Part of this new lifestyle I'm trying to create is the ability to be frugal. One way I think we can become more frugal is by planting and growing our own garden. We buy SO much fresh produce in the grocery store, and let's face it - a lot of it is really expensive! Red onions are on my shopping list EVERY week and they are $1.79 a lb. One onion is usually around 1 lb so this adds up quickly. That's almost $100 a year on red onions alone!!
When we lived in Portland, we sectioned off a piece of our yard, blocked it in with large landscaping timbers and it was about 8ft x 4ft. It almost always had massive amounts of weeds (as did the entire backyard - down side to buying a new home, you don't have an established yard). It became an eye sore, especially when we had nothing planted there! So, when going back and forth with the idea of planning a garden in our new home (again with an unestablished yard... blech!), we just couldn't wrap our minds around the idea of sectioning the yard again. And, if you've seen my yard... you know this: I have a big backyard for a new house. We have a pretty normal lot, but the footprint of our home is small since it's 2 stories and our lot was just a bit wider than the lots around us, so that leaves us with a wonderful sized yard! BUT... now we have a 14' trampoline, a nice sized swing set, a turtle sand box, a playhouse and a small apple tree in the back yard and I find myself wondering... "Where did my yard go?!" So, planning to permanently block off another section of my yard was just becoming too hard to swallow. And let's not forget the blow up bounce house that still needs a place to live when Reagan wants to play in that, as well. When we chose our lot, we were about 3 lots away from the next house on both sides. Man, that was nice! For about a year we didn't have any neighbors. Now, don't get me wrong - Melissa, we love y'all! LOL, but it was nice not worrying about anything going on next door (a.k.a. leaving the blinds open all the time!). Directly to the left of us was the builders construction trailer and the cement washout. At the time, we didn't realize the cement washout would end up being a HUGE pain in the rear! Our builder sodded both our front and back yards and we moved into our home in the middle of the longest rain season San Antonio has seen in ages. The cement from the lot next door would run downhill and pass just through our fence in the back corner of the lot. This basically washed out all of our grass in the back left corner. Of course the builder said they'd re-sod for us but we wanted to wait until they built a home on the lot so it wouldn't just keep happening, and then what happened? We forgot, ha! We'd placed Reagan's playhouse on that section and that kept it from being an eye sore. Another problem about living next to the cement washout... when they start to tear up the cement to build on that land, you get lots and lots of scorpions... lots! Ugh!!
When Kyle's parents came during Spring Break, his father brought us 4 large black pots (about the size for a 30 gallon tree). So, we decided to place them on the washed out ground. It worked out perfectly - we placed one in the corner and three across the front. Black pots aren't exactly aesthetic... but it totally works for us - although our neighbor told us we had a white trash garden! HAHA!
So, last Saturday we started planting. We placed some fresh cedar mulch (thanks to Adam) in the bottom of the pots then a 50/50 mixture of top soil and cow manure compost. Then, we topped it off with Miracle Grow potting soil (which was 4 for $10 last week at Lowe's!). We set out for Lowe's Saturday morning and bought some 4" Early Girl tomatoes, zucchini squash, crooknecked squash, and jalapeno's. We also bought some red onion bulbs and some green onion seeds. Then we went to HEB to buy herbs. The herbs at Lowe's were almost twice the price of the herbs at HEB and the plants were a little larger. So we got cilantro, basil and sage at HEB. I already have a very healthy Rosemary in the front flower bed. I wanted to plant some dill as well, but it is so tender and so sensitive that I was worried about planting it out there. I think I will buy a smaller pot to place the dill in, then place it between the pots for added protection.
Here are some pictures of the garden right after we planted it last Saturday:
The entire potted garden :0)
Jalapeno's and Red Onions
Tomatoes, Sweet Basil, Cilantro and Red Onions
Tomatoes, Sage and Red Onions
Zucchini and Yellow Crooknecked Squash
Do you have a garden?
What do you plant in your garden?
I'll post some new pictures tomorrow - you won't believe how much everything has grown in a week! And oh, I can not WAIT to make recipes with the food from our garden! I'm really excited to plant some greens and lettuce next fall - that's another thing we buy so much of. It'd be lovely to have it grow in our garden.
Zucchini and Crooknecked Squash
Jalapenos and Red Onions
Tomatoes, Sage and Red Onions
Tomatoes, Sage, Cilantro and Red Onions
Green Onions
Zucchini and Crooknecked Squash
Jalapenos and Red Onions
Tomatoes, Sage and Red Onions
Tomatoes, Sage, Cilantro and Red Onions
Green Onions
