Gardening Fail

Yeah, the garden? Well it hasn’t gone very well.  We had a wet spring and very mild summer.  So far I’ve harvested  about six strawberries, two small zucchini and have three misshapen bell peppers on the plant.  I have yet to see a ripe tomato.

My funky bell peppers.

Zucchini, the most forgiving of all vegetables. You almost can't mess them up, but I've come close.

The first (SMALL) tomatoes are starting to turn red. Maybe by September we'll have some to eat.

I can’t blame the weather completely. My watering schedule has been hit and miss.  I have only fertilized once. And I think the containers I used were too small.  But like everything in life, we learn from our mistakes (at least we should be learning) and strive to do better the next time.  And who knows, we could have a warm fall and still see some produce from this year’s garden.

 

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Frugal Friday: U-Pick Berries

Audrey was a great berry picker. She did get some nice purple hands in the process!

Our MOPS group doesn’t formally meet over the summer, but instead has play dates for moms and kids to get together.  Our first summer field trip was to a berry farm.  It was a bit of a drive, but well worth it!  They had strawberries, olallieberries, boysenberries and blackberries in season.

We hit up the olallieberry patch.  The kids loved picking the berries and I got about seven pounds to take home!  That’s a lot of berries.  The frugal part – the berries were only $1.90 per pound!  Compare that to $2-3 for a pint at the grocery store.  Wow, what a savings and great fresh fruit.

I spread them out in single layers on baking sheet to freeze.  Then once frozen, transferred them to zip-lock freezer bags.  They will keep for months in the freezer.  Fresh berry cobbler in the winter is a wonderful thing!

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