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One Hundred Dollars a Month

I am your typical housewife living in high maintenance suburbia. I have a handsome husband, 2 kids and a flock of pet chickens. I try and feed my family with $100 a month. With the help of coupons, gardening and bartering I am able to squeeze the most out of our grocery budget and still manage to have a little fun along the way.

Mavis Garden Blog – Moving Raised Garden Beds

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mavis garden blog

As I was planning my garden space for this year I wanted to make better use of our 16 raised garden beds. The beds receive the most sunlight out of any other spot in our wooded backyard.

backyard chickens

When I planted my herb garden back in 2009, I filled it with everything I liked; oregano, chives, sage, basil, rosemary and a few others. But what I didn’t realize at the time was that mint {and oregano} spread like crazy. The mint especially.

mint roots

Before I knew it I was pulling up mini mint roots every time I walked down the garden path. So over the last few days I’ve been busy not only pulling up all the mint and oregano roots, but also moving the last 2 garden boxes as well.

australorp chicken

Black Fatty and Squeakers looking for worms.

mavis one hundred dollars a month

I’m not sure why we placed the last 2 garden boxes in the opposite direction, but I’m guessing it had something to do with the ugly green propane tank topper that sits smack dab in the center of the row of garden boxes.

building raised garden beds

So after removing {most} all of the roots and soil, I took the garden boxes apart, moved them, and put them back together again.

raised garden beds

Isn’t it beautiful how they are all lined up and going in the same direction?

Mini garden project rule! Next on the agenda is to line those 2 garden boxes with landscape fabric in hopes of preventing anymore mint popping up again. {I can dream can’t I}.

~Mavis

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How To Grow Your Own Food – Mavis’ Vegetable Garden Tour

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I am in love with my garden right now. There are so many different vegetables beginning  to ripen, it’s intoxicating.  So many tomatoes on the horizon, so many gorgeous pumpkins on the vine.  It makes mornings like this, a sure joy to walk out the back door and snap a few pictures to record this summers bounty.

The red potatoes I planted in the oak barrel will be used for winter soups.

Dinosaur kale and fall onions.

Zucchini and cucumber patch.

Big Max the volunteer pumpkin.

Hubby the Hubbard squash… There are about 20 of these in the garden right now.  Yikes!

The acorn squash have finally started to take shape.

The biggest, baddest, bean teepee in the world.

Italian Heirloom tomato. My record for this variety was 2 pounds 10 ounces back in 2009.

Stupice tomatoes.  The easiest tomato to grow on the planet.

Green zebra tomatoes growing in the greenhouse.

Purple cabbage.  I’m growing this for the Handsome Husband.

Fall potatoes.  I wonder how many pounds we’ll get?

Magical pumpkin on the vine.

Be still my heart.  A Cinderella pumpkin.

Amish pie pumpkin.  Perfect for Thanksgiving pies.

Fall is creeping up on us… Are you ready?

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How to Grow Your Own Food: Garden Plot Pictures Update

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Back on April 1st, this is what our raised garden beds looked like.  There was the beginning of a herb garden, a bed of radishes and some Swiss chard and spinach.

Oh what a difference a few months make.

Even though there are days I feel totally overwhelmed with my garden and the whole trying to grow 2,000 pounds of fruits and vegetables in our suburban backyard, when I step back a little bit, and see just where I started from, it makes all those hours of planting {and weeding} worth it.

Well enough about ME.

What’s going on with YOU?

How is YOUR garden growing, and if you had to do it all over again, what would you have changed/planted differently this summer?

If you are new to gardening or just want to learn more on the topic of organic gardening, my #1 favorite book is The Gardener’s A-Z Guide to Growing Organic Food By Tanya L.K. Denckla.

This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting One Hundred Dollars a Month.

How To Grow Your Own Food – Mavis’ Vegetable Garden Tour

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I have mixed feelings about the garden right now.

Some parts of the garden are doing really, really well.  Like this bean teepee you see above.  The beans are faithfully climbing up the wooden poles and the hubbard squash below is spreading like wild fire.  I’m super excited to see what it’s going to look like in another month or so when the squash are a bit larger and the ground is completely covered in vines.

Then, there are a few garden boxes that look like total crap.  Like this one for instance, it has celery, onions, and acorn squash starts in it.

Here’s another mis-matched raised garden bed.  This one has tomatoes, rainbow Swiss chard, kale, a few onions and even more squash starts.  Did I mention I have ocd?  Yeah, well, sloppy garden beds make me crazy.  Just looking at the plants make me itch.  I need the vegetables to line up, in perfect rows, and to ripen at the same time, or I start to break out in hives.

This heirloom tomato and onion bed isn’t so bad.

Oh, and look at this.  Guess who’s not getting any freakin’ Brussel sprouts?

Oh. The. Horror.

But then again, there are a lot of things going well in the garden right now as well…

Please tell me I’m not the only one who feels this way.

How is YOUR garden growing?

Do you feel like you are in the ugly ducking stage too?

This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting One Hundred Dollars a Month.

Mavis Butterfield Etsy