grocery shopping

This month from my garden we’ll harvest grapes, grape leaves, figs, Swiss chard, herbs, green onions, a few tomatoes, and a few peaches (from the tree in my white garden).  I’m taking care of a friend’s garden and chickens for two weeks this month, during which time we’ll harvest cucumbers, tomatoes, and a few possible…

This month in the garden, I’ll harvest blackberries, Mission figs, and apricots. I’ll cut and pick Swiss chard, green onions, grape leaves, chives, oregano, rosemary, sage, elderberry flowers (and possibly elderberries, if I can beat the birds to them), New Zealand spinach, peppermint, and tomatoes. I’ll collect seeds from open-pollinated spinach, three kinds of lettuce,…

    I awoke shortly after 4 a.m. to the sound of pouring rain. Rain is very rare here, and when it does rain, it is usually so gentle and short as to only last 30 seconds. Pouring rain is unusual, and even more so in May! I got up and closed the windows, went…

  This post contains affiliate links. As usual, this month I’m concentrating on filling holes in my pantry. We’ve continued to eat down the freezers, which has been fantastic, as I’ve found things that really need to be used up. This has given me the chance to clean out a couple of freezers before I…

March has several sales. It’s frozen foods month in the U.S., which usually means a number of frozen foods go on sale. St. Patrick’s Day on the 17th means sales on corned beef, cabbage, and potatoes. With Easter falling on April 1st this year, we will see Easter sales in late March. I plan on making…

This post contains affiliate links. I’m zesting and juicing lemons this month from the garden. I am freezing lemon juice and zest to use throughout the year. In order to have enough space in the freezer for so much juice, we’re eating lots from the freezers. This time of year, we eat the frozen fruit from…

This post contains affiliate links. This year, our grocery budget is $200 a month (down from an average of $300 a month last year). Our income in 2017 was half what it was in 2016. We also increased our expenses significantly in 2017, as we added life insurance, we had some hospital bills, and we…

    November in the U.S. is a great month to stock up on so many items on sale for holiday cooking. Canned goods and baking supplies are on sale. Meats are on great sales, with turkey for Thanksgiving being the main feature. Squash, potatoes, onions, apples, celery, clementines, and cranberries go on sale. Some items…

Hooray for a sale! I’m happy to be able to do some stocking up this month. I’ve had a chance to organize what we have and really evaluate what we need, which is quite a lot.  Consequently, I’ll be spending a lot more this month than usual ($500) but many items I buy will last us…

September 2016 Garden Harvest After a month of no shopping, I’m planning to continue to live mostly from our pantry, freezers, and garden, with a few purchases. Our income is still rather limited. In 2012 and 2013, we had a budget of $100 a month for food and $65 a month for non-food items. Our…

  My freezers are packed full of frozen fruit from both our garden and from deals I found earlier this year. There’s some meat in there, somewhere behind all the peaches, blackberries, figs, strawberries, and blueberries. There’s lemon juice from our lemon trees too. The garden has started producing Armenian cucumbers. I’m hoping for enough…