DOUBLE-HEADER FRIDAY - MISSION: GARDEN!

Posted by Ethne~

Thrifty Nana and I were on a serious WOM mission this past weekend – her garden!

Geraniums add color; KD and Easy Mac add lunacy fun

We usually go way overboard, but it’s so fun!  It started with our annual pilgrimage to Ace, Home Depot and Menards – plant hunting. 

TN’s and my gardening breaks down to three categories – flowers, herbs and produce.  We’ve grown just about everything, but this year we decided to streamline.  We went for flowers we know will grow, like geraniums and petunias (see my post here).  We went with produce that will grow well and won’t be hard to harvest – basically our faves only.

I’m a fan of food in general, as y’all have probably guessed.  After the long winter of heavy, rich foods, a light meal with garden veggies and fresh fruit is just about the best thing.  Toss some warm whole wheat pasta with chopped tomatoes, fresh basil, mozarella or a crumbled cheese like feta, olive oil, salt and pepper.  You’ll love it, I guarantee. 

An added bonus to gardening, and of particular WOM appeal, is that when your garden starts to produce, you are getting every bit of it for FREE and you know exactly where it’s been – from garden to plate in literally minutes.

So this is what we were after:

Tomatoes.  These are one of the most prolific veggies (don’t quibble, I know they’re really a fruit) in our latitude.  Easy to grow for sure – you just need a few tips and some water.  We chose a brandywine (probably one of the tastiest, juiciest of the lot – perfect BLT fare), early girl (produce fruit quickly), big boy (beautiful, round and red – they are prolific too), and a few others.  The brandywine we purchased on its own – it cost about $3 for the one plant.  The others we purchased as smaller plant packs, which cost about $1 per plant, or even less.  In all of our zeal, we ended up coming home with 20 plants.  Criminy!

Each one of those will produce loads of tomatoes

Tomatoes like acidic soil.  Minnesota has lovely rich soil, so we can grow loads of stuff, but to give it a little more acidity, TN throws her coffee grounds and fire pit ashes into the garden too.  Plant each tomato about 2 feet apart from each other – a little more won’t hurt.  Dig a hole deep enough to put the plant all the way down to its first leaves (that’s right, you bury a good segment of the lower stem), fill the hole with soil and tamp down around with your hands.  Done deal.  As the tomatoes get a little taller and start to blossom, we put tomato cages over them to help them grow up, not fall over with their heavy fruit.  Nothing is wrong when the tomatoes tip over while growing, but the tomatoes that grow touching the ground end up getting eaten by worms on their bottom side.  Water daily for best results.

A little grape tomato - like candy to KD and Easy Mac

Peppers.  Peppers like the hot sun, all day long.  TN and I put them along the sidewalk up to her front door.  It’s a little stretch of dirt that’s too dry and sunny to grow anything else.  The peppers are in heaven so there they went.  I have a jalapeno on my deck.  TN just wanted green and sweet (yellow, red) peppers.  We got these for about $1 per plant, or even less.  Peppers are great because they’re hard to kill.  They love to roast in the sun.  But they still like a drink of water every day.

Roast away you peppers!

Zucchini.  These little squashes we plant from a seed pack.  They need some space to grow, so we planted them on the other side of the garden from the tomatoes.  They kind of vine out – envision a pumpkin since they’re related.  Shaun grills zucchinis in planks with olive oil, salt, pepper and his secret herbs and spices.  Then in August we make my favorite cake: MoJo’s Zucchini Chocolate Cake.  Words cannot express how good this is, but I’ll have to come up with something. 

Zucchini plants coming from seeds;
Trust me, they'll get a lot bigger

Basil.  Home Depot had this great ‘pesto pack’.  Three different types of basil in one pack of six plants for $2!  What a DEAL!  Though if you plant herbs from seeds, the packs are about $1 and you get a lot of seeds.  That’s perhaps the most economical route.

3 types of basil - yeah pesto!

BONUS: Perennials and volunteers like catnip (for Sweet Baby T-Rex), cilantro, tarragon, rhubarb, blueberries, raspberries and strawberries are an initial investment (but even then, pretty cheap) or get ‘starts’ of a plant for FREE from a friend.  TN has all of the above.  In August when the raspberries are producing, I disappear into the brambles and eat until there’re no more ripe berries.  Till the next day.  Sometimes I’m a bad mom and don’t even share with my kids (TN distracts them with something like a fresh ripe tomato, which they happily eat like apples).

Rhubarb

Raspberries coming up

Great-grandma Berg's strawberries;
flower coming up in the middle is a chamomile volunteer

Friends, Lori and I will share the fruits of our garden with you all summer long.  We’ll have lots of garden-fresh recipes, gardening tips and outdoor fun.  One of Lori’s special requests is TN’s and my fried green tomatoes.  That should come late July and is another of my last-meal-on-Earth selections.  We’ll also talk to you about how to preserve your produce into the fall and winter with canning and freezing techniques.

Happy gardening!  And Grizz and Slags – you have houses now, so I’m chomping at the bit to get at least one plant in each of your yards this summer.  Call me!

My lovelies!

DOUBLE HEADER FRIDAY: LORI’S THRIFTY YARD

Posted by Lori~

We closed on our house during a January and we toured and made an offer during a winter month.  I had no idea what my yard would look like.  What would the snow melt reveal?

To be honest—I have been pleased.  The yard looks beautiful and better yet, it is filled with perennials—no need to plant much each and every year.  (PERENNIALS ARE TIME SAVING AND AFFORDABLE). 

Come back each and every year.  All I have to do is WEED!

Winter has been long, but finally this past weekend I took a trip to my little city, ND Wal-Mart greenhouse and picked up:  two spikes, moisture control potting soil, and two geraniums. I also picked up seed packets of basil, onion chives, and cilantro (those will be planted in around two weeks).

 

I love geraniums and spikes, because they are EASY to care for. Last summer I planted the same items and I didn’t kill them.  If it works—don’t change it!  And so I opted for the same plants in my planter.  Better yet— I ONLY spend $20.00 for all items. 

 

A little money adds a lot of curb appeal!

Of course there will be more updates on my yard (my garden plans, our new swing set, flowerboxes and so much more!)  (Actually—I think MAJOR updates, but Steve doesn’t need to know that).  SPRING IS TRULY HERE!

DOUBLEHEADER FRIDAY: DECK MY DECK!

Posted by Ethne~

Well Friends, it’s one of my favorite times of the year – spring planting!  Since I live in a condo, I’m a little restricted in my options – only a handful of pots fit on our deck.  I make use of the space I’ve got!  And thankfully, Thrifty Nana lets me spill over in my planting needs into her fab yard/garden.

Lilies of the Valley from TN's yard - my ultimate fave EVER!

We’ve grown lettuce, red beets, carrots (the latter two for baby food = FREE and PESTICIDE-FREE!), squash, pumpkins, tomatoes, peppers and all sorts of herbs. (I’ve tried tomatoes in a pot on my deck and they just don’t produce well.)  We also have a perennial supply of raspberries, elderberries, rhubarb and we added blueberries this year.  Pie and jam here we come!

These raspberries are from TN's garden last year - pie recipe here

Where I don’t miss out, though, is adding some color and beauty to my deck.  I’ve tried all sorts of plants and flowers in the years since Shaun and I have had our own place.  I’ve tried exotic.  I’ve tried fragrant.  I’ve tried herbs.  Mostly, I’ve been disappointed with the exotic, and some of the fragrant, stuff.

This year, I’m sticking with what I know will grow and grow well.  For the two pots outside my front door (which are a big deal to me since the outside of my front door is not very curb-appealing), I need something that can take the heat.  The sun spends most of the day beating down on them, and then the light reflects from the siding and gives them a double-dose of rays.  I asked the lady at my local Ace Hardware greenhouse:  what will last even if it gets roasted all day long?  PETUNIAS!  Fortunately petunias come in all sorts of nice colors and I’ve had success with them in the past.  I bought the red, white and blue (deep purple) mix of ‘wave’ petunias, which are nice because they will grow and drape over the edge of my pots.  They cost $5.99 for a six-pack.

That's a little better!

Festive and Patriotic all summer long!

What else will work in my pots without fail?  GERANIUMS!  They can take a lot of heat and bloom all summer long.  That’s my kind of plant.  Thrifty Nana found some at Menards for $5 for 9 plants.  That’s a huge score!  I planted one large pot with 3 red plants and one large pot with 3 pink plants.  Then I added some LOBELIA (small, lacy bluish-purple flowers) and another drapey accent plant (not sure the name) for $2.49 each.

Geranium City - I can't wait till they fill in!

Shaun suggested we try growing jalapeno peppers since tomatoes don’t work: $1.99 was a great price for our MUCHO NACHO PEPPER.

Mucho Nacho Pepper is already blooming!!

I got a CALIBRACHOA MINIFAVOUS DOUBLE PINK plant – which should be a perfect pot size, bloom all summer long, and can take the sunshine (it's kinda like a mini petunia) – for $4.49.

Pink double mini-petunias - for cute!

I got a SANVITALIA SUNBINI plant – which is a small bushy pot-size plant with yellow flowers.  It also says it can take the sun, so I thought it was worth a shot for $5.49.

Like my shroom?

 

The last of my deck plants was my most expensive.  It’s some new breed of impatiens that are called SUNPATIENS.  Impatiens are lovely flowering plants that can’t take the sun – they like shade or partial sun only.  I’ve never planted them on my deck because of this.  So when I saw this new breed that says it can take the heat, I wanted to splurge - $7.49.  Let’s just say I’m going to be mega-ticked if this is a lame, wimpy plant that dies by July or doesn’t flower like regular impatiens do.  If it works - FAB!

Pretty sure they will be light pink--which was a major selling point



 Probably one of the most fun plant-pot combos is what I pick out for my upside-down pot.  This goofy contraption is like a hanging pot that’s open at both ends.  You plant the plant (they recommend coleus or begonia, but I haven’t had luck with begonia) in the bottom of the pot, with the bottom-end standing up.  Then you allow the roots to set for 2 weeks, flip it over and hang it (we use a shepherd’s hook off of the deck).  The plant grows upwards as plants are wont to do and eventually your coleus is growing up the sides of the upside-down pot.  I bought my pot at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival, I think for $20.  My COLEUS has dark burgundy leaves and I paid $3.99 for it.

I'm loving the deep red leaves

Last but not least, Shaun and I bought a ROSEMARY plant, which we put in a medium-small pot on our deck table – we cook with it in the summer and dry the rest for the winter.  If you’ve never smelled rosemary, you’re missing out.  It’s a divine herb.  And it cost us a whopping $2.49.  To round out the herbs Thrifty Nana gave us (FREE) a CHIVE plant from her garden, which is great for garnishing food all summer long.

Theodore tried eating the chive - no teeth = no dice

In total, we spent at Ace Hardware yesterday: $39.54.  Plus I will have to pay Thrifty Nana for the geraniums (we'll do an even trade with some tomato plants) and get some plant food.  I’ve spent hundreds of dollars in the past on my deck plants (the designer varieties add up – which is why I opted to limit myself this year), so I’m satisfied with my selections.

My pride and joy is the rose quartz stone under the pink geranium:
purchased in Custer, SD, on our honeymoon :)

The girls think it’s marvelous to help me water the plants, and I can’t tell you how much my deck plants brighten my days.

I’ll do some more planting at Thrifty Nana’s in the next couple of weeks, but this will be more of the fruit and veg variety.  There will be pumpkins 4 sho since those are my absolute fave to watch grow (and Shaun carves a mean Jack Skellington in the fall).  Stay tuned, Friends!