Saturday Successes: Black Thumb Turned Green!

This year is the second in a row I've attempted gardening. I'm not so sure I have a green thumb. Last year I managed to grow some summer squash, zucchini, sad-looking green beans and a few tomatoes. Unfortunately my soil was hard as rock and lacking all the good stuff that veggies need to grow. Also unfortunate is the fact my pockets were lacking the cash flow to put the good stuff in the soil that veggies need to grow.

This year, I made a bit more of a better attempt to turn my black thumb into a green one. I invested in a few packages of manure towards mid-spring and tilled this into my garden soil. I also remembered the water on a more frequent basis and despite the horrid heat waves in our area this summer, it seems to have helped.

Here's to my Saturday Success, my first zucchini bounty from my garden.

So I've already harvesteda few tomatoes, some green bell peppers and a couple of hot peppers. I did try to grow radishes and lettuce in containers, but my mom said I let the radishes grow too long and they were "woody" tasting. The lettuce was just gross - way too bitter - but it may have been the type of lettuce I planted. I bought the cheap seeds that just say "lettuce."

In fact, my cheapness is part of my problem. And my inexperience with gardening. My goal is to formally plan out on paper my garden for next year along with a timeline of things that need to be done and when.

But in the meantime, I'm going to bask in the glory of the veggies that are growing in my current garden.

I can't wait to make these yummy zucchini muffins!


Happy Couponing!
-Coupon Mama Massachusetts

My Frugal Labor of Love: My Flower Garden

I don't have many hobbies or pasttimes. I'm too cheap frugal to pursue some of the more expensive hobbies my husband enjoys - he's just taken up brewing beer on his own and dropped nearly $400 last night in equipment and accessories. The thought of spending that much on myself makes me shudder.

But lucky for me, books are FREE when you borrow from the library and your friends and family. And I can find really, really, REALLY inexpensive flowers and plants at my local Lowes. I've shopped around for plants at many places and found that Lowes has the best clearanced plants around. Many perenniels are put in the clearance section at 50% or more off the original price once the flowers have bloomed for the season. Maybe some people don't realize that perenniels come back every year, but I've found lillies and tulips and many other bulb-plants for less than 50 cents a pot. These plants, after several years, will also multiply and fill in the area where you plane them. So your 50 cent investment now can turn into $20 worth of flowers very quickly.

My husband and I will have been living in this house for three years come this November. I don't have many before pictures of our house, but I'll try to show you a comparison of how my frugal gardening has taken root.

BEFORE

AFTER 

Two hibiscus plants, butterfly bush, 2 trumpet flowers, irises, a pussy willow and some other random plants whose names I can't recall.

BEFORE

AFTER

Deer-chewed arborvitae are gone! Two rose bushes, tiny bee lillies, tiger lillies, other random lillies, daylillies and some plants that might be weeds but I'm leaving to see if they bloom.

BEFORE

AFTER

I finally coughed up money for annuals because I found that great metal basket in someone's trash and spray painted it lime green. Dusty miller and snapdragons.

Hostas from my husband's mother, tulips and hyacinths leftover from church mass around Easter.

My beautiful bleeding hearts!

My husband built that shed mostly on his own :-)
Tiny bee lillies, another rose bush, 2 more butterfly bushes, and some other random flowers.

I can't say I planted this rhododendron. It was here when we bought the house. We just knocked down a poorly located tree next to it to give it some light.

MORE AFTER PHOTOS, SADLY I CAN'T FIND BEFORE PHOTOS :-(

Cone flowers, sedum and tons of mums.

Irises that came out of someone's trash!

Happy Couponing!
-Coupon Mama Massachusetts