Gardening:
1. Dig out apple tree. This is proving difficult as the roots are large, but I will get it out.
2. Finish pruning espaliered apples
3. Plant apricot in place of apple
4. Plant warm season vegetables. It is going to be 87º F today (my fig tree has leafed out and has fruit on it already–a month early)
5. Spread manure under grapes
6. Tie up two grape vines
7. Thin plums
8. Fertilize fruit trees
Sewing:
1. Mend at least 2 items
Shopping/Errands:
1. Continue to add needed item to garage sale list
2. Trip to Albertson’s for strawberries and cabbage
3. Trip to Smith’s for broccoli
4. Trip to library to return books (I’ll probably have my husband drop these off on his way to work as he is close by)
Canning/Preserving:
1. Can strawberry jam
2. Make saurkraut in preparation for canning
3. Blanch and freeze broccoli
Blog Goals:
1. Write post on the white garden
2. Write frugal accomplishments post
Other:
1. List 5 items for sale on Facebook garage sale pages. The sale of these items will be added to my garage sale fund for next month.
2. Plan and prepare meals to take with us on a family outing this week
3. Clean refrigerator
4. Make laundry soap
5. Attend the temple
I am also cleaning the refridgerator this week. Probably Thursday night. My husband is on vacation/staycation this week so we are deep cleaning. Also we are ebaying some toys my children recieved that I do not want them to have. We have a combined birthday party for my son and daughter on Saturday and we had to cut back on the work I can do because I have to follow up on my ER visit this week while my husband is home. We are making cup cakes and a cream pie, cake pops( I am saving a cake I made last night and using part of that), we have a lot of drs appointments this week. We are going to midweek church which we never can because we are a one car family. So the children are excited for stations of the cross( well my oldest is excited, my younger child is more excited about stayingup late), I will make an early supper so they can go straight to bed after. My husband will use that time to do homework without the children racketing around. We think the ground might defrost enough to do some gardening spring clean up. For the party I am making rolls and the desserts and deviled eggs and a crudite platter. I had planned on cooking the main meal but instead we are having cold sandwiches as we can set that up ahead and just unwrap them. I will be getting home at the same time as our guests and changing the party time is just not practical when the children are so young. I am also making biscotti, and swapping out the winter clothes for spring. WORST CHORE EVER. hahahahha ick. I’ll be happy to get it out of the way at least. Thankfully, I did a lot of fidgety cleaning like polishing the kitchen cabinets and the chandelier just a week or so ago so I will not have to do that for this party.
Brandy help! I live in south arkansas. We have about 2 acres of land so space isn’t a problem. A friend of ours had a horrible house fire on halloween night. She is ok but had to move hours away. She was a gardener. She got most of the things that were salvageable. And the fire trucks messed up a lot of her things. She told me to get anything that was left and still alive this past week. I have gotten a concrete birdbath, some shrubs, and pots. She has a huge prickly pear plant. We eat the pads in mexican dishes so I know we would use this plant. Any advice on moving/replanting? How long does it take to grow. My husband said the pads to eat have to be the young ones.
The weather is supposed to be good this week. I am hoping to get outside and do some gardening. I bought some preen to put down to prevent weeds. I always have so much weeds. I also need to dig up and move some of my hostas.
Love your blog! I recently started reading it. I find it very inspiring.
I hope to mend my sweater, buy just what is on my grocery list, and work on the meal plan.
Eat from pantry.
Make one batch (of something) to put in freezer, I’m thinking lemon muffins.
Post 5 items on garage sale site.
Give sister baby bath & laptop.
Drop of grocery bag of clothes at platos closet and see if they will take them/purchase them.
Carefully grocery shop and transfer extra to savings.
Take kids to library.
pack up winter coats, boots, hats, and gloves in container we purchased.
I am trying to be really focused this week and get more done. Being retired seems to have made me less productive! On my list are to finish raking leaves and prune as needed. I am altering a top and turning capris into shorts. I will watch at lease 4 sessions of a Craftsy class I purchased and then didn’t watch. It is on Tailoring Ready to Wear which I am more likely to do than making clothes from scratch. I will go thrift store shopping for summer clothes for myself and wash and put away winter sweaters.
Christa, regarding the prickly pear cactus, I have planted prickly pears by just planting the pads or branches of pads. I live in AZ, so they grow very easily here. I wouldn’t try to move the whole plant unless I cut it up into sections. You could also search “transplanting prickly pear cactus online. Just my 2cents :-).
Brandy, I too found strawberries on sale for 99 cents.. So happy.. I am making preserves too.
We are having a beautiful sunny day today.. [after lots of rain and snow and ice last week. yuck] so, I
am hoping that it dries up pretty fast, so we can start our garden. We have a big one, and raise enough
peas/butterbeans/ corn/okra, tomatoes/peppers to fill out deep freeze each year. such a blessing..
I have my seed ordered..just waiting on the ground to dry..
Also, working on getting the fruit trees fertilized, and poision out for the bugs.
I am making applique -t-shirts for a friend’s children, she is paying me. and this money, I will use to stock
more in my pantry.
Your plans always help so much, as does your readers comments.
Still waiting in New York, but enough snow has melted that I checked one flower bed today when we got back from husband’s doctor appt—can just barely see the tips of a couple hyacinths coming up. Everything was covered with a good two feet of snow and it’s down to where we can actually see grass around the edges now!! I planted new spring bulbs in the fall but it will take another week or two, I’m afraid, before even the crocuses are up. Still, 30 above zero is a great relief after 30 below, and we’ve exceeded 50 a few days. Happy!!
You have a long list of goals for this week. It’s very motivating. I hope you accomplish them all.
Thanks. I did a little research and will just plant the pads like you said. Hoping it works.
My goal is to be patient with potty training my son. We started when he turned 3 a month ago and there is great progress with #1, almost no progress with #2.
My goals for this week include continuing to dig out the grass from the top tier of the garden. It blows thru the back fence, which is a livestock wire fence, so every spring I dig out the grass, some years more than others. Last year I was having a knee replaced in the Spring, so there is a lot of it this year.
I also plan to dig & pull out the grass & weeds from the empty tree ring in the front yard where a tree died, & begin looking for a replacement tree.
I plan to cut down more boxes for canning jars, since I have 2 more apple boxes, 4 orange boxes & a lemon box that I picked up this morning.
I need to break up the smaller pieces from pruning the grapevines into lengths suitable for our little canning stove. I plan to store them in a medium sized black pot that held a blueberry bush from the nursery last year. I made several wreaths from the longer lengths of pruning.
I have some older carrots in the bottom of the fridge from our garden, that haven’t been used. I wanted to see how long they would keep, but now they are sprouting leaves & root tips. I plan to grate them & dehydrate them, mostly to see if the work well with the dehydrated shredded potatoes in our storage.
After St. Patrick’s Day, I plan to switch out the leprechauns for the Easter decorations in the tub, which are mostly lambs, with a few knitted chickens.
I cleaned the fridge last week. 🙂 In January my family and I participated in a spend-freeze. We bought only milk and bananas. Our fridge became bare. But I remembered that Brandy wrote you should clean an empty fridge. It will look great and you will feel much better about it. She was right! Our spend-freeze was a fantastic experience! All the money we saved we put towards our mortgage. And I now have 2 new resolves. #1 clean out the fridge at least once a month. It just looks so good clean! And #2 do a spend-freeze and budget re-assessment at least twice a year.
Good luck Christie
My son turned 3 in January and that’s when we started too. #2 is so much harder for them but he’s got the hang of it now (fingers crossed) so keep patient it will happen soon!
I am finally beginning to conquer bread baking! I have despaired for years about my yeast not proofing and my bread not rising — even using a thermometer to check the temperature! I realized I couldn’t give up — learning how to bake bread is just too important to self sufficiency — so I purchased a 2lb package of yeast at Smart and Final. The yeast was so inexpensive compared to the cost of the little 3 envelope packages at the store, that I felt free to fail. Long story short, my yeast is proofing beautifully (I add a few drops of honey, but I don’t think that’s the difference, I always added a tad of sugar to feed the yeast) and my bread is rising! My loaves are still a bit dense but entirely tasty. I even made sweet rolls for the first time ever! And my grocery bill has gone down! Thank you Brandy for encouraging me to never give up!
87 degrees?? Awesome! we are finally getting in the 60’s, maybe 70’s out here in the DC area. I’d love to hear more about how you dug out the roots of the apple tree…I have a few bushes/roots I need to dig out. Good luck with your accomplishments, your work ethic is inspiring!
Don’t worry, they are almost always trained by the time they go to school! Wasn’t sure about my grandson, however, but one day, BANG to toilet lid slapped down and he was on his own. LOL
Your garden is beautiful! I can’t wait to get started on mine! Here in Illinois it’s still pretty cool but I have some seeds sprouting under the grow light in anticipation of warmer days to come!
We have prickly pear cacti, but I have read that some are poisonous. How does one know if they are poisonous? For this reason, we have never eaten any.
Susan, I have never heard of it being poisonous. I would search online about how to eat them; there are some serious precautions to take when harvesting them. People like to make jelly with the fruit.
Maybe I would be able to help here…I live in the California Central Valley. We have several cacti lining one side of our yard that give some lovely cactus pears or “tunas” as they are called in Spanish. They were planted as cuttings (large pads of the cactus) just put in cut side in ground, just a few inches deep. I believe ours were planted about three or four years ago. Last mid or end of summer was their first season giving fruit, and the plants are about five feet tall. I have not cut and used the pads, but I want to give it a try soon to incorporate into some side dishes or for juicing.