with detailed {and well photographed} pictures and instructions.
• Your pictures and stories about your pets. The more pictures and details the better.
• Garage Sale, Thrift Store and Dumpster Diving pictures and the stories behind the treasures you found including how much you paid for them.

If I feature your pictures and the stories behind them on One Hundred Dollars a Month, I will send you a $20.00 gift card to the greatest store in the world: Amazon.com.

Go  HERE for the official rules.