May is an adundant month in my garden.
The Desert Gold peaches will be ready any day now, as will the Katy apricots (last year the apricots ripened in April, but this year they will be ripe in May).
Blackberries will be ripe this month.
I’ll have a few artichokes to harvest the first couple weeks of the month.
My lettuce is still doing well, but with temperatures of 97ºF now it is starting to bolt. We’ll have lettuce for at least the first two weeks of the month, harvesting some every day for salad. This week we’ve had soup and salad for lunch every day. When the lettuce is done, I’ll let it finish bolting and collect seeds to plant again in fall. I’ll also be collecting seeds from the bolted Swiss chard when they are ready, and I’ll continue to collect seeds from the green onions. I let them reseed themselves, but I have also started collecting seeds and growing them in more places in the garden.
I’m picking white alpine strawberries and a few regular red ones every other day.
I have loads of Swiss chard in the garden, as well as thyme, tarragon, green onions, chives, parsley, and oregano. There is still chamomile to be cut and dried for herbal tea. My front yard smells like chamomile; it is wonderful.
The Iceberg roses will have another flush towards the end of the month. Right now the larkspur is opening in abundance and the poppies are blooming.
The nasturiums and lavender are blooming, too.
This month I’m doing less pantry stocking than in previous months, and I’m open to whatever great deals I find. Towards the end of the month, there will be lots of great sales for Memorial Day in the U.S., which means sales on items for a barbeque, including ground beef, hot dogs, ketchup, mayonnaise, relish, barbecue sauce, etc. (I usually buy ketchup and mayonnaise in bulk at Sam’s Club.)
Heres what I plan on buying:
Sam’s Club:
Popcorn (it comes in a 50-pound bag)
Feta cheese
Mozzarella cheese
Ketchup
Mayonnaise
Barbeque sauce
Milk
Costco (I don’t have a Costco card, but my mom does):
Baby wipes (we still need these, as Ivory wears a diaper at night)
Tomato sauce
Balsamic vinegar
Vons:
This week they have corn on the cob 6 for $1.
Winco:
Spreadable margarine
Heavy cream
Milk
Walmart:
Vegetable Oil
Because of Mother’s Day, May is a great month to buy makeup (lots of sales). Ebates has double cash back right now for Mother’s Day, and the more expensive brands of makeup usually have free gifts with purchase this month. If you go through Ebates you can get cash back on your purchase. If you’ve got an upcoming wedding to attend, you may be able to get cash back and a sale on a wedding gift this way as well this month.
It’s also a great month to buy flowers for your garden. Look for local flower sales in time for Mother’s Day (in the U.S., Mother’s Day is the second Sunday of May). Roses will most likely be on sale, along with many other choices.
May is also a great month for yard sales. I’m still looking for some items on my list. Lately I’ve been finding out about yard sales from the local Facebook garage sale pages. I usually find a few more on my way to those sales as well.
It’s dark thirty here, I was so happy to see your post! Everyone is asleep but me and I am up making muffins. Your flowers are an inspiration, as always. Once we move I am putting in a white garden like yours, it’s so peaceful. We had our first teeny garden harvest yesterday ( oh the baby, welll that was an enjoyable five minutes of solitide), four strawberries were ready and they were esquisite. We don’t “seem” to have the slug problems this year that have plagued us in the past. Our lemon balm is growing and so fragrant. We have violets, tulips, and stock. I will be sure to watch for the Mother’s Day sales, I would like some more flowers to fill out the yard. I need some perennials. We have spinach poking up but no blossoms yet on the blackberries or blueberries. The blackberries grew really well, I am hoping for a modest harvest this year. Just enough to keep my Fruit Monster happy would be fantastic. We have two flowers on our tomato plant. We are planting melons and cilantro and sunflowers this weekend. I am trying to time the cilantro with the peppers, it is always spent when the peppers are ready.
This month is our second month of trying to cut our grocery bill by 20%, I think I only hit 10% last month, I went grocery shopping hungry. this month I need coconut oil. We are missing the huge yard sale we had planned to go to, but i believe there is another in September. I cannot tell you how helpful it has been to join the Facebook garage sale group for my county. I cannot beleve the things people are selling. It’s amazing. We are paring down because we are moving, so the things I need are quite speciific but i am delighted to have a place to post the things we no longer can use. Thank you so much for mentioning it, literallly every ten minutes someone is putting up another item. I am really looking forward to shopping it once we know what we need. We are buying a sandbox, I have been looking and looking for one to fit in the corner of our small yard at yard sales but none have come up. Space is at a premium so I want one that is square to fit in the corner by our raised beds. We are getting one in self deffense, the boys are digging up the front yard. It wasn’t a big deal when they were small but now there is a big hole. At least the sandbox will keep them from hitting bedrock out front. I hope.
Here in NJ, the best place to find yard sales is on Craigslist.
I purchased ‘fragrant’ roses on sale yesterday for half price at Sam’s Club … $5.21 each. They need a little TLC but overall in very good condition. I love roses and have them planted by my front porch steps, at the end of my clotheslines and under trees. Your posts continually inspire me. Thank you for the effort you put into your blog. http://aworkingpantry.blogspot.com
Good Monday May Morning Brandy,
Oh I love your blogs! 🙂 I had never thought of planting chamomile in my garden. I think I will try this~ thank you for the idea 🙂 I decided to buy a couple of lattice type wooden planters so that I could better plant upward in my small backyard. Last year I tried a few other ways that were not so sturdy, so I am investing in these wood products this year. They are weather treated and I will also paint with a weather resistance overcoat to last each Spring and Summer, then I will store for our rainy cold Fall and Winter. With these, I will plant the peas, and green beans to travel upward….so excited! This week I have planted flowers, and seeds.. first time for me to plant flowers and looking forward to blooms that I can cut and enjoy in our home. I have been looking for nasturtiums starters locally for planting, and cannot find so far. I may need to buy seeds . I love the picture you have of yours. Yesterday, I found some organic tomato starts at my friend’s nursery she works at. This year I purchased organic heirlooms, large for sandwiches , cherry , and yellow tomato plants. I have never eaten a yellow tomato, so this will be fun to put into salads and to make homemade salsa to can. I also bought an artichoke plant, and more kale…should have also bought more swiss chard. Oh well, another trip 🙂
I spent more on my food bill for May than I wanted since I was out of a few condiments . These are more expensive to add to our monthly bill but will last us both for a long time. I stocked up on mayo, Worcestershire sauce, canola oil (organic), dijon mustard and olive oil. I found a whole organic chicken at QFC for 99 cents / lb and bought 2. I would have bought more, however we have our freezer full with whole turkey ( I will rotisserie BBQ this summer), 2 turkey breasts ( from Nov sales) 4 beef roasts ( 2 that I cut up for stew meat) and packaged ready made meals and browned meat for quick meals. I am waiting for their organic skinless chicken breasts to go on sale then will get several packages to store as well.
Have a wonderful weekend, it has been beautiful here in the Pac NW…so many flowers and trees blooming in our area and town. The azalea’s have finished blooming, and now looking forward to seeing the rhododendrons bloom. Mt Rainier is gorgeous with it’s snow covered mountain top against the blue skies. So majestic to look at . We are looking forward to going on a day hike there soon.
Blessings, Patty from the NW
I love seeing the changes in your garden through the year, I think you’re at about August by Lincoln UKs growing year, we’re currently at the just starting planting out stage
Your artichokes are almost as pretty as the poppies, Brandy! Our lettuce is just started to sprout here, we are so far behind this year because of the weather. We will have some asparagus in a few days though and of course there’s always rhubarb. Thanks for the heads up on cosmetics. I never thought of that. Ebates is great. Whenever I have to mail order something, I always check there first. When I can combine a sale with a rebate, I’m happy as a clam!
Nasturiums grow easily from seed and you should have no problem finding seeds for them; I see them everywhere. For you they should be an all summer long flower. They’re good in hanging pots and in second story planter boxes, if you have those–they trail down quite a bit.
Swiss chard grows easily from seed. Try Burpee’s Fordhook variety; that is my favorite and should be easy to find as well.
Celia, if you can find a free pallet from somewhere, you could reuse the wood to make a square sandbox. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are even tutorials on the internet on how to make one. Of course, you could always buy some inexpensive wood and make it as well. Since it doesn’t have to be perfect, this is a good project to practice your building skills. After they are done using it as a sandbox, it could be re-purposed into a raised garden bed.
I’m looking forward to the sales on BBQ supplies, like mustard and ketchup. I like to stock up around this time for the rest of the year. My mother looks forward to the flower sales around mother’s day. She always buys her hanging plants during these sales!
Make sure neighborhood cats do not use it as a bathroom -use some sort of top
I find the blocks of feta at sams cheaper than the container. I cube it and freeze half. It freezes well.
Thank you Brandy, I will look into Burpee’s Fordhook variety . I love trailing flowers.. I just realized that I wrote Monday, and it is Saturday silly me. I woke at 3 am and couldn’t get back to sleep so I think I was sleepy when I wrote this morning 🙂 Have a great Saturday ~~
It’s autumn here, so it’s a good time to stock up on autumn produce – apples (have been selling for 99 c / kilo), pumpkin (we only use one a year, but for people who like to eat it as a veggie, I’ve seen it as low as 39 c/ kilo), etc. Oranges and mandarins are also starting to come into the shops at an excellent price (I think I saw a 3 kilo bag of oranges for 99 c.) A shop in town is selling potatoes at 99c for a 5 kilo bag earlier this week – but I don’t know how you store potatoes to make them last so long; mine go off after 6-8 weeks, and I don’t think we’d get through them in time.
I haven’t had much luck with the after-Valentine’s or after-Easter sales this year; I hope my luck changes for Mother’s Day. I’m not after anything in particular but I find it’s always worth scouring the clearance racks to see if they have anything that can be put aside for a birthday or Christmas present.
The odd end-of-season Summer item is still in store, at heavily reduced prices. I just bought a pedestal fan for $2, marked down from $16. Our old pedestal fan is filthy-dirty and falling apart, so, even though we won’t need it for a good 6 months, it seemed too good to pass up.
I’ve just finished a similar post – it made me smile that we both mentioned popcorn as a May stock-up!
http://quietcountrylife.blogspot.com/2015/05/april-grocery-stock-ups-and-plan-for-may.html
My garden is just starting. We cannot plant without covering before Memorial Day, but I do have a few things in the ground and my asparagus is being prolific this year. I am not buying flowers to plant this year – I started seedling in newspaper pots for seedlings and herbs. One of my friends did give me some flowers for my birthday – she knows me well and gave me pansies, petunias and marigolds that I could plant and enjoy all summer, rather than cut flowers that would be gone so soon.
We are seeing some good pork prices here – today I got shoulder roast for .99 a pound, and then 10% off since my husband showed his military ID from when he was in the reserves, long ago. We are fairly well stocked, but I will look for deals on condiments and some ‘summer beans’ like pork-n-beans, baked beans, etc.
Laura, I was not planning on buying any new flowers or flower seeds at the beginning of the year when my planting season was starting. I didn’t have the money to do so and I still had flower seeds.
However–this last month I have had the means and desire to add more flowers to my garden.
Would you be interested in some purple larkspur seeds? I have many left from last year’s garden and I would be happy to send some to you. Mine reseeded themselves in the fall and are blooming now, so I’ll have more seeds to collect again this year.
I really stocked up in April, using part of our tax refund. I cleaned the shelves, organized items, etc. I got things like 25 lbs popcorn, pinto beans, and green split peas. I bought cases of olives, tomato paste and sauce, lots of rice and rice pasta, and cleaning and bathroom supplies like soap and shampoo.
Today, I went down to the basement to switch out empty jars for full ones of home-canned food and I noticed that, although I can see a lot of empty jars, I still see a lot of “color”, meaning that a lot of jars are still full. Since I do hundreds of jars each summer, I always plan for a carry-over, but some years I don’t have to do so many jars of certain items. For instance, last summer, I got a bumper crop of tomatoes and canned many, many jars of whole, crushed, sauced, salsa’d, etc. tomatoes. This summer, I know I need to do salsa, but not so much of the other.
My husband is making plans for re-supplying the meat freezers. He has 5 baby turkeys and laying hens in the barn now. He will get meat chickens, more turkeys and a pig in mid-summer. We buy beef from a farmer each fall and I am saving each month for that. I buy seafood at the store when it’s a good price, and we catch a few trout each summer.
I hope to do a Costco run in May and get t.p., and lots of cheese! We eat a lot of that around here. I also get Ziplocks there, so will get more of those. I will buy anything I know I’ll use that is on really good sale, as well. I will get a few more gluten free items from Bob’s Red Mill. Otherwise, I don’t need to shop for food much in May.
A couple of summers ago, I did this big stock-up in the spring, and it worked well. I always keep myself very well stocked, but this is a mega stock-up and is intended to (with my other beans, rice, meat, home-canned and frozen goods, and pantry items) get us through until August, except for milk, eggs until the new chickens lay, and produce until the garden produces. I have plans for the money I save this summer, so I’m excited about the plan. 🙂
This past week was the first time I felt somewhat comfortable putting plants in the ground as I saw the farms were doing it. Figuring that if they were confident in the weather, since they have a lot more at stake than I do monetarily wise should they be wrong, I put some bulb plants in and a few other things. Shopping goals got kind of combined with garden goals for this month as in Alaska this is when gardens can SLOWLY start to go in.
Everything I’m doing in my little raised beds (I one day hope to have a greenhouse and a large garden, but for now small is what I got) can be found here…
http://makedohomemaker.blogspot.com/2015/05/monthly-shopping-goals-for-may-and.html
I love reading your posts with everything you’re getting from your garden and such. It really is inspiring to me to hopefully get more in touch with my inner green thumb *laugh*.
I just stocked up on bbq sauce for the year at Winco (in Washington). They had Kraft bbq sauce on sale for $1.18 but most of the bottles had manufacturer coupons on them for $1 off any 16 oz bottle. We use about a bottle a month, so I bought 12 at $.18 each. Not sure if they’ll have those same coupons where you are, but it’s absolutely worth a phone call at least 🙂
I just noticed that you have Feta cheese on your Sam’s club list, but it is on sale at Costco this month. I checked the price last month and with the discount at my store it should be under $5 for a 24 oz package. So if you haven’t bought it yet it might be worth it to buy it at Costco!
My mom showed me that ad a couple of days after I had already been to Sam’s Club! If I had not already bought it there I should have bought it Costco. I should have bought it at Costco anyway–it is cheaper there normally!
The sale goes through the 24th.