Mavis Mail – Garden Photos from Fairfax, Virginia

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

~Mavis

Check out this story and the wood pallet garden photos from urban hipsters Dietrich and Carlie from Fairfax, VA.  The pictures you see start in March and then end with how their garden looks today.

Pretty cool if you ask me! 

Carlie writes:

Garden experience: None really. Both of our moms had very small backyard vegetable gardens growing up but neither of us paid much attention to the process. We are literal first timers and had no clue what we were doing.

A little about us: We love eating and being healthy – I home-make much of our food and Dietrich is always running marathons. We moved to NOVA (since that’s where the jobs are in VA) after we graduated from Virginia Tech and got married. Northern Virginia is not known its gardens, but is very well known for being super expensive.

Our life mission right now is to pay off our students loans – over $155,000 – in 5 years from when we graduated (we are on target so far!). So, living in the most expensive area in VA and trying to be as cheap as possible don’t quite mix usually. We started our blog Fat Soul Slim Kitchen in March to get information out there about how to live cheaply, healthily, and faithfully. Most of our friends are in a similar boat as us with lots of debt and low paying jobs, and we’ve been able to live fairly frugally, even in NOVA, so we wanted to get our life out there to show people how we did it – but also bring other’s ideas of how they are living life cheaply and healthily and faithfully so as to mutually encourage each other!

We currently live in someone’s basement and have our own back entrance and finally a “backyard”! Unfortunately, the “backyard” is a big slab of cement. So, we built our own little structure using free pallets we got from a nursery down the street and planted our garden in that. Since we share the “backyard” with our landlords, we couldn’t really take over too much, so right now we only have one little 3 X 4 foot bed. It’s producing like crazy though and we can’t believe it. We have eaten spinach that grew in our backyard! Mind blown.

Our plants are: Zucchini (taking over), tomato, carrots (harvested most), onion, asparagus, spinach (done harvesting), honey dew, watermelon, cucumber, broccoli (just popping out!), squash, strawberries (flowered but no berries), red peppers, and green peppers.

Blessings,
Carlie

Bob and Sherle From California Share Their Vegetable Garden Photos

If you would like to have your garden, chicken coop 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 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.