Garden Totals

Here are the harvest totals for my modest little garden.........

Broccoli......5.75 lbs.
Cauliflower.....3.10 lbs.
Cucumber...1.70 lbs.(or 3 cukes)
Tomatoes....27.25 lbs.
Green Tomatoes yet to ripen.....1.75 lbs.
Grand Total of 39.55 pounds of food grown.

And not a single squash plant gave us anything. meh.

That is all.

Sluggy

Frugal Friday.....the August 30th Edition

Let's take a peek into Sluggy's World and see what frugal things happened this past week--

* Weis gas points were expiring so I filled up my car's gas tank plus Hubs' gas can for the lawnmower..........

$2.94 saved.  Not earth shattering but it all adds up, right?

* I earned $7 at Rite-Aid and .25¢ at Weis from Ibotta since last Friday.  I bought a corned beef at Weis put got credited the .25¢ rebate for ground beef? lolz  I guess they are both beef so what the heck!

* I received a coupon in the mail...........

A free dog treat?  Chester and Dixie say, "Yes, please!".

*  We had an Anniversary meal out on Wednesday at Outback.  I didn't have any Qs or a gift card to use but I got the Walkabout Wednesday Deal....a 6 oz. sirloin with fries and a drink for $10.99.  Hubs' 9 oz. steak, baked potato, salad and iced tea cost DOUBLE what my meal cost! Geez

*  I found money!

Another dime at Rite-Aid last Friday under the cane display in the pharmacy area.

And a dime in Weis(PMITA)Markets near the battery display on Wednesday.
August must be the "Month of Dropped Dimes" because this is my third dime I've found this month....lolz

*  I got some deals..........

Green chiles for .75¢ a can.

And free candy bars at Weis.

*  I picked more produce out of the garden...........

All these tomatoes plus 1 cucumber weighed in at 9.71 lbs.
I also picked 26.6 ounces of broccoli that I didn't get a photo of before I cooked and we ate it on Tuesday. ;-)

That will do it from here in PA.

What frugal wins happened in your world this past week?
Let us know!

Sluggy

Frugal Friday.....the September 28th Edition

Here's a few things we did this past week that were frugal.......

* I went to Weis and got the Friday freebie last Friday....

A can of chicken broth.  Geez, what a GREAT freebie.....not even a carton of chicken broth.  Can you spare it Weis? lolz

* Gas Points are expiring middle of next week.  Since we won't be here or near a Weis(PMITA)Markets then Hubs and I took our cars up to Weis and filled out.........

No point in letting a .30¢ discount on gas go to waste, right?

*  I found money!

Another penny in the Rite-Aid parking lot.  At this rate I'll have a dollar by 2022!  lolz

*  The lip balm from Kellogg's arrived this week........

Gotten for free from buying 2 boxes of Special K protein bars this Summer.

*  Here I am with my Basil Tree yesterday.........

Since the weather is questionable for when we get back from Maine I pulled this sucker up, plucked all the leaves off and made Pesto with it.
An hour later and very little work, I had 3 containers of pesto for the freezer.

*  We picked what will probably be the last of the tomatoes this week............

31.3 ounces.  I won't be able to update the Garden Totals until we get back but I do know it's well over 100 pounds now.

That's about it from me.

What frugal wins did you have this past week?




Sluggy

Garden Veggies and an Easy Recipe

Here's what we've harvested so far from our garden.........

* 4 pickings of salad greens-8.1 ounces
*  2.5 cups of basil-2 ounces
* 1 Japanese eggplant-2.4 ounces
* 1 zucchini-24.9 ounces
* 2 yellow squash-17.4 ounces

So what to do with your basil other than use it fresh or dry it?  I made tomato sauce and used some basil in it this week.
And then I made pesto for the first time!

Super easy to do.
You need basil leaves(remove the stems), EVOO, garlic, parmesan cheese and nuts(pine nuts or walnuts work best)and a food processor or blender.

Put basil, garlic and nuts in processor, whiz up a few seconds then with the power still on slowly add the olive oil until smooth.
Add the cheese afterwards and just pulse the machine to blend it in.
And that's it!

This will keep for 1 week in the fridge or throw it into the freezer.  I bought smallish containers at Dollar Tree for putting this into the freezer.  This makes enough for one large meal of pesto for 4-5 people.
I don't like pesto so I had to have Hubs taste test it for me.  It's a frozen asset now and can be warmed up some night I don't have a plan and someone wants pesto and pasta.

Garden Output so far......54.8 ounces or 3 lbs. 42.5 ounces
Not much but once the tomatoes kick in the total weight will escalate. ;-)

What's growing in your garden?
How is it doing?

Sluggy

Garden Harvest.....Last Update for 2016

We picked the last of the tomatoes last week and have put the garden to bed for another year.
Another 4 tomatoes netted us 18.4 ounces for a Grand Total of 701.3 Ounces of produce for the year.

This equals to 43.83 lbs. of squash and tomatoes out of our garden.

Not a huge amount but it's pretty good considering we only planted 12 tomato seedlings this year and the squash came off of volunteer plants. 8-)

The only thing left to do is to harvest the morning glory seed pods as they become ready so I can share those seeds in the Spring.

Sluggy

Garden Update.....It's Almost Done for the Year

We picked the third(and last)acorn squash last week.  Not a bad harvest for a plant I didn't buy or plant. 8-)))

Two more tomatoes were picked and eaten this week, weighing in at a combined 10.4 ounces.

One of those maters had quite the profile......

My Jimmy Durante tomato..........lolz

This brings our harvest total to 39.775 lbs for 2016 for my haphazard efforts this year.
That's from 1 squash plant, 2 zucchini plants and 12 tomato plants.

And there are still tomatoes waiting to be picked and used or processed.


Sluggy

Garden Mystery Solved

Well this............

Turned out to be this, once we got into the garden on Sunday and started weeding..........

It was an acorn squash.  Over 2 lbs. of acorn squash!
We went ahead and picked it because it looked like a chipmunk had taken a small bite out of it.
This means I'll have to cook this soon rather than putting it into my root cellar for eating later on in the Fall.
But there are two more baby acorn squash on that plant so there will be more coming(if the critters don't get to them first).

We also found that monstrously large zucchini on one of the two zuke plants.  It was totally hidden by the foliage and weeds.  That makes the third zuke we've harvested this year.
I've placed a pint mason jar in the photo for scale. That is not part of our harvest. ;-)

Between the 3 zucchini and the acorn squash we've picked we have grown 8.14 lbs. of food this Summer.  I decided to weigh stuff and see how much produce we grow this season.  Even with a haphazard last minute garden this year we will be getting a fair amount of produce it seems.
Hubs netting system, though a pain to get into, is also proving to be a pain for the critters to get into, which was goal.  We haven't lost any veggies since he put it up(knock on wood!).
There are tons of tomatoes on those plants as well and I look forward to a nice crop of maters in the coming weeks.  And I'll have enough green tomatoes to make my pepper relish as well this Fall(along with a few for green tomatoes for frying).

When we weeded we also found another volunteer plant.......

A Roma tomato plant!
I planted 2 Roma varieties last Summer which were quite prolific but the deer ate every single tomato on those plants, darn it!
I didn't plant Roma this year so this is a volunteer plant from seed that fell and wintered in the garden bed.
Not sure if any of the maters will get big enough or ripe enough to use but I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Now I am off to attempt to weed the front flower bed.  It's just been left all season and has overgrown with weeds terribly.  With everything going on here this Spring/Summer and being gone a good deal of the time that bed has gotten no love or attention.
I'll probably be sore for days after trying to tackle it. bleh.

Sluggy