Saving and Goals Journal #5

Our main focus has been getting the garden areas ready to plant our tomato and chile plants. In our area, we wait until Memorial Day weekend to plant our tomatoes and chiles. Between that and household chores, we’ve also been working on making our yard look nicer by trimming trees and bushes and generally tidying things up.

The last two weeks we have saved money by not making large purchases because the items were not available. Last week, there was no wood available to build raised garden beds. This week freezers were all sold out. I guess that’s one way to save!

In the Kitchen

We had been considering the purchase of a second small freezer so we would have the ability to store a bit more frozen food. We have the small freezer on our refrigerator and an upright freezer. The new freezer would be primarily to store vegetables we preserve from the garden. The upright freezer would store meat, homemade freezer meals, bread and some of our vegetables.

However, when we found the one we liked online and called the store to check if they had any, we found out that there are no freezers to buy anywhere in our town. So we didn’t spend $400 on a freezer. We are going to do some rearranging of our current freezers and try to make them work.

Our food dehydrator has stopped working after many years of use. I ordered one and was able to use points on my account to lower the price. And it uses the same trays as the dehydrator we had before, so I will not have to order more of those to expand it. The one I ordered came with the fruit leather sheets. I have tons of fruit in my freezer that I would like to turn into fruit leather. We also dry celery and bell peppers. And of course, green chile, (which my husband uses to make a seasoning mix). We pick the small peppers from the plants just before our frost near the end of October, dehydrate them and grind them into a powder. This way they do not go to waste.

Getting some of the fruit, celery and bell peppers out of the freezer and dehydrating them will help our freezer space situation. When we have more space in the freezer, I am planning to make several freezer meals.

I repurposed a plastic container that had held peanuts to store some rice I had bought. I am trying to empty some of the canning jars I am using to store dry goods so that I can use them when I can tomatoes this fall. I am going to try to get through the canning season without buying any new jars, only lids. I may be short on pint jars because my husband and daughters want me to can a whole bunch of Candied Jalapenos, which use pint jars. I am going to inventory my jars next week so I know how many of each (quarts and pints) I have.

This week’s meal plan:

• Monday: Chicken-black-bean-corn tacos using leftover roasted chicken
• Tuesday: Beef Roast, Harvard beets, Steamed veggies, rice
• Wednesday: leftovers (Start pinto beans soaking to cook in the morning)
• Thursday: Breakfast for Dinner: Biscuits, gravy, eggs, fruit (Start beans in slow cooker to make chili on Friday)
• Friday: Frito Pies
• Saturday: leftovers
• Sunday: Grilled pork chops, salad, devilled eggs, jello salad

I’ve put a reminder to myself about soaking the beans. I tend to forget and then have to rearrange dinner plans.

In the Garden

My husband and I spent an afternoon building a PVC drip irrigation system for a part of our small garden. We used this article as our guideline. We had the majority of the supplies from another project that we had bought and never used. We just needed a few connecting pieces. It works great. We are going to draw out a plan and see what the cost would be to make this for our whole garden area in the future. It looks like it will be a very efficient way to water the garden.

My strawberry plants are looking wonderful. I’ve harvested quite a few strawberries so far (which I have shared with my grandson). The plants are loaded with small berries and blooms. Last year was the first year they were planted, so this year they are really settled in. We will mostly eat them fresh. We don’t use much jam, so I won’t make that with them.

We also have quite a few small raspberries growing on our bushes. I had to prune them quite heavily this spring as they had gotten completely out of control last year. We get one batch of small berries in the early summer and a second batch of larger raspberries in the fall. We enjoy them with granola and yogurt (and just to snack on right off the bushes!)

I harvested spinach, lettuce, kale and pea shoots to add to my salad for lunch twice this week.

Home and Family

I made a simple toy for the grandkids using an empty baby formula container and pipe cleaners. I drilled holes in the lid for them to poke the pipe cleaners through. It kept them entertained for quite a while.

I watched a couple of episodes of Wartime Kitchen and Garden on YouTube. My family isn’t really interested in it so I watch it really early in the morning while they are all still sleeping.

My daughter accepted yet another box of children’s clothing. We now have clothing for quite a long while! We were also able to share some of our outgrown children’s clothing with my husband’s co-worker, who has several family members she will be sharing it with. I was glad for this since our thrift stores are not open to take donations.

I will get back to my decluttering and organizing of the house and storage sheds soon. I’ve gotten sidetracked with gardening activities.

That’s it for this week. I’m excited to get the garden all planted and return to some of my other money-saving activities in the kitchen and around the house!