The Busy Mom’s Guide, indeed!
While we are seeing a lot of progress in our garden this year, it isn’t all due to growing plants. As a matter of fact, progress is rather slow in that area!
This year marks the 5th year, I believe, that we’ve had the garden in it’s current location. And you can tell! Our soil has greatly improved, which makes me ridiculously giddy. Southern Missouri soil tends to me rocky clay, and not soil at all! I’ll share how we’ve ammended our soil, with very little out of pocket expense next week.
This is what our garden currently looks like. It is a very large sized garden {80′x80′}, and not your typical row-style. We’ve opted for the permanent garden style, which is basically beds with wide walkways in between. This year we moved the greenhouse from it’s original location, and added in a tool shed {The Outhouse}, a potting table {tutorial coming soon!}, and are currently building a chicken coop that will soon be the home to guineas and chickens.
Currently planted in the ground we have:
- Peas
- Broccoli
- Cabbage {seeds}
Romaine Lettuce just popping through!
- Romaine Lettuce
- 1 Row Corn
Cauliflower Plants
- Cauliflower {purchased plants; $1.50/4}
- 4 Cabbage {purchased plants; $1.50/4}}
Our current out of pocket expense for our garden stands at $3. We’ve used seeds that we’ve kept from previous years, and will only have to purchase a few more for this season. I’m anxious to see how low we can keep that number, and how much we’ll harvest this year.
It’s your turn! Frugal Gardening 101 is now a Weekly Linky for YOU to share your garden!
- Please be sure to link to your blog post, and not your homepage.
- Include a link back here, so everyone can join in!
- Be sure to check out Smocity Frocks and Amy’s Finer Things to see their gardens!
- If you don’t have a post to link up this week–you can always link up next week, or share in the comment section.
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What?! I’m the first commenter? Boo! LOL. You mentioned Blake eating mudpie and rock sandwiches… believe me, Susannah is the SAME. WAY. I take the pak’n'play outside and park her in it with a lot of toys. Since she’s a pretty content baby anyway, it works pretty good. Monday she spent a lot of time in it and did so well, I could hardly believe it! If I put her on the ground she wants to eat the flowers (weeds) and acorns and acorn caps. Or, at least taste them. I don’t think she’s actually swallowed any, but yeah…
And I’m curious what the yellow stuff is that looks like your walkways? Is it a weed barrier or something? I like your greenhouse
I hope we can get something green-house-like up for next spring so my kitchen isn’t overtaken by seed starting!
@Miriam, Okay, so the yellow stuff–I didn’t realize just how obvious it was! I was trying to ignore it, for now.
It’s actually our old shag carpet out of our living room! Look familiar now?! 
It works fantastic in our walkways as a weed barrier–hubby just forgot to put it color side down!
We have rocky clay soil, too. We expanded our garden last year and the new part is horrible. I always say that every square inch of cultivated soil here has gone through my fingers because a tiller just bounces along the top until the clay has been broken up, usually in my hands. I have a lot of compost to work in this year, so I will be spending a lot of time breaking up head-sized clods of clay so it will incorporate. Once that is done, though, things grow like crazy. I envy your greenhouse and chicken coop. I love chickens, my very nearby neighbours, probably not so much.
@Karen, Tillers do not do much good here, either! I’ve personally broken up this soil many times over–but it definitely gives me a sense of pride to see how far it’s come!
I’m SO anxious to get our chickens and guineas! Are there any breeds you recommend?
@GettingFreedom, I wish I could recommend specific breeds, but last time I had chickens, I was a kid and all I remember is that we had black and white speckled ones and white ones with a bit of black. And one psychotic rooster. I live on a suburban lot now, so chickens would probably not be appreciated by neighbours. We hope to move to a more rural setting within a couple years when our youngest finishes school, and then I suppose I will have to do a bit of research. I’d like good layers and a few meat birds, but also really get a charge out of some of the “fancy” breeds – like the ones with feathers splayed out around their feet. That may not be a practical consideration though. Keep us posted on what you decide.
I have used shredded paper as a mulch and found that after it has been watered a few times, it tends to stick together and not blow around, but a friend used the old carpets like you have and found it to be very effective, if not beautiful. I have heard that a drawback to sawdust is that it takes a very long time to break down and consumes a lot of soil nitrogen in the process, causing yellowing of plants sometimes, unless of course you can get sawdust that is already decomposing.
I was wondering about the yellow stuff (paths?) also. With all the rain we get here in NW Washington state, I’ve been thinking about what I can put down on the paths so I’m not slogging through mud. Saved newspapers are a possibility, but it also gets windy here.
Any ideas?
@Cindy, So the yellow stuff–I was hoping no one would notice it, although it is just painfully obvious, huh?
It’s our old carpet out of our living room. We’ve found that carpet is an awesome weed barrier and works perfectly in our walkways to keep the mud down. Hubby just forgot to put it color side down this time!
Not sure what kind of garden you have exactly {rows or beds}, but mulch would be an attractive option, and one we’ve considered ourselves. Shredded papers may also work, but those might blow away with high winds. If you soak them after you place them it may not end up being a big deal. This year we’re actually looking into getting some sawdust. It is frugal, would be a good weed barrier, and it will also aerate the soil.
We live in the NW and still too cold to plant. Would love to see your greenhouse with a tutorial on that! Will look forward to your amended soil post.
@Kathie, Are you meaning, like how to make the most of it, or what to use it for…or something else? I’d never thought of that, I guess! I’ll see what I can come up with.
Some of my favourite ways to cheaply improve the soil in our garden are to pick up free “waste” products from others- coffee grounds from cafes/bakeries, etc (high in nitrogen, makes a great mulch and snails and slugs hate it so they stay away!), soiled bedding from pet shops (usually sawdust with guinea pig/rabbit/mice poo in it) and grass clippings, horse manure collected and sold on the roadside for $2 a big bag, etc, etc, etc. I also read in a book recently that human urine is completely sterile and when watered down, is a great tonic for the garden!! Interesting!!
We now also have our own worm farm, made from two styrofoam broccoli boxes (thanks to the local vegie place- for free of course!) stacked on top of each other- the top one with a lid and drainage holes in the bottom, the bottom one to catch the wonderful worm urine that is AWESOME liquid manure for the garden (watered down of course)! I just fill the top one with a mix of dirt, manure and food scraps (apple cores, potato peelings, weeds, etc, but not citrus). Also, contrary to what the worm sellers tell you, you don’t need to buy a massive box of expensive worms.. just find a friend who has some and ask if you can take home a handful of her worm-farm worms… they very quickly multiply to fill the space and food available to them… and they produce amazingly rich and nutritious compost in no time at all!!
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