Gardening~ Reading

Last night was Cass Dance class! Therefore I have an hour of quiet reading time while she danced! It time where nobody needs me and I can't do any house chores!

What did I read? Weekend Homesteader: December it did post a few days ago it was free, but it is now $.99. I have a lot of useful information in it. It gave me many things to think about.

Right now you can get Urban Gardening: How To Grow Food In Any City Apartment Or Yard No Matter How Small (Growing Indoors, On Rooftop , Small Yards, Balcony Gardens, Planting In Containers, Aeroponic Gardening Systems) at http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00AA61NLO/ref=redir_mdp_mobile?camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00AA61NLO&linkCode=as2&redirect=true&ref_=as_li_ss_tl&tag=ereagirl-20.

The other thing I'm looking at is Aquaponics. I would love t try it this year.

Off to work! Have an amazing day!!

What are you read? What are your garden goals?

Couponing Monday!

Sunday Coupons

I lucked out today! I got 8 Red Plum insert, 4 Target coupon books, and 4 Smart Source inserts today from friends and family that do not use them! It makes me so happy that I did not have to buy 4 papers on Sunday papers, saving me $8 there. I don't count on the inserts from people, but I will take them!

Today I'm going to go though my cutting and organization of my coupons. (Next week I'll show you how I organize my coupons for the stores, that I'm shopping the deals) I think it is important to have coupons organized, you find them quicker and you don't lose them. This also help my hubby no want to yell at me because of them all over the house. I organize on Monday and then keep my binder in the car, so it’s not all over the place!
 

I organize the inserts by Red Plum or Smart Source, and then I separate them into coupon piles (that are the same coupons).

After all the coupons are matched up then I pile the coupons that need to be cut and recycle the ones that won't be used.

My Binder is label (this makes it easier to know where the coupons are). Now I clean out my binder of all the expired coupons.

I take all the matching coupons and cut the coupons out of it all at one time. (Please be careful when you first do this because it easy to be off and ruin the last coupon)

Now put them in my binder in the correct labeled spot. (I use baseball card holders of the coupons)

Now you have a nice and organized binder that you can take anywhere!

This way only takes me an hour and fifteen minutes. Sounds long but I had over 12 inserts to cut out!

How do you organize your coupons? 

2012 Prepping Monthly Goals

This week Hubby and I were watching Doomsday Preppers, on TV. We saw a women putting up dried fruit, and said to hubby "We could be doing that and we would have a stock pill of it. This would be something I can have ready if something happens, but if the nothing does we will still eat it before it goes bad."

This Month's Goal for Prepping 2012 ~ A Case of Dried Bananas (Pint sized)

By the end of this month I'm hoping to have a case of bananas. That is one pint a month if something happen. (I would like to dry other fruits too; therefore I don't want millions of just dry bananas.

To Dry Bananas ~

Peel, Cut, and place banana on dehydrator

Dry for 16-20 hours

Check if dry, the let cool for 30-45 mins

Place in jars

7 bananas only gave me 1 pint and a few in the second. I found out I'm going to need lots of bananas.

Other thing that came up is I want foodsaver-wide-mouth-jar-sealer. The Foodsaver will suck all the air out of the jars and make them saver for my home! Hubby also bought a DIY-Projects-Self-Sufficient-Homeowner-Self-Reliant book today because it has a plan for Solar Dryer. I would love to have it for the summer so that I can dry the fruit we pick from the orchards. Plus it is a way to save food if something happens in the future.

What are you doing to plan for the worst, while praying for the best?

Garden~ 20 Weeks before Last Frost Goals- Inventory seeds

      The first goal I have this week,  is Inventory seeds, by seeing what I have, and checking start grow dates for each plant.
      This goal is going to take a long time! I'll be working very hard and long this week. I have over 100-200 seeds in my seed boxes under the office bed.

Seed Boxes- Left is veggies Right is herbs & flowers

     

      That is a lot of seeds to go through and it doesn't help I'm going to try a new way of organizing them, which is to input all my information on to the computer. Then Print out for a seed journal (more on that later.)

This is the information that I want on the computer

     As of today I only have 19 flowers on the computer. I hoping this helps me keep better record of everything I'm doing, and easy reference to information on the plants that are being planted.

     How do you inventory your seeds? How do you record what has worked and what hasn't in the garden?

Gardening 20 weeks before last frost (2)

Today, I didn’t do much gardening.  But I did dreaming about my mini farm though!! Hubby said he will work on my plan of the house; therefore I can plan what I’m going to plant around the house.  This will be very helpful when I work on one of my weekly garden goals, Inventory supplies for what to grow more or less of this year.

I also download a free copy of Weekend Homesteads: December. I hope to read though it along with my copy of Week-by-Week Vegetable Gardener’s Handbook and get ideas on what I’m suppose be doing to make my garden the best that it can be. 

The other things that I found out while I was dreaming about goats I want on my mini farm, is Meet A Blogger: Janice Spaulding. Janice Spaulding writes about her goats. I’m going to be checking out this blog out to get some ideas and maybe by spring have hubby talked into getting 3 goats.

What else my farm dreams lead me to this today was about having rabbits. I wouldn’t mind having a few, I think Cass would love them and maybe we can bread them and earn some money. This dream has a lot of research left to do on it.

Other thing my mini farm needs is ducks! Hubby hopeful realize that we are getting 3 this spring! My girlfriend’s ducks should be having ducklings this spring and she has offered me some! I would love it. I even have an idea on how to make a little pond for them.

Dreaming is always good! You will always have a goal! What are you dreaming about?

Here are the sites that are mentioned in todays blog, this site is having issues right now :(
 
Weekly Goals for 20 weeks before frost
 Meet A Blogger: Janice Spaulding
The Week-by-Week Vegetable Gardener's Handbook
Weekend Homesteader: December (thank to mavis from 100 dollars a month)

Gardening ~ 20 weeks before my last frost

   Gardening                                                                               December 2, 2012

According to my records I’m around 20 weeks from my last frost.  This is great news because I get to start my book over! This is the first year I’m using this book full year, last year I picked it up in the middle of the year. The book I’m using is Week-by-Week Vegetable Gardener’s Handbook.  This book will give you week by week task, to help you have an amazing garden. I will be following this book. I’ll give you a idea of what I’m doing though the book, and on my own. This book will give you more in deep on how to do it.

Here are my goals for this week, for the garden!

1.       Inventory seeds, and see what I have. ~ check grow dates for each plant

2.       Inventory gardening tools

3.       Remove Spoiled seeds

4.       Inventory supplies for what to grow more or less of this year

I’m hoping to have time to work on this stuff on my days off this week. This is an easy task, which I don’t have to be home to do. If I need to I can take my seeds to work and go though them. I do know though there are some seeds I’m not going to try to open until I need them later in the winter. (They are in a glass jar in the freezer. I will pull them out and organize them when I need the lettuce seeds.)

2012

     December 20, 2012, this day brings a lot of worry to a lot of people. Will the world end? Is this another worry that people fact that won’t come true? Nostradamus says something can happen, so do the Mayans, and Hobie Indians. It is even in the Bible!

    Hubby and I have been talking a lot more about it. There are many things that can go wrong. I know you have heard the list, earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, tsunami, meter showers, nuclear war, sun flares, and tornadoes. That is a long list of thing. I truly believe that God controls everything, but is he giving us a warning? You listen to TV it tells you bad things are happening and bad thing could happen in the future. Is he sending warns? I stop and think of my life time, as a kid I never thought I would feel earthquake, I lived to far from CA. But yet I did in 2011. Look at Katrina hurricane in 2005, or even Hurricane Sandy that hit this year.  Is he telling us to be prepared?  Is god giving us warning?

    My church tells us to have three months of food storage. Now to me three months is long enough to make it though a winter, that is the most important thing. Think back to when we farmed the land, our ancestors would have enough food stored for the winter. The church can be wrong to tell us to have it.

    The thing my hubby have agree is that price are going up, right now 1 in 7 people are on food stamps. We look around many people I know don’t know how to survive without grocery store or help. So people I know eat out all the time, and don’t really know how to cook. Canning our own food, I still hear people say I’m crazy, yet it’s getting big. Garden that to this year has taking off, but most people don’t know how to do it. It’s scary that we don’t know, to save ourselves. 

 

   We are not rich, so we can’t spend millions of dollars to buy everything. We start little, my birthday I got a bow. Hubby has one, and Cass can us mine. We have food storage; I pick up one or two extra things to add to the storage a week.

    I will write post on what we doing to prepare, it’s not going to be huge expensive stuff. You can do it too, on a budget. Some stuff we do will we have planned ahead, so we are doing on the wing. Please join us and help yourself know you’re safe, knowing matter.