What’s Happening in the Garden?
Yesterday was a beautiful day here in NE Ohio. It was sunny and in the 50’s; just the kind of weather I have been longing for. Naturally we spent the afternoon working the gardens getting ready for spring.
So what garden chores did we do yesterday afternoon? Here are the tools we used.
The supplies we used to complete our chores, all measured and ready to go.
The supplies after we had been working for a while. Can you guess what’s going on here at Chiot’s Run?
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Great Gardening Books: Victory Garden Cookbook
I don’t remember where I found out about this cookbook, but I requested it from the library a few weeks ago. I must admit it sat in the pile of books on my table for a week or two because it just didn’t seem that interesting. I thought it looked a bit outdated and it wasn’t like most other modern cookbooks that I’m drawn to; glossy and full of delicious photos.
The Victory Garden Cookbook
I must say the recipes weren’t all that exciting for me; I’m fairly well versed in the cooking of various vegetables and we’ve developed our own favorite ways to eat them.
I did however really enjoy reading through the gardening sections for each vegetable. I’d recommend checking this book out of the library and giving it a read. You may learn some new tricks for growing great vegetables and if you don’t have a ton of favorite vegetable recipes in your repertoire already you may just find a few from this book.
Any good vegetable cookbook recommendations? Or vegetable gardening books?
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What’s It Worth?
What’s your garden worth to you? Roger over at Kitchen Gardeners International wrote a great article yesterday about how much money they saved last year by growing some of their own food. How much was his garden worth last year? $2149.15
I must admit, I didn’t harvest quite as much as I had hoped and I didn’t keep track of all of my harvests. I did weigh most of my tomato harvests and they totaled 105 pounds. Which would have cost me $415 at the grocery store. I also harvested a lot of broccoli in the spring and a ton of lettuce all season long along with some beets, carrots, potatoes, eggplants, and a few other things. I’m going to guess that I probably saved around $750 in grocery costs.
If I count the berries that we foraged for that would add about $300 to my total sending up over $1,000. Oh yes, and I forgot to mention the 116 lbs of organic pears we got for free from my mom. That would probably add in another couple hundred dollars as well putting me close to the $1300 mark.
I did however spend some money getting my gardens ready in the spring, since we added 5 raised beds and had to buy some compost and other supplies, I probably spent about $300 getting my garden ready in the spring. I also spent about $75 on seeds and another $75 on plants, bushes and trees (these will more than pay for themselves in a few years with the fruit they produce).
I also have add that gardening is good exercise so it saves me on a gym membership. Not to mention the time I’m spending getting my exercise is also improving my health by producing healthy vegetables. Considering one of my watering cans weighs 25 pounds when full and I carry 2 of them around all the time watering. If I look at my water barrel chart I carried 11,625 pounds of water around my gardens this past summer, that makes for some big biceps.
I’m sure that this year I’m going to be saving even more since I’m expanding my garden area and I’m going to be able to grow for 3 seasons. I’m excited to be tracking all of my harvests on my new Garden Harvest Spreadsheet. I’m really looking forward to adding a good number to the Garden Harvest Challenge over at Freedom Gardens.
So what about you, what is your garden worth to you? If you didn’t garden last year are you considering starting this year to save money?
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Dress Up 2 Cure: Join Me
Many of you know that I have a friend who’s little girl has Rett Syndrome. We first learned about Rett Syndrome back when Brooklyn was diagnosed. We want to help in any way we can, but since we live so far away from our friends it’s difficult. One way we can support them is to help out with a charity that supports them. That’s why we got involved with several Rett Syndrome Charities.
On April 1, there’s an event called Dress Up 2 Cure. This is a great way to get involved to help raise money and awareness for Rett Syndrome through my blog. So here’s what I’m going to do; I’m going to donate $10 to Girl Power 2 Cure for every person that sends me a photo of themselves, their children, or their pet dressed up (I’m particularly excited to get photos of your pets dressed up – hint, hint). You can also post a picture on your own blog if you’d like and link to this post, I’ll donate $10 for you if you do that as well. I also started a Flickr group for this event, you can upload your photos there as well and I’ll donate for that too.
On April 1, 2009 I’m going to post all the photos you send in on my blog (so please don’t send photos you don’t want posted on my blog). I’ll also include the links to all of your posts if you put the photos on your blog. Help us raise money to find a cure for Rett Syndrome. I even have my own page over at the Dress Up 2 Cure website so check it out: Chiot’s Run at Dress up 2 Cure. I would love to raise $500 for this event, that’s only 50 photos. So get dressed up and send them in, let’s show all the little girls with Rett Syndrome that we care!
So, who’s in?
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Favorite Gardening Magazines
I love magazines. They’re the perfect reading material for those of us that like to read in bits and pieces throughout the day. I typically read one article while eating breakfast, one at lunch, one with my afternoon coffee and perhaps another in the evening. I only have one subscription to a garden magazine; Organic Gardening. It’s a great magazines filled with lots of good information, I love reading through this magazine and usually I finish the day I get it. I have all of my back issues saved and every so often I leaf through them.
I do check a lot of other magazines out of the library to read (I’m thrifty like that). Saturday when I went to the library they had a bunch in, so I filled my weekend with gardening magazines. I always get inspired by the photos I see and get excited about getting out and trying a few new things in my gardens.
I really love Mother Earth News (their website is equally informative), it’s packed full of great articles and ideas that I can incorporate here at Chiot’s Run. Better Homes and Gardens magazines are always lovely to look at, although with their professionally designed gardens they usually leave my gardens feeling a tad inadequate. I do love flipping through all of them learning about new plants and garden tools.
So will I be getting a subscription to any of these any time soon? Probably not, I don’t mind waiting to get them from the local library. Although I do hate it when I get one that someone has torn something out of – GRRRRRR.
Do you have a favorite garden magazine? Or another kind of magazine that you would recommend?
