Independence Days Challenge - Glass Half Full Edition

I'm well behind in many things this summer, so it's no big deal if I'm a few days late with the Independence Days report. It's not as though I've been particularly reliable about this weekly project anyway. Find out more about this Challenge that Sharon issued to all of us, and you can participate too!

It's been a hell of a year for gardening. The wet June we had gave us July as a reprieve, just enough to hope for a bountiful late summer and fall recovery. But it was the gift that kept on giving, and this month it brought us late blight - first on the potatoes, and then on the tomatoes. It's been a challenge to retain the optimism that is the birthright of every gardener. I don't know how or why we gardeners inherit this trait. I can assure you that in every other aspect of my life, I am intensely cynical and curmudgeonly. In my own garden I am eternally hopeful. Even though there will likely be no homegrown tomato sauce this year, I believe we have even odds on salvaging a potato crop, thanks to the advice of our local Agricultural Extension agent. And the brassica family may yet redeem the entire gardening year. I have hopes yet of my Tuscan kale, three varieties of cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and daikon radishes. And I have to admit that the popcorn, soup beans, parsnips, and especially our apple tree, all look like they are going to yield very well.

Giving me more reason to be optimistic is the fact that we built our first cold frame over the weekend. As with our rocket stove, we used primarily salvaged materials for the project, and I now have about 9.5 square feet of space in which to grow vegetables for the coldest months of the year. Not to mention it gives me the opportunity to try out some new vegetable varieties. Varieties that will grow in a compact form and tolerate very cold temperatures is what I'm looking for. I'm pretty excited about it, small though the space may be.

My Independence Days report covers what I've been up to since the beginning of the month, more or less.

Plant something: daikon radishes, lettuce, snow peas, and the last of the open-air beets and carrots, put in a few mini cabbage starts I picked up at a local Mennonite nursery.

Harvest something: Tomatoes, squash, eggplant, just barely edible lettuce, calendula, beets, a few snow peas, Swiss chard, spare cabbage leaves. One plant's worth of potatoes, just to see if the blight had hit the tubers. So far, it hasn't. Eggs from the girls as usual. I've also been lucky in the gleaning department this year when it comes to fruit.

Preserve something: I'm smoking as many paste and cherry tomatoes as I can get my hands on. Our tomato crop is coming in very sluggishly and I destroyed a few plants with late blight showing on them. I don't expect to get enough to make much sauce at all this year, so I'm putting up the small quantities I'm getting through smoking and then dehydrating. These little gems are fantastic in sauces and soups over the winter months, adding a smokiness that rivals any good quality bacon. We didn't have enough of them last year, and we sure won't have enough this year. But I'm doing what I can.

Also have some calendula petals steeping in olive oil in the hot sun, thanks to El's inspiration. I'll make up a batch or two of balm from them later this week.

Two depressingly small batches of kale, blanched, chopped, and frozen. Still hoping that my ship will come in with the fall kale.

I've got white peaches steeping in vinegar to make a batch of shrub, and I'm dehydrating some apples with a light dusting of cardamom sugar, a peculiar conceit of mine. I prefer cardamom to cinnamon in many sweet recipes, particularly where apples are concerned. I'm hoping these local and gleaned apples can substitute for at least some of the raisins and other dried fruits that I like in my winter oatmeal and baked goods, and which I routinely have bought in the past.

Canned ten half-pints of mixed berry jam. The wineberries were volunteers on our property, and the blackberries were gathered from a relative's patch (with permission, of course). My husband even made some peach freezer jam from the peaches we gathered at the same time. Too many of the peaches however succumbed to the brown rot before we could use them.

Made and froze a double batch of zucchini-lemon muffins with our abundant zucchini. I could have quadrupled the recipe a few times over and not used up all the zucchini we've got.

Hmmm...I guess I am putting some things up, though it has seemed that I'm twiddling my thumbs at peak storage season due to poor harvests this year.

Waste Not: We used a wooden packing crate for an industrial air conditioner (that was set out next door earlier this year with a FREE sign) to build a moderate sized cold frame. We even reused some of the nails we had to pull out of it. Other wood salvaged from dumpsters was used, along with a safety glass window from a salvaged storm door.

Preparation: Nothing new here, unless I can count the cold frame in two categories.

Built Community Food Systems: Does accepting surplus fruit from a small scale farmer I know count? It seems too that my raised asparagus beds have inspired a relative of mine to build some as well. Although I make no apparent headway when I try to persuade people verbally, I guess some people like what I'm doing enough to imitate me. If that's keeping up with the Jones (me, in this case), I won't condemn it.

Ate the food: mostly just fresh vegetables from the garden. I made peanut rice noodles with whatever happened to be on hand from the garden. It's a nice flexible dish that you can really load up with lots of veggies. Even the leftovers aren't too bad, if there are any.

Independence Days Challenge - Japanese Beetle Edition

I am glad that I am not a novice gardener this year. A significant number of my spring crops failed with all the wet we had in June. If I didn't know this for the simple luck of the draw (a bad one), I would be so discouraged that I would probably give up on gardening entirely. Nor would I know that replanting provides even odds for a fall harvest of some crops. As it is, I've been patrolling the garden with something close to anxiety, watching my second round of starts like a hawk. The gorgeous sunflowers are some consolation. Normally at this time I would be struggling to keep up with the kale, and putting as much of it away for the winter months as I could. It feels very odd to have as much time on my hands as I do right now. Not in a good way, either. Though it is allowing me to gather plenty of Japanese beetles by hand, much to the delight of the hens.

Though we treated with milky spore early this year, we are still seeing some damage from these supremely annoying, invasive pests. Nothing native eats them; there are no checks or balances with Japanese beetles. The girls however will happily eat as many as I can bring them. I tried putting a hormonal lure and modified beetle trap right in their pen, but I think the lure is old and ineffective. It was given to me for free by a relative. I find the beetles most often on my potatoes and comfrey, and on my husband's raspberries and grape vines. I've seen a few on other garden plants and there's a shrubby sort of plant in our weed patch that attracts them very strongly. I have to dump the beetles onto a light colored frisbee so that the girls can see the little pests, which otherwise are too well camouflaged on the earth. They love this special feeding time. I'm getting about a dozen beetles each time I gather, which is now at least three times per day. It's worth it since it lets me cut back on the purchased feed for the chickens. And oh, how satisfying to see my girls eat my pests!

Planted: Finished transplanting my last ditch efforts with the Tuscan kale and Savoy cabbage for this year. I'm on pins and needles about these fall crops since my spring brassicas failed entirely due to the June rains. What we'll do without a bumper crop of kale, I just don't want to contemplate. Trying again with okra too. Put in a few more snow peas and daikon radish seeds.

Oh! I was also inspired and deeply impressed with Julie's ginger harvest. It's technically too cold to grow ginger here, but I do love it. So I decided to try growing some in a five-gallon bucket, which I'll need to bring indoors for the winter. The experiment began just a few days ago. We'll see how it goes.

Harvested: The remaining 1/3 of my garlic crop, a few excellent cylindra beets, lots of herbs, Slobolt lettuce, the beginnings of the summer squash and squash blossoms, eggs as usual from the girls.

Preserved: Air dried a few zucchini just as an experiment. Also made a simple syrup with anise hyssop for mixed drinks (alcoholic and otherwise).

Waste not: Used a bunch of newspaper for lasagna mulching in a new area of the yard. Feeding the beetles to the girls instead of putting up with crop damage or resorting to pesticides.

Preparation/Storage: Priced some shelves for food storage in the basement, but the price is really more than I want to pay. Still looking.

Community: Not much. I've committed to helping can raspberry jam with an acquaintance, and promised some garden seeds to her too. I hope she follows through and lets me know when she's ready to can.

Eat the food: Used some of last year's roasted tomato sauce and summer squash from the garden for a squash tart. It was a hit. I'm going to try it again this week with the addition of pesto. Also made a chunky salad of beets, grilled zucchini, roasted corn kernels, avocado, garlic scape pesto and mayonnaise. It all turned the lurid color of beets, but it was really tasty and went very well in wraps with Slobolt lettuce from the garden. So four of the ingredients (half) were homegrown.

Read about Sharon's Independence Days Challenge, and you can participate too!

Independence Days Challenge - Daikon Edition

Time for another Independence Days report. You can play along at home too.

Since reading the wonderful book on homescale permaculture, Gaia's Garden, I've been intrigued by the idea of growing some daikon. The author, Toby Hemenway, mentioned the ingenious idea to grow these long, deeply rooted Asian radishes entirely for the purpose of soil improvement. If you have very poor or compacted soil, the mature roots of the daikon can simply be left in the soil to rot. They will add a column of organic matter to the soil while working to break up heavy clay and improve drainage. I absolutely love the permaculture concepts of using the inherent qualities or behaviors of plants to further human goals. It's similar to the way I put the chickens to work clearing new beds for gardening, or just weeding a recently harvested bed before replanting. Letting the diakon do the work of soil improvement is far less disruptive to the subterranean environment than tilling. All the soil based microorganisms aren't disturbed, and buried weed seeds don't get a free ride to the surface where they're likely to germinate.

Beyond that, I've been all itchy and scratchy to try making the Chinese "turnip cake" dish, which is actually made with radishes, and I'm guessing it's not those dainty French breakfast radishes, but the more substantial daikon type. So I got some late season daikon seed, and have been champing at the bit to plant them, even though I should really wait a month. In my typical jump the gun fashion, I decided to plant a few seeds each week from now till the end of August. We'll see which row looks best when it's time to harvest.

I plan to put some daikons for soil improvement under our apple tree, where we plan to put a permaculture bed in place next year. The soil there gets too much rain runoff from the back of our garage, which for some reason never had a rain gutter installed. Very damaged soil under there, but a permaculture bed should heal it, and a rain catchment system is in on our list.

Anyhow, on to the Independence Days report:

Planted - More kale since my kale plants seem to be going absolutely nowhere this year, some parsley and rosemary seedlings that I picked up at the farmer's market for a song, the aforementioned daikons, a few more okra seeds since the seedlings look like they haven't enjoyed all the rain we've had this month. Some flageolet beans to replace the Hutterite soup beans which don't seem to have made it. It's a bit late to be planting beans, but if we're lucky with the timing of the first fall frost, I may see a good yield. Other work in the garden includes more lasagna mulching, hilling the potatoes and leeks, chopping back the exuberant comfrey for green manure, and of course weeding.

Harvested - Clipped a bunch of oregano to hang and dry, Greek-fashion. I harvested about two cups of lemon balm leaves to make an experimental batch of homemade soda. Still eating salad from the garden, and eggs from our ever-reliable girls. Between a late frost in May and torrential June, our springtime yields just haven't been at all what I had hoped for. The garlic already harvested has another week of drying before I trim it up, clean it, weigh it, and select the best bulbs for re-planting before storing the remainder. I'm now harvesting some of my bolting lettuce plants for the chickens. Mostly these are regrowth from heads that were cut earlier, so I don't feel there's much waste there. The girls relish these daily treats.

Preserved - Said bundle of oregano for drying. Not much else.

Waste not - Nothing new here. Same old recycling, etc. But if it counts, I've been managing with fans instead of any AC so far this summer. I'm surprised how much my body has acclimated to warmer sleeping temperatures. I really like to sleep in a cold room with heavy blankets.

Preparation/Storage - Nothing much to report here. Got a book on bean dishes out of the library. I'm looking for ideas to incorporate more of them into our diet. Since we can grow our own soup beans, this could and should be an extremely cheap cornerstone food for us. I just need to figure out how to make that happen. Baked beans aren't going to do it, damn our culinary standards.

Community - I finally made it to the third week of the closest farmer's market. Three of the vendors I was most likely to buy from have moved on to other markets. But there are still nice looking fruits and veggies available.

I missed the scheduled Plant a Row drop-off at the food bank this past week. I may try to make up for it this week. I can certainly spare some lettuce, and the hot weather out there isn't doing them any good.

At a dinner with some friends last night I brought up the Transition movement. I tried to explain what it was and felt I didn't do a very good job of it. I'm intrigued by the possibilities of working at a very local level to prepare for an energy-scarce future. But even when talking to people who were already quite receptive to the concepts, I don't feel well equipped to teach and share ideas. It's not that I'm uncomfortable speaking - I've gotten over my fear of speaking publicly and formally. I just don't feel like I have enough of a handle on the issues to explain clearly or convince anyone.

Eat the food - That homemade lemon balm soda? I got the idea from a couple articles over at Herb Mentor, where they discuss blueberry soda and popsicles made from lemon balm and honey. Since I had neither popsicle molds nor patience, I improvised wildly. It turned out alright, but a little grassy tasting. I was curious how it might differ if I used dried lemon balm. My plants are new and thus small this year. So I'll have to wait for more growth before trying a second batch. I think I preferred my batch of ginger ale, which wasn't homegrown in the least.

I brought the worst looking garlic right inside to the kitchen and have been salvaging what I could of it. Still eating homemade bread (baked in cooler months) from the chest freezer. Also made a cherry clafouti with our own eggs and sour cherries from the farmer's market.

So what's up in your neck of the woods? How does your garden grow?

Independence Days Challenge - Inadequacy Edition

These days I'm feeling a little inadequate in the gardening department. I've put a lot of work into my garden already this year. But so far we've gotten relatively little out of it, or at least it feels that way to me. Lettuces, and other greens, and herbs. Until I harvested the garlic scapes this past week, that's all we've gotten so far. And it's already the middle of June.

As usual, this is partly a result of nature having her say, and partly my own doings. Nature has weighed in to let me know that the slugs simply love - love - the lasagna mulch that I laid down last year and early this year. I'm really not happy about this. See, I've lived in two different areas where slugs are absolutely the bane of gardeners' existences. And I was so pleased to find that the slug populations here in Pennsylvania were really quite manageable. This year however, thanks to all that mulch, they are throwing an ongoing party in my garden. They pretty much wiped out my first set of Tuscan kale, which is my absolute favorite vegetable, and one we count on to produce both early and late. They did a number on the chard too, though some of the beets seem to be holding on. I've picked up a large supply of diatomaceous earth (essentially fossilized microfauna, so sharp that they tear open the soft bodies of slugs) which I'm hoping will keep my next round of brassicas alive.

Despite the slug infestation, I have to admit that deep lasagna mulching has its benefits. I haven't given up on the practice at all.

Our lack of other things to harvest is partly due to the things I chose to plant, and how I chose to plant them. There's plenty of room for improvement in my use of row covers for getting things started early. I could have planted peas, radishes and other early crops, but I didn't. We're not all that crazy about radishes, and peas have always seemed like a lot of work for a little food. However, we love snow peas, which require no shelling. Indeed, the Brits call them mangetout, taken from the French for "eat it all." Yes, you eat the whole thing. And had I planted them, we'd be eating them by now. So snow peas are in order for next spring's planting. I may even see if I can squeeze in a crop during the late season this year.

Meanwhile I continue planting things, weeding, and watching our bush zucchini, popcorn, four varieties of potato, three varieties of winter squash, charantais melon, six varieties of garlic, carrots, beets, parsnips, onions, leeks, shallots, chard, okra, soup beans, four varieties of tomato, poblano peppers, eggplant, lots of different lettuces, and celeriac grow and grow and grow out there. Not to mention the herbs and flowers, and the apples on our ancient tree. We've got volunteer wineberries with buds all over the canes. But so little is ready for harvest yet. And the new asparagus is putting out another set of stalks, but they're all off-limits this year. Sigh.


On to the Independence Days report...

Planted: lovage, shallots, leeks, onions, still more kale, charantais melon seedlings, celeriac seedlings, next round of parsnips, next round of spinach.

Harvested: garlic scapes, lettuce, herbs, spinach, and eggs from the girls. I've also started gathering the wild strawberries for the girls, in addition to their daily complement of weeds. Wild strawberries don't do much for me, but the girls are positively thrilled by them, which is so gratifying. My husband went gleaning for mulberries over the weekend.

Preserved: Just two little bags of garlic scape pesto put into the freezer. That's it.

Waste not: I actually located a facility in my area that will recycle styrofoam! Also, now that we have a rocket stove, there's a good reason (other than aesthetics) to gather all the dead wood that the storms are knocking out of our trees. Now it's fuel.

Preparation/Storage: I started sealing some pantry goods in glass canning jars with a borrowed vacuum sealer contraption. This was timely because all the rain we've been having brought a significant amount of water into our basement, where I store a lot of our dry goods. It was nice not to have to worry about the food. Vacuum sealing in glass means the food is safe from both critters and moisture. We're still working on finding some affordable shelving to set up a proper organized storage area down there. We certainly have the room.

Also, we had a solar site evaluation done on our property on Saturday. This is our second one, since we thought the first guys were basically bozos. The crew that came on Saturday were not bozos. We'll see what they come back with.

I'm going to count the book I'm reading in this category too. Gaia's Garden is an excellent introduction to permaculture/forest gardening on a residential lot scale. It's readable enough that I'm actually working my way through it from cover to cover, which is not the way I usually read gardening titles. And it's already taught me a great deal about the biochemistry of soil and what goes on below ground and out of sight in my garden. It's also making me look at the space around and under my apple tree in a new light. The wheels begin to turn...

Community: Took three large heads of lettuce and some herbs from the garden to the food bank, and got one relative to do the same. All part of my Plant a Row project.

I think I may be making a little bit of headway in encouraging some of my relatives to think about growing more of their own food.

Eat the food: The garlic scapes that weren't made into pesto went into some pasta with a jar of my roasted tomato sauce from last year. I've been putting a lot of spinach into my quesadillas. Still nice to have fresh lettuce around for entree salads and sandwich fixings.

We're eating down my frozen stores of homemade bread. We'll continue this throughout the summer months.

Also, I've been making impromptu bowls of meuslix for breakfast with the mixture of six different rolled grains that I normally put in my multigrain sandwich loaves. Since baking season is over for now, it's nice to have an alternate use for this stuff so that it doesn't just sit around for a few months. I also add some of the powdered milk that I got such a great deal on way back when, so that's helping make more room in the chest freezer. I find it's pretty satisfying with just a little bit of whatever dried fruit is hanging around: cranberries, raisins, sour cherries. It's all good. Perhaps I should actually take the time to mix up a batch of meuslix. But then, that would take away the day-to-day variety.

You can join in with the Independence Days Challenge too. Say your piece in the comments, or link to your own post.

Other Independence Days reports
5/18/09 - First of 2009
6/8/09 - Okra Edition

Independence Days Challenge - Okra Edition

Time for another Independence Days update.

Plant something I got my first ever okra seedlings into the ground. This is one of my two experimental plantings this year. Okra should do reasonably well in my area, but it's not something that has ever regularly been a part of our diet. I germinated a bunch of seeds and put the eight most promising ones in the ground over the weekend. We'll see how it does and how much we enjoy eating it. We're hoping that the freshness factor overwhelms our heretofore ho-hum impression of okra. In any case, the plants apparently have beautiful flowers, so I'm looking forward to seeing how it grows. I also put in some anise hyssop and more onion family transplants over the past week.

Harvest something I'm still looking at not much beyond greens and herbs from my garden. I feel way behind the curve. Still eating salads, and I harvested quite a large quantity of herbs for bread baking (see below). A few garlic scapes were big enough to cut, but most of them will probably be cut later this week. Eggs from the girls as usual. Lots of weeds "harvested" for the girls too.

Preserve something Last Thursday was supposed to be unusually cool, so I earmarked it for a marathon baking day. I baked 24 loaves of bread, and most of those went into the chest freezer. I'm hoping this will get us through the summer without the need to buy or bake any more bread. Lots of my own herbs went into one of the two types of bread I made: oregano, chives, and sage.

Reduce waste The only new thing I can think of in this category is that I identified yet another weed that my hens will happily eat: yellow wood sorrel. It comes up like crazy in my garden, so now I've got another way to reduce their feed costs and give them still greater diversity in their diet.

Build Community I bartered a few of the loaves of bread I baked for some local honey.

I didn't make it to the opening day of the local farmers market. My excuse is that my husband's away on business travel again, and I'm stuck with a lot of leftovers. So I haven't shopped in more than a week. More garden surplus goes to the food bank this week though, and I'll try to make it to this week's market. I want some beets!

I offered some unwanted ornamental plants from our yard to some neighbors down the road. They may come dig them up today.

Eat the food I'm just trying to bat cleanup on all the leftovers!

Preparation/Storage I priced some new shelving (ouch!) and have been scouring the free listings for a way to help organize our dry food storage area. We need a better system. Right now it's too difficult to see what all we have, and what we might need to pick up.

Also, I picked up some silicone caulk and have begun the project of sealing the air gaps around our windows and doors. This will help make our "envelope" more air tight and so help us to conserve energy when either heating or cooling the house.

I've cooked on the rocket stove a few times, so as to begin learning its ins and outs and be in practice with it. There are several items now on my project list to make this a more feasible regular activity. More on this, no doubt, in future Independence Days updates.

I bought some extra-large wide mouth canning jars and will soon use a borrowed vacuum sealer contraption to seal beans, grains and other things critters might like to help themselves to. Then I can put them in the basement and not worry about moisture or anything else.

Finally, I picked up extra sunscreen to have on hand. See? I am capable of thinking about things other than food!

You can play along on the Independence Days Challenges too. Post your own achievements, or link to them, in the comments.

Independence Days Challenge

I'm participating in Sharon's Independence Days Challenge this year. Reports are "due" on Mondays, so here's mine. We've done well this past week, probably our best so far this year.

Planted: Popcorn, soup beans, potatoes, mixed lettuces, salad burnett, and a few sunflowers both planted and transplanted. Some few of the late season potatoes I planted in buckets to test out how well they produce in containers, which will allow for easy mounding and harvest. More kale. My early kale transplants are being ravaged by slugs, which I haven't previously had much trouble with. Diatomaceous earth is now on my shopping list. Started pre-sprouting melon and squash seeds last night. All my heat loving seedlings are begging to be in the ground already, but we have overnight temperatures in the 30s F (!) predicted for the next few nights. This is when my June 1st planting date for tomatoes makes sense to me.

Harvested: Lettuce, lettuce, and more lettuce, arugula, various herbs, and volunteer greens (dandelion, fat hen, prickly lettuce, and mustard greens) for the girls. The girls have been steady with the eggs. That's about all we've got right now.

Preserved: Nothing last week. Not much yet available for preserving.

Waste reduction: I've begun "saving" tin cans for a self-watering container project. They're actually from relatives, as we just aren't eating much from cans these days. Still, they're out of the waste stream. We'll need quite a few of them. They're intended for large containers to hold fig trees and a lemon tree next year. (More on this when the project is underway.)

I'm also seeing more need to provide my worm bin with regular feedings of kitchen scraps and newspaper (we get a free weekly delivered to us whether we want it or not). I guess either they're more active as the temperature increases, or their population is growing, or both.

The girls are getting some of my failed baking projects that I salvaged in the freezer as their daily treats. They don't seem to care when breads or English muffins don't rise properly. (The hazards of only baking when it's really, really cold.)

Took a large load of corrugated cardboard to the recycling center.

Build Community Food Systems: I took the first contribution from my Plant A Row project to the food bank last week on a rainy day. Three heads of lettuce and a yogurt container full of herbs. The relatives of mine who had agreed to Plant their own Rows didn't have anything ready to contribute, but we've agreed to twice-a-month delivery dates for our garden produce. I also roped in a friend of the family with a large garden to participate in our next drop off. This is the first time I've had anything to report in this category so far. But for the next few months it should be fairly regular.

Preparation and Storage: Bought some extra beans, soy sauce, baking powder, and coconut milk at the store this week. Oh! and I ordered some extra elderberry zinc lozenges for colds and sore throats. The spousal unit liked them so much he was eating them like candy. This stash is getting hidden. Froze two of the Lemon-Coconut breads I made last week. Looked for extra large canning jars this week without any luck. I should do something about preserving some of the herbs this week.

Eat the food: Made a nice pair of bean dips to use up some dried beans. Found and used a surprise bag of frozen kale from last year's garden. We're eating lettuce just as fast as we can. Used up some frozen lemon juice, fresh eggs, and a lot of unsweetened coconut flake in those lovely Lemon-Coconut breads.

All in all, it was a pretty good week.

The $50 Monthly Grocery Challenge - How It Might Be Done

I've had a challenging budget goal for groceries every month since May of this year. Could we spend no more than $50 per month for our food? I've made regular reports on my attempts to meet this challenge. But I thought I'd sum up my findings and thoughts in this post.

Everyone's constraints and advantages will differ when approaching such a tight budget. Our constraints were that with few exceptions I buy organic, especially where meat and dairy products are concerned. I also try very hard to support local agriculture by shopping at the farmers' market. Could I get cheaper milk and fruit? Of course. But I personally wouldn't feel good about eating it. If our financial situation were truly dire, that preference would become a luxury we couldn't afford. But we're not there yet. Also, neither of us was prepared to subsist on ramen noodles. We weren't going to eat an unhealthy diet just for the sake of meeting this goal.

Our advantages were several. We have laying hens and a huge vegetable garden, a chest freezer with plenty of meat, fish, and homemade bread, and a well-stocked pantry with lots of shelf-stable cooking ingredients. Also, we only had to feed two adults. And I didn't have to include the meals my husband ate when he traveled for work, which was a significant part of the time.

I failed every month at meeting my own self-imposed grocery budget. But am I going to let that stop me from giving advice? Heck, no! Having made the attempt, here are my thoughts on how to go about feeding yourself if you need to cut back radically.

1. Stop eating out. This should go without saying, but I'll say it anyway right off the bat. No lattes, no fast food, no deli sandwiches. Unless you have a coupon or gift certificate that makes food from a restaurant completely free, eating out is out of the question on this budget.

2. Shop your pantry/freezer/garden. The first and most obvious thing to do is to use up what you've already paid for. If you have food sitting around the house, now is the time to get creative and prepare meals using what is already available to you. This is how we were able to get even within striking distance of our budgetary goal.

3. Glean or forage. Never turn down free wholesome food. If someone offers you something edible - be it an overgrown zucchini from their garden or groundfall apples - accept it graciously and then use it. Learn what wild foods are available in your area and learn to appreciate them. Nuts, fruits, roots, wild greens - there's a whole world of edible food out there. Check Euell Gibbons' classic Stalking The Wild Asparagus out of the library. If you haven't already read it, it'll surprise you. If you see a fruit tree in your neighborhood with fallen fruits all over the ground, politely approach the owners and ask if you might collect the fruits. (Be aware of the risks with groundfall fruits however.)

4. Buy only cooking ingredients, never prepared foods. With very few exceptions, there's no way to meet such a strict budget while buying any sort of convenience food. So skip all prepared foods. Buy rolled oats instead of breakfast cereal and dried pasta instead of Chef Boyardee. Forego snack foods, alcohol, single-serving anything, and any purchased beverage other than milk. Stick to the produce aisle, the aisle with the canned and shelf-stable goods, and the frozen vegetable section.

5. Shop the loss leaders. Most chain grocery stores have a weekly advertisement about their sale items. Oftentimes these prices are so good that the store will not make any money on them, and will even take a loss. That's their decision. Your decision is to be one of the smart customers. Let another customer fulfill the store's expectation that the impulse buys and unnecessary purchases will cover their costs. Buy what they're promoting, and nothing else but what you really need to cook cheap but healthy meals.

6. Stop wasting food. On such a tight budget, there is no room whatsoever for letting food go to waste. Keep track of what is in your refrigerator and your fruit bowl. Pull any perishable items out to the front of the shelf where you will see them everyday. Make it a high priority to use stuff up before it goes bad. Also reconsider every scrap of food that you would otherwise throw away. Maybe you don't like to eat chicken skin. But did you know that the fat in it can be rendered down? It's called schmaltz, and it's used a lot in Jewish cooking. That's a few tablespoons of fat that can replace butter or cooking oil in another dish. Waste not, want not. So start thinking outside of the box when it comes to your food.

7. Produce your own food: garden, raise animals, fish, or hunt. This one is going to be a tough sell for those who don't already raise some of their own food. But there's really no way that I can see to come close to living on $50 worth of purchased food per month without directly producing some of my own food myself. Eggs and vegetables that are "free" to me have been the cornerstone of many, many meals for us during these months of the challenge. All of these options require lead time, effort, an investment in tools and/or licenses, and they're all easier to do once you've gotten some experience. (Who was it that said, "Experience is something you get after you need it.") You can't snap your fingers and have a productive garden or a starter flock of laying hens. If you don't have the tools or the permits needed to hunt or fish, you probably can't afford them if you need to live on $50 worth of food per month. But you can make long term plans to do these things. Or make friends with someone who already does. Gardeners often have extra food, and they nearly always have weeds to pull and work that should really get done if only they could find the time. (Trust me on this one.) Some hunters have extra meat that they'd be willing to barter for. Offer to trade a little labor for some food. You may also pick up some skills or tips to help you do it better yourself when you can. And by the way, chickens love kitchen scraps, which helps enormously with #6.

8. Eat less meat. Unless you're practicing one of the options mentioned in #7, other sources of protein are usually cheaper than meat. Eggs, dried beans, and tofu, and sometimes even dairy are all fine, protein-rich alternatives. I'm not saying you need to become a vegetarian. But unless you hunt, raise animals for meat, or have already stocked up on a lot of meat before you begin trying to live within this budget, meat is going to have to play a small role in your diet. Get past the idea that a proper lunch or dinner must include a large serving of meat. Instead, think of meat as a garnish or a flavoring ingredient. We often put a few slivers of parboiled bacon on our homemade pizza. The whole rice-and-beans idea sounds pretty dismal, I admit. But have you tried Cuban black beans lately? Or the combination of lentils and basmati rice with some sauteed onions and herbs? Give it a try. You may surprise yourself with how good these cheap alternatives can be.

9. Learn to cook. If you already know how, you're well situated for this budgetary challenge. If not, then learn the basics. This is not the time to try to master chicken Kiev or beef Wellington. Learn to cook pasta with fresh or frozen vegetables and a few pantry staples such as canned tomatoes and olive oil. Learn to make potato-garlic soup. Learn to bake bread - it's a lot easier than you may think. Turn to the library for solid cookbooks on the basics. I recommend Joy of Cooking, The New Best Recipe, and How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. All of these books will give you clear instructions on how to prepare simple, healthy foods.

10. Have a meal plan and a shopping list. Inventory your pantry and freezer, then sit down with a pen and paper to create a meal plan for the week. Build on what you already have. Then look at those store fliers and see what you can add without spending much money. List the meals you will prepare from those items and plan for leftovers wherever you can. Create a shopping list of what you need to buy and then stick to it like glue when you shop. Unless you see a spectacular unadvertised deal that you know you can incorporate into your meal plan, shop for only what is on your list. Don't go to the store hungry, or with hungry kids.

11. Skip the coupons. This is going to surprise many people. But when you're on a very tight grocery budget, coupons are rarely a good strategy. Few coupons are available for the most basic cooking ingredients. You may save a dollar on that frozen dinner, or that over-processed, over-packaged snack item. But you're probably better off spending the same after-coupon amount on potatoes, beans, or pasta. A large banana and a mug of tea brewed at home will be about as much as one serving of frozen orange juice. By sticking with basic ingredients you'll avoid the chemical additives and preservatives as well. Coupons will save you a little money if you insist on paying the premium for processed foods. But it's nearly always the better route - financially and health-wise - to buy basic ingredients and prepare the food at home. Now coupons for TP, those are worth using.


I'm not saying that doing all - or even any - of this is easy. Nor am I saying that this will guarantee that you can feed two adults on $50 of purchased food each month. After all, I failed every time I tried with this Challenge, even with all the advantages I had. Living on so small a grocery budget will require discipline and effort. If you plan carefully enough, know how to cook, and have some sources of "free" food (either from storage, gleaning, or your own production), this should be doable.

Finally, a serious note. I've written all of the above from the perspective of someone choosing this strict budget as a voluntary challenge. If you're reading this because your immediate financial situation is so dire that this is not an option but a necessity, then seek help from a foodbank, a church, or any charity that will help you put food on the table. This is not a time to stand on pride. My understanding is that it takes months to be approved for the foodstamp program, so you may not be able to rely on it in the short term, but get the process started as soon as possible. By the time you're approved, you may not need it and you can graciously decline the aid. But better to give your future self that option than ignore a valuable resource that may make all the difference. If you are looking ahead to serious longterm financial constraints, then you should seriously consider every possibility of growing or raising your own food.


Related Posts:
May Challenge report
June Challenge report
July-August Challenge report
Four Cornerstone Meals for Frugal Living

The $50 Grocery Challenge: July & August Report

August must be the month of bottomless to-do lists and good intentions. The garden has gotten away from me entirely, and there are just never enough hours in the day. I had meant at some point this month to give an update on how we've been doing for the monthly $50 Grocery Challenge. In a nutshell: we overshot big time in July.

The problem was, we ran out of some essentials. I don't mean avocados, or chocolate. I mean olive oil and pasta. And rather than just buy a single bottle of oil and a pound of pasta, I bought a case of bottles and about 15 pounds of pasta. It was the right choice financially, because it coincided with a carpool run to Trader Joes, which has the best prices on organic extra-virgin olive oil and organic pasta in my area. But it definitely blew the Challenge right outta the water. See, there was batch after batch of pesto to be made with all the basil and sage coming out of the garden. On top of that, I also needed walnuts for the pesto. The walnuts were far cheaper than the more gourmet pine nuts, but they still weren't cheap. Faced with the choice of putting up the garden produce in a usable form, or sticking with the challenge, I opted for the food preservation. And truth be told, running out of olive oil would pretty much qualify as an emergency in my kitchen, tantamount only to running out of tea or garlic. We're talking meltdown territory. If I sound like I'm blaming the overspending on the pesto production, that's just an excuse.

So, we came in at well over $180 spent on food in July. Other than replenishing our supplies of basics, we didn't do too badly. No eating out, and pretty much every meal built around what was coming out of the garden. Lots of homemade pizza, pasta dishes, and some meat and fish pulled from the freezer.

This month we're doing a bit better with the Challenge, though we've spent a lot on dairy this month. I'm working on a post that will summarize my thoughts and observations on this crazy Grocery Challenge of mine. I'm getting pretty sick of tracking everything so closely, so I probably won't make any further monthly reports. But it has been a useful practice for me in that it has definitely changed my outlook on cooking and feeding ourselves. The change has been for the better and for the frugaller.

Related Posts:

$50 Monthly Grocery Challenge: How it Might Be Done

Four Cornerstone Meals for Frugal Living, Plus Two Bonus Desserts

Recently, I posted about my $50 per month grocery challenge. It's a personal challenge to myself to cut our grocery budget right down to the bone. I've been following this challenge for three months now, and I didn't make it in either May, or June, or July. But I came somewhat close each month. I know that may sound completely infeasible to many people, so I thought I would offer a few of the recipes I often fall back on for extremely cheap but tasty meals. Let's be clear: I like saving money, but there's no question of us going without wholesome, healthy, and tasty meals. We like to eat far too much, and I take too much pleasure in cooking. We may have ramen noodles once in a while, but we don't subsist on them.

So here are four recipes for cheap, filling, and yummy meals. All of them are flexible, in that they can accommodate a huge variety of ingredients. Each one of these recipes is easily tailored to your own tastes, to what you happen to have on hand, and they can all be made suitable for vegetarians. Most importantly, they're complete meals that are easy to make.

Strata - I think of this dish as a more homely, crustless version of quiche. I like it because we tend to have the basic ingredients on hand nearly all the time. It's easy to make, and can be served for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. If you have access to day-old bread at a reduced price, this is a great way to use it up. Leftovers are decent, but not my favorite.

Toast enough slices of bread to make at least one complete layer in your casserole dish. Slightly stale bread is fine to use. If you wish, rub the toasted bread with a clove of garlic. Spray your casserole dish with cooking spray, or butter it. Layer in the toast and any leftover cooked vegetables or cooked meat that you have. If you have an onion, it's especially nice to slice it up and caramelize it, adding the cooked slices over the bread. Add some shredded cheese and stewed tomatoes if you have some. Grind some pepper over the ingredients. Beat two eggs and add a cup of milk. If this is obviously not enough liquid to cover the ingredients you have, add more eggs and milk in roughly this proportion. But if you have only one cup of milk and three eggs, that'll work just fine. I've made this with milk mixed up from dry milk powder and it's fine so long as there are whole eggs in the mix. Add some salt to the egg mixture and pour it into the casserole dish so that it mostly or completely covers the ingredients. Top it with any fresh herbs you have around that need to be used up. Bake it in a 350 degree oven for at least 45 minutes, until cooked through.

Make ahead option: You can assemble strata up to 24 hours before cooking it. Cover it with plastic wrap and refrigerate. If the bread is floating in the egg mixture, weight the top of the plastic wrap with another casserole dish or a plate to keep everything submerged. When ready to cook, proceed as above. I think strata actually benefits from sitting in the fridge for at least a few hours before being cooked.


Stir-fried rice - If you've already got leftover rice, this dish can be prepared very quickly. You can make it taste very good with the simplest ingredients, including frozen vegetables. So this dish is good to make year round, or whenever the budget is tight. Leftovers are great.

You'll need soy sauce, a beaten egg or two, frozen peas and/or other vegetables, freshly ground pepper (preferably white). If you have hoisin sauce or oyster sauce, and ginger, garlic and scallions, you're in for a treat. Small quantities of fresh or leftover cooked meat can be added, but it's not necessary. If you want to add raw meat, make sure that it is cut into very thin slices or small cubes. If you've made rice freshly for this dish, put it in a bowl and spread it out to cool and lose some moisture for at least an hour. Leftover rice is actually preferable. The best thing to cook in is a large cast iron skillet. Non-stick pans aren't great, because they can't take the pre-heating.

Heat your largest skillet over high heat for 8-10 minutes before you begin to cook. You want the skillet very, very hot in order to simulate the heat of a wok. When the skillet is smokin' hot, add some cooking oil and swirl the pan to coat the cooking surface. Add whatever seasoning vegetables you have, such as onion, garlic, ginger or scallions. Stir them only for a few seconds and then immediately add any uncooked meat you want in the dish. If adding raw meat, stir it only until it begins to lose its raw color and then add the cooked rice. Stir the rice around so that it heats through, scattering the ground pepper over it liberally. If you have cooked meat to add, add it now along with the vegetables. Continue stirring until the ingredients are warmed. Then make a well in the center of the pan, pushing the ingredients to the edge of the pan. Pour the beaten egg into the middle and allow it to sit for about 10-15 seconds undisturbed. It will begin to set. While the egg is cooking, pour soy sauce and hoisin sauce or oyster sauce (if you have some) over the ring of rice and other ingredients. Then stir all the ingredients back into the egg, mixing in the added sauces and continue cooking for about 1 or 2 more minutes. Serve warm.

Make ahead option: See to it that you already have leftover rice on the night you want to prepare this dish. If you're still ordering take-out or eating in restaurants, you'll often get far more rice than you need. If you're practicing more frugal dining habits, just put the rice on to cook the night before you plan to eat stir-fried rice.


Soup - This has got to be the ultimate frugal meal. Soup leftovers are generally better than the first servings. There are so very many soups that can be made with so many different ingredients, that I'm not going to bother to give an example here. Chances are high that just about any ingredient you have on hand, cooked or raw, can be made into a soup. Dry pantry goods (like rice and beans) and long storing vegetables (like potatoes, cabbage, and parsnips) are excellent foundations for soup. If you have any leftover ingredient, whatever it may be, try entering its name along with the words "soup" and "recipe" into google to get some ideas. It would be the rare ingredient that didn't return some results.

Plan ahead ideas: Keep your pantry stocked with liquid broths and bouillon cubes, as well as a variety of beans and grains. I especially like whole spelt in vegetable soups. It gives a lovely nutty, chewy quality to thin broth-based soups. In Italy, many simple vegetable soups are garnished with extra virgin olive oil and a little bit of grated parmesan cheese.


Korean Vegetable Pancakes - Of the four recipes I'm listing here, Korean pancakes are not the fastest to make. But they're fantastic when you have a lot of fresh vegetables coming in from the garden. The batter is incredibly quick to mix up, but they take a little time to cook on the stovetop. I include them here especially because this is an easy recipe that would be ideal for training a child who is of age just to start learning how to cook. Also, their versatility is a godsend to gardeners coping with an overflowing garden.

You can buy a mix at a Korean grocery store, or make up your own mix at home. Use just about any vegetable you enjoy, and incorporate some of those spicy condiments you have lying around in the fridge. You can add meat if you want it or have it on hand, but it's really not necessary. All you need is the pancake batter and some cut up or shredded vegetables to make a complete meal. Panfry the batter and you've got a hot and filling lunch or dinner. Leftovers are best if eaten within about 24 hours.

To make your own mix, combine 1 cup of flour, 1 well-beaten egg, and 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder. Next add in your sliced or shredded vegetables. I like to add ginger, garlic and some sort of onion. Cabbage and other thick greens are best when blanched with a little boiling water before being added to the batter. Zucchini and carrots can be grated in. Corn cut right off the cob is nice too. If you like spicy foods you can add some hot sauce directly to the batter, or plan to serve that as a condiment with the pancakes. If the mixture looks too thick, thin it with a tablespoon of water at a time until it looks right. It should be at least as thick as normal pancake batter. When the ingredients are thoroughly mixed, heat a skillet over medium heat for two minutes. Add a little bit of vegetable oil, and scoop about 1/2 cup of the batter into the oil, flattening it to a disk no more than 1/2" high if it mounds up in the center. Cook it for 5 minutes on one side, then flip it and cook for an additional 5 minutes on the other side. You may need to add more oil when you flip it.

Minding the pancakes while they cook is an ideal task for a responsible child, say age 9-10 and up. They only need to set a timer, flip the pancake, and possess a little common sense. Serve warm with any condiment: soy sauce, Thai spicy-sweet dipping sauce, ketchup, or anything else you enjoy.

Make Ahead Option: The pancakes are acceptable as leftovers, and will keep for up to three days, fully cooked, in the refrigerator. But they will lose their crisp exterior texture. To speed up last minute preparation, keep the prepped vegetables you'll use for the pancakes in a grab bag in your refrigerator. Buy the packaged mix to make things go faster.


Bonus Round: Easy and Economical Desserts

Bread pudding - This is basically a sweet version of the strata recipe given above. If you have some jam, you can make butter and jam sandwiches and fit those into your casserole dish. Otherwise, just use the bread on its own. Add some dried fruits like raisins, apricots, or whatever you have on hand. Add a couple tablespoons of sugar, and a small amount of cinnamon to the egg and milk mixture. Then assemble and cook as directed in the strata recipe.

Kheer - This is an exotic sounding but simple dessert that I like to prepare when I have too much leftover rice. It hails from India, where it is usually made with basmati rice, but any rice will work. All you need to do is heat milk gently in a pot and add the cooked rice. Stir in some sugar and powdered cardamom if you have any. If you want, you can add raisins. The consistency is usually quite soupy, so it's okay to dilute the milk with a little water. The starch from the rice will add body to the liquid. Just let everything warm up together and the sugar dissolve, and the cooking is done. In India they often include toasted almonds or pistachios in this dish. I omit them just because nuts are pricey, and I don't miss them. Kheer is commonly served cold as a refreshment on hot days. Hot or cold, this simple dessert pleases just about everyone. I've made it with condensed milk, well diluted, and that works fine.

$50 Per Month for Groceries - Second Report

A while back I posted about a personal frugal challenge, to spend only $50 per month on groceries. There were a few clauses and exceptional circumstances to this limit, but it was a working goal in May and June. I thought I'd post an update on how the challenge went in June, and let you know that I'm continuing it this month.

We missed the mark in June by about $20, spending almost exactly $70 on groceries for the month. As usual, dairy accounted for a significant part of the total. We buy organic milk and cream, going through 1 1/2 to 2 gallons of milk per month, and one or two pints of cream. Even though we used a $1 coupon each time we bought milk, it's still pricey.

The big shift in June though was that the local farmers' market is now in full swing, and I simply could not find it within myself to say no to locally grown fruits and berries. We don't eat a great deal of fruit, because we try hard to eat seasonally. And other than apples and melons, neither of which is close to ready yet, we don't grow any fruit ourselves. So it's very hard to pass up the opportunity to get something that's an annual treat when we've mostly gone without fresh fruit since last summer. Then there's the added bonus of directly supporting local farms, something that's personally very important to me. Yet even just buying a pint of cherries, blueberries, or strawberries each week accounted for at least three dollars. It doesn't sound like much, does it? But 4 weeks x $3 is $12, and that's almost 25% of our food budget goal for the month. We also bought some locally produced cheese, which turned out to be excellent, at the farmers' market.

There was a significant offset in costs thanks to our garden though. In June we had far more lettuce, zucchini, kale, chard, cabbage, and fresh herbs coming out of the garden than we could keep up with. A good bit of produce got put up for later consumption, and this will be an ongoing task throughout the summer. So we had little need for fresh produce other than onions and garlic. And of course, our laying hens continued to provide us with nearly free eggs.

The other budget buster for June was, once again, soda. I don't want to blame this one on my husband, because heaven knows I drink plenty of the stuff if it's around. But I will say that the purchase happened when I sent him off to the grocery store alone. He saw a "good deal" and couldn't pass it up. So we spent a whopping $22 for five cases of soda. Clearly, this stuff is a menace to our frugality efforts.

I had been drinking homemade watermelon shrub from last summer as a substitute for soda, but we ran through our supply of it rather quickly. My husband also got into the habit of charging a container of tap water with his CO2 tank leftover from his homebrewing days. He was using that and some fruit juice to make himself mixed drinks. As much as he liked this, he succumbed to the temptation of a promotion, and we're now back to drinking soda by the can. I can see I'm going to need to put more thought into good substitutions for soft drinks.

Things are more or less on track for another shot at the $50 Grocery Challenge for the month of July. The garden is now producing tomatoes. And we harvested about 90 heads of garlic. So we're pretty well set to go without needing to buy any produce, other than a little fruit, for this month. I'll let you know how it goes.


Related Posts:
Four Cornerstone Meals for Frugal Living
$50 Monthly Grocery Challenge: How it Might Be Done