June is an abundant month in the garden. I will pick Royal apricots, Red Flame grapes, blackberries, Green Gage plums, Mission figs, Dorsett Gold Apples, white alpine strawberries, and Early Girl tomatoes. I will cut green onions, Swiss chard, oregano, chives, tarragon, and the first of the Genovese basil. I’ll can apricot vanilla jam with…
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…
This April brings Easter sales the first week of the month. Eggs and ham will be on sale this week, as well as Easter candy, potatoes, strawberries, and butter. This year for Easter I am planning to make chocolate rabbits again. I am continuing to work on filling in the holes in my storage. I…
As we start the month, the garden is yielding lettuce, Swiss chard, green onions, dill, cilantro, parsley, oregano, tarragon, lavender, nasturiums, thyme, celery (mainly leaves; these are from commercial celery where I planted the bottom in the ground), radishes, broccoli, sage, beet greens and beets. Some of my fall-planted snow peas are just starting to…
Lettuce: Four Seasons, aka Merveille de Quatre Seasons, with Italian Parsley This month I plan to continue to restock items in the pantry that are low. After discussing our food needs, we have decided to buy more beans. As meat prices have continued to climb, we are eating beans more often, and I will…
This post contains a referral link and an affiliate link. You can read my disclosure policy here. I’ve decided to increase our budget $25 a month to $300. This amount includes non-food items like toilet paper, shampoo, etc. We are a family of 9. Several readers have asked me what I will do about…
December’s shopping will focus on seasonal deals, including citrus and holiday specials. I also will be stocking up on a few staples. For an idea of what we have to eat in December, you can check out my winter menu. I don’t follow that menu exactly. I use it to plan meals based on what…
This post contains an affiliate link.I grocery shop with a monthly budget.I start with the things that are low in our pantry. Those are my priorities. Once I have worked on filling those, I will make other purchases based on what is on sale. A couple of notes about last month’s shopping: A reader alerted…
I grocery shop with a monthly budget. I start with the things that are low in our pantry. Those are my priorities. Once I have worked on filling those, I will make other purchases based on what is on sale. This month, the supplies that I see low are the following: Pantry: Vegetable oil (Note:…