A Garden at Last . . .

NOTE:  We are about to play catch up.  For a variety of reasons (some related to work and some related to family) I have not been able to blog lately.  But I have been keeping notes, so I want to catch you up on My $21 A Week Adventure--the Summer Edition.

June 15 - 2013
I finally got to plant the beginning of my garden.

And it was only a month later than I had hoped.  June 16th is a bit later than I hoped, and it was fairly frustrating, but FINALLY I have squash, lettuce and melons planted.  I am adding peppers and tomato starts tomorrow, and a second planting of lettuce.

I am going to try some kale and collard greens (and if you have ever planted either, let me know how it went for you), but my new raised bed doesn't look to me like a great place to plant carrots, potatoes or sweet potatoes.

I have to add up all my costs and see what this garden cost me to plant--seeds are cheap, but starts are not.

Then I will divide the number by 3 (the number of weeks I have been planting) and subtract that from my $21 for three weeks to balance everything out.

Some of my vegetable starts were free but not all.

As for what I am now eating . . . black bean tacos have become one of my low cost favorites.  A can of black beans costs me 69 cents, and I can get three meals out of it.  The lettuce costs me about 99 cents and the carrot even less.  I got cheese on sale so I bought a good sized hunk of sharp cheddar.  A 30 pack of corn tortillas was $1.99  and my salsa cost me $2.59.

I can hardly wait until my garden produces tomatoes.  I will have to buy onions, but I want to make salsa if I can.

And eat salads.  Fresh vegi's are one of my favorite things. and I miss eating lots of them.

June 23- 2013
Saturday afternoon I spent some time at Watson's Greenhouse, looking at vegi starts.  I had originaly planned on planting everything from seed.  But that went by the wayside because of how late I started.  So I roamed around looking at the various starts that they have, carefully pricing things out.

The good news about starting this late is that the starts are cheap--it is almost too late to plant.  The bad news--there is a risk that some of it is a little late to be planting.

I have such a different space this year (and we will talk about how I feel about this later) that I am not sure how it will all work out.  I spend about $10 on starts (they are on a bogo sale).  Leaf lettuce, zucchini, summer squash, a single tomato plant, collard greens.  I look at califlower and brussel sprouts starts, as well as winter squash, but I want to get the first batch of plants in the ground first.  I also pick up two packets of seeds--swiss chard and kale.  No starts for either are available, and they grow quickly.

Sunday I put the plants in the car before going to church.  My garden plot is in the church garden, and it is a fairly cool day, so no big deal, it won't hurt the plants.

The starts a friend gave me are already in the garden: catelope at one end, spaghetti squash at the other end. Neither are something I would pick on my own, but I like both.  But the plants look sad and struggling, and I wonder about pulling them out.

Instead I plant my roma tomato plant, with the lettuce lined up near by--four heads of red sail, four heads of green leaf.  I have some seeds from red leaf left from last year, so I plant a few of those also.  And the four collard plants line up near the lettuce.

Next I go to the far end of the bed and plant my two zucchini plants, two yellow summer squash plants, and two acorn squash plants, all near the sad looking spaghetti squash.

There is, I see, room left for some califlower and brussel sprouts.  I will have to purchase those plants in the next few days and get them in the bed.  I plant a small line of kale and another small line of swiss chard, intending to plant more later--so that it doesn't all want to be harvested at the same moment.  I also take a risk and plant a single hill of Sugar Pumpkin.  This is supposed to be great pumpkin for pies and soups.

The larger problem with my garden is my lack of soaker hose.  The other five beds have them, and they are hooked to a timer.  I fill a five gallon bucket with water and use a cup to water every plant.  And say a silent prayer to that God or whatever saint of gardens might exist, looks over the entire thing.

June 29 - 2013
I return to my garden with califlower, brussel sprouts and three pepper plants (sorry dad, but I LIKE peppers).  I plant eight califlowers--four white, four cheddar.  Four brussel sprouts.  Three peppers. Then fill my five gallon bucket with water and haul it over to the garden again.  The cup I am using is a 32 ounce cup, so it is easy to really soak every plant.

Some of what I planted last week is looking a bit sad.   Because I work nearby, I watered a couple of evenings, but my garden may be a failure.   I water deeply, and pray quietly.

I have also tallied up my costs.  All my starts and seeds totalled to $23.78.  I will deduct $3 a week from my spending budget each week for several weeks.  I hope that this gamble pays off!

The Food Stamp Challenge--Summer Edition!

Many of my friends followed me during Lent, when I decided to take The Food Stamp Challenge.  This meant that for the duration of Lent (a six week period) I would limit my grocery budget to the national average of $21 a week per person in a household.

Since it is just me living under my roof, $21 was my total budget.  There were weeks when this presented a real challenge--I found that if I had to buy olive oil (a decent bottle costs between a quarter and a third of my weekly budget) or if something went wrong (like the week that some produce went bad half way through the week), I was in trouble.

I also found that it was doable as long as I didn't expect to eat more than about 1500 calories a day.  Which is 500 less a day than the USDA says I should eat.  And it meant that I spent a lot of time on the week-ends figuring out my meals for the week.

So why have I decided to continue eating like this?

First off, I want to explore how this works during summer.  Some producers at the local farmers markets will take food stamps (ebt cards) and some will not.  My hope is that I can get better, and CHEAPER produce by going to the Tuesday and Sunday markets.

Second, I want to try gardening.  One of the better kept secrets of the food stamp program is the fact that you can use food stamps to buy seeds and vegetable starts.

Third, during Lent I was able to take advantage of the fact that we have dinner at church every Wednesday evening.  This advantage does not exist during the summer.  How much of a difference will one additional meal make on my menu?

What I pledge here is that this time I will do a better job of offering recipes--even if I am eating fewer calories, I want them to be HEALTHY.  And I pledge to blog at least three times a week.

I also want to talk about the very real issues around the food stamp program.  It is not perfect, and as I am writing this there are some who are working to cut $2 billion a year from the program.  I want to hear your thoughts on that!

Thanks for coming along on the journey again!