This recipe is brought to you in partnership with The California Olive Committee.
Slices of creamy, ripe avocado atop hearty, toasted bread is a beautiful thing. But why stop there?
The three versions we’re sharing here make a meal out of toast – one recipe with a fried egg and green olives, another with tomatoes and an olive relish, and a third with pan-seared corn, olives, and queso fresco.
https://ift.tt/2raZRgSChocolate Chip Cookie Cheesecake Bars Recipe Post Preview: This post shares easy to make Chocolate Chip Cookie Cheesecake Bars that will save you preparation time, since it uses both a cake mix for the base and a no bake cheesecake topping. It’s your chance to enjoy chocolate chip cookies and cheesecake together in a wonderful treat! While
https://ift.tt/2I2Dt3xI’m back to making a full meal plan this week. Last week I only planned dinners but the full meal plan is back for this week.
If you are looking for meal time inspiration have a look at what’s cooking this week.
If you don’t dinner plan, I would encourage you to give it a try. It really helps to keep our food budget low. It also helps to keep us from eating out too often too. Unless you plan to eat out one night like we are this week.
I’m making a slow cooker dish of cranberry pork roast. It’s a quick and easy meal to make for any weeknight dinner but fancy enough for a special occasion too.
Spring is here and the spring vegetable couscous dish is a quick and easy skillet dish. It’s starts with precooked chicken so it’s great to make when you have leftover chicken that needs to be eaten.
Finally, I’m making my son’s favorite meal. Hamburgers with baked french fries, I think he could eat them everyday.
I’m also making a tofu dish this week. It’s a recipe I haven’t made in a while but one we really like.
The Full Meal Plan for This Week, Dinners
Crock Pot Pork Roast with Cranberry Sauce, Mashed Potatoes, and Salad
Spring Vegetable Couscous, Salad and Fruit
Hamburgers and Baked Fries
Build Your Own Haystacks with Fruit
Southern Fried Tofu, Noodles and Salad
Out to Eat
Macaroni Hamburger Skillet, Salad and Bread
LunchesLeftovers
Sandwiches and Chips
Burritos, Chips, and Salsa
Breakfast
Caramel Sticky Buns, Eggs, and Sausage
Toast and Eggs
Pancakes, Sausage, and Eggs
What’s cooking at your house this week?
Do you need help planning your menu? Find my menu planning tips here with a free printable menu planner page and here for my frugal menu planning tips.
This post contains affiliate links. Thanks for your support.
Find more menu plan ideas at Org Junkie too.
SaveSave
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In my early days of cooking, I had a friend from California who introduced me to what she called Texas Enchiladas. Instead of the usual filled and rolled enchiladas, the tortillas were fried, dipped in sauce, sandwiched with filling and then stacked in layers.
I have not been able to discover the exact origin of this version of enchiladas, but I think they are popular in Northern Mexico, west Texas and in New Mexico.
The bottom line: delicioso!
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A big part of learning to cook in my twenties came down to radishes. This was largely due to the fact that I could hit up the farmers market and buy a bunch of fresh radishes for a dollar.
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This month, Megan Gordon is back with us sharing her weekly meal plans! Megan is a writer and recipe developer living in Seattle, WA, the author of Whole Grain Mornings, and mom to a 2-year-old. Please welcome Megan!
May, I thought you’d never come! While I’m not naive enough to think that we’ll magically start seeing warmer temperatures in Seattle anytime soon, it’s nice to see the flowers in bloom and the longer days always inspire slightly more leisurely cooking in the evenings.
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While carrots are available all year round, the best season for carrots is in the spring, and in the spring you can often find carrots with their feathery green tops still attached.
(Cue Bugs Bunny chomping on a carrot, “what’s up doc?”)
If you happen to buy carrots with carrot tops, I urge you to think twice before throwing the carrot tops away! You’ve paid for them, and if they are still fresh and green, you may as well use them, right?
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Back in the 1950s, family sitcoms showed the perfect American Family: mom, dad, kids, and sometimes a dog. But there was a supporting character that sat quietly in the background but looked oh so sparkly clean: the family home. Yep!…
https://ift.tt/2r5mcfAZacchaeus Story for Kids: Free Zacchaeus Printables Packet for Elementary Students Post Preview: This post contains a free ten page printable learning packet themed around the New Testament Bible Story of Zacchaeus and Jesus. Okay, so I have to be honest here – every time I think of Zacchaeus, I immediately hear Pa Grape from Veggie
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So many of us have fallen in love with our Instant Pots recently and our appetite for pressure cooker recipes isn’t going to let up any time soon! Are you ready for a few more?
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Hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, chemical spills, tsunamis, and fires can strike at any time. The images are devastating, and our hearts and thoughts go out to those affected by these natural disasters. If a disaster strikes your area, would you be…
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Spring is here! Spring is here! Sometimes I feel like Chicken Little. That’s how excited I get about spring and spring food.
And no, the sky is not falling, but it sure feels like my world is changing all around me when it’s no longer pitch black at 5 o’clock.
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Everyone knows pecan pie, right? No Thanksgiving dessert table would be complete without it!
But this sweet nut is so delicious and versatile — and nutritious! — that it deserves to be in the spotlight more than just once a year.
https://ift.tt/2Hu79qTAs a homemaking you have so much to remember, so much to do, and it all usually lives in your head. Am I right?! But holding all that information in can be taxing. Let it all out and keep the information where you need it in your own homemaking binder.
You can create your own custom homemaking planner. It doesn’t have to be fancy. And it can be perfect for you and your family.
A homemaking binder is one spot, usually a notebook or binder where you store all the information about your family and household. It’s like mom’s brain in a book.
It can be as elaborate or as simple as you like. Because it’s your very own homemaking binder. You get to decide what goes in and what doesn’t.
Ideas for What to Include in Your Homemaking PlannerThere are so many pages you can include in your homemaking planner. From meal plans to the grocery list. Medical pages for your family to emergency numbers.
That’s what I love about making your own custom homemaking planner. You can decide what your family needs to track.
Take, for instance, cleaning. I don’t track our cleaning schedules at our home. We have a set routine and we stick to it. But for those items that only have to be cleaned once or twice a year, I make a list.
Things like cleaning the windows outside. Pressure washing the house and fence. Staining the deck. Those tasks I don’t think about much and could get left behind for years if I didn’t have them written.
But if you are training your kids to help with cleaning, you’ll want a checklist for each room and the tasks they should be doing. It will help them learn how to clean and what to clean too.
Having a few family tracking sheets can be really helpful to have in your homemaking binder. Make a sheet with sizes of clothing for each member of your family can be helpful when you are thrift or garage sale shopping.
Tracking when the kids went to the doctor last and what needs to be followed up on is great to have written down. Also include a health page to track notes from the doctor, medications, and allergies too.
Having this important information written down is important so you don’t have to rely on your memory.
Not only is a homemaking planner good for tracking your families health and cleaning but it can help you get your meal planning done quicker.
If you have a page of favorite meals for your family written down in your planner, it’s easier to meal plan.
Instead of staring at a blank meal planning sheet you can look over your family’s favorite meals and add them in.
You can also print and file new recipes you want to try in your binder so you don’t have little pieces of paper floating around to be lost.
Or even categorize meal plan ideas by the main dish protein. So when you find a great sale on chicken or other protein source, you’ll have recipes in mind to use it in. Planning your meals around sales can really help save you money too.
Because we are moms, we take on tracking everything for everyone in our family. Am I right?!
But what if something happens and you have to be away? Tending to a sick extended family member? Can your family get by and know what to do?
If all the information is locked up in your own head and your head isn’t home, how will your family access it?
That’s where a homemaking binder can help. It’s like having mom (you) right there to guide them with what needs to be done even if you aren’t there. It can give you peace of mind that your family can access what they need when they need it.
Or it can give a babysitter or caregiver when you are away, information they may need. It’s a like a back up for all that information us moms carry around.
Making a homemaking planner doesn’t have to be a time consuming process. With my homemaking binder I add a little here and there as I need to.
You can start out with just one page of written emergency numbers. Then add a page with facts about each member of your family. Their health stats, medicines, allergies. Then branch out to their sizes and preferences.
Once you have your family’s most needed emergency info down, then branch out into the more mundane things like a calendar to track what needs to be done. A special days page for birthdays and get together.
Each time you menu plan add a few more of your family’s meal ideas to your favorite meals page. Write down your monthly or weekly meal plans so you can use them repeatedly if you want.
You can build a few pages here and there as you have time, like waiting in line to pick up the kids from school. Or when you are all watching television at night.
I like having everything in a binder because the pages can be moved or they can easily be replaced as needed. Because things change.
Having printable pages as a template to write in can be helpful too. But you don’t need printable pages, you can make your own with lined paper too. Use what you have and don’t worry about how pretty it is. It’s most important to get the information in the binder.
I hope this has inspired you to start making your own homemaking binder. Getting all that information out of your head and onto paper can really be helpful to your spouse and family.
A Printable Homemaking BinderIf making your own pages is more than you want to do. If you’d like to have templates pages to start with have a look at the homemaking planner.
It has two version one that is printable and you write in your information in after it is printed. Another editable version allows you to type in the information and then print the pages. I do some of both for my homemaking planner.
Have a peek and see if it’s right for you.
I’d love to know what you are planning to keep in your own homemaking planner? What pages do you feel are necessary and which would you leave out? Leave me a comment below and let me know.
https://ift.tt/2HX5dUUSpringtime is such a great time to work on flower crafts. To get you prepared with some ideas for fun flower crafts, I’ve put together a collection of 25 flower craft ideas for kids. Another bonus is that you can use any of these to make Mother’s Day crafts at home, school, or at co-op.
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Shrimp are magical in a dish like this one. They’re pretty and curvy and juicy. Toss them with spaghetti, a little ricotta, peas, lemon, and mint, and you have a scampi-style pasta that’s perfect for spring.
https://ift.tt/2HqpilwIt looks like it’s time once again to update one of the monthly Catholic activity printables for families. I have really been enjoying the new format that I have been changing them to, and I hope that you have too. While it hardly seems possible, May is almost here! So, to get ready for May,
https://ift.tt/2HrBh28I’m a big advocate for planning your meals to save money and time. But this week I’m only planning dinners. Why? Keep on reading to find out.
This week is a busy week. So, I just planned out our dinner menu.
While I usually plan out all of our meals there is something to be said to just fly by the seat of your pants every once in a while for a few meals.
This helps me to use up what we have on hand. Those little odds and ends that are sitting in the freezer waiting to be called up and heated up for a meal.
I’m hoping to find a few odds and ends for lunches when we don’t have leftovers to eat. But our fallback plan will be sandwiches if the freezer doesn’t yield a good idea and we don’t have leftovers for lunch.
Breakfast is easy because most days we eat toast and eggs. On the weekend we’ll have something a little special. Probably pancakes or muffins will be on the meal plan. But if the family has a special request we’ll make that instead.
Our Meal Plan for this Week, Dinners
Stir Fry Lettuce Wraps, Rice, and Fruit
Spaghetti with Easy Homemade Pasta Sauce and Meatballs, Salad and French Bread
Chicken Marsala over Egg Noodles with a Salad
Pizza and Salad
BBQ Meatballs, Mashed Potatoes and Green Beans
Omelets, Hash Browns and Toast
Lunches
This week we will eat leftover or have sandwiches this week for lunch.
Breakfasts
Toast and eggs will be our breakfast each weekday. On the weekend we’ll have pancakes or muffins with eggs and sausage.
What’s cooking at your house this week?
Do you need help planning your menu? Find my menu planning tips here with a free printable menu planner page and here for my frugal menu planning tips.
This post contains affiliate links. Thanks for your support.
Find more menu plan ideas at Org Junkie too.
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Sniff, sniff. We knew it would happen eventually, but the thought of Prince Harry tying the knot makes some of us in the office a wee bit sad. On the other hand, we’re happy he found his true love, Ms. Meghan…
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Mother’s Day. It’s a holiday honoring motherhood that is observed in many forms throughout the world. You can actually trace it back to the ancient Greeks and Romans who held festivals in honor of the mother goddesses Rhea and Cybele. However,…
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This month, Summer Miller is back, sharing her meal plans for April. Summer is a mom, a full-time food writer, and also helps test the fabulous recipes we bring you every week at Simply Recipes.
Each spring I tiptoe out to my garden to check the buds on our perennials and the blossoms on our apple trees, and to plant seeds for early-season vegetables. As an avid gardener, I want to spend these extra hours of daylight outside with my hands in the dirt.
https://ift.tt/2qPaENuI know that many of you have already been enjoying my free Earth Day printables packet from last year, so I thought I would continue the Earth Day fun and awareness. This year, I have a free Earth Day Word Search Printable Packet! Just like with the April Word Search Printable set, this free downloadable
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Fire up the grill, it’s BBQ season! There’s nothing like the smell of food coming off the barbecue to put you in a fun, summery mood. But throwing a backyard BBQ party for your friends and family doesn’t have to…
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Birthdays and holidays in the daycare classroom involve some culinary creativity. Most schools are nut-free these days, and a lot of our son’s friends also have egg allergies or gluten sensitivities.
So recently, I decided to develop a recipe for chocolate chip cookies that everyone could eat.
My secret ingredient? Sunflower butter! It imparts a nutty flavor similar to peanut butter, but is much more allergy-friendly.
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Before we had our toddler son, I used to make a lot of homemade pantry staples. Yogurt? Check. Bread? Check. Nut butter? Check. These days, though, because time is tight, many of our homemade staples have been replaced with good store-bought versions.
But I’m still making my nut and seed butter! It’s so quick and simple—and I like that you can control exactly what’s in it.
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There never seem to be enough chicken recipes, am I right?
Here, we’ve put together some of our favorites for your weeknight (or weekend!) inspiration. They all have an eye toward expedience and efficiency, and are easily made in one skillet.
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Everybody loves getting out and enjoying the summer, even your family pets! Don’t let them miss out on fun in the sun, adventures and summertime activities. But always remember that your pets are in fur coats and need to be…
https://ift.tt/2J0RXOlIt’s Monday again and time to get ready for the new week. Having a plan for dinner can help you avoid the stress of what to cook for dinner at 4 pm, when the kids are grumpy and hungry.
This week we will be having a few skillet dinners, eating from the freezer and using the slow cooker too.
I’m using up leftover ham in the cheesy ham and potatoes dish that is quick and easy to make in the slow cooker.
I have a few stovetop or skillet dishes for this week too. The pan-fried pork chops are quick and easy to make. Flour the pork chops and fry in a pan. I only use a little oil so they don’t get greasy.
The mushroom chicken is so good. A creamy sauce with mushrooms and chicken over egg noodles. So good. If you like a cheesy taste, add a sharp cheese to the sauce too.
In the oven, we’ll be making a quick dinner on the sheet pan with sausage and vegetables. It’s a one-dish meal and so easy to prepare.
Also in the oven is our mini meatloaves. If your family doesn’t like regular meatloaf, give the mini meatloaves a try. My kids gobble them up
The Full Meal Plan for this Week,Dinners
Slow Cooker Scalloped Potatoes and Ham, Salad, and Fruit
Island Chicken, Rice and Vegetables
Pan Fried Pork Chops, Mashed Potatoes and Vegetables
Chicken Egg Noodles, Salad and Fruit
Mini Meatloaves, Mashed Potatoes and Salad
Mushroom Chicken Noodles, Salad and Fruit
Kielbasa Sausage Skillet with Salad
Lunches
Leftovers most days
Sandwich and Chips
Salad with Cheese and Lunchmeat with Grilled Bread
Breakfast
Toast and Eggs
Pancakes, Eggs and Sausage
Strawberry Chocolate Chip Muffins with Strudel topping, Eggs and Sausage
What’s cooking at your house this week?
Do you need help planning your menu? Find my menu planning tips here with a free printable menu planner page and here for my frugal menu planning tips.
This post contains affiliate links. Thanks for your support.
Find more menu plan ideas at Org Junkie too.
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I spent most of my time in culinary school perpetually hungry (ironically). Like most college students, I was living on pennies and most of my meals came from our “Production 201” class—a course in which we prepared food for mass consumption.
On the rare occasion when I had a few bucks to spare, I would indulge in Chinese takeout. Moo Goo Gai Pan — Chinese Chicken and Mushroom Stir Fry — was my go-to meal.
https://ift.tt/2veR8POMake a Kid-friendly Backyard: Creative and Magical Backyard Ideas for Kids is a post from guest writer Sara. If you’re looking for a touch of whimsy to add to your life this spring, a pinch of fairy dust should do the trick. If you don’t have any fairy dust, a sprinkle of glitter mixed with sugar
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All you have to say is “eggs and toast” and I’m on board.
Add a mound of sautéed mushrooms on top, and now the dish looks and tastes like something more elaborate. It’s just eggs and toast, but the mushrooms elevate it. Instead of an everyday breakfast, suddenly it’s a brunch dish, a quick supper, or part of a menu for guests.
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This month, Summer Miller is back, sharing her meal plans for April. Summer is a mom, a full-time food writer, and also helps test the fabulous recipes we bring you every week at Simply Recipes.
Here we are squarely in the latter half of April and ready to celebrate the best of spring.
We don’t think much about it anymore, but eggs are actually seasonal. Chickens are photosensitive, which means they lay more eggs as our days grow longer.
It’s also about this time of spring where cool nights followed by warm wet afternoons, and morel mushroom season begins.
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Welcome Spring, and welcome to month 4 of our Monthly Seasonal Produce Guides!
April is all about spring vegetables—asparagus and artichokes are at their peak, snap peas begin to make an appearance, as well as young carrots with their fern-like carrot tops, and fava beans. Spring garlic, spring onions, leeks and fennel are thriving, as are the first spring radishes.
Winter citrus are fading, and while we are seeing some early strawberries, the “fruit” of April isn’t really a fruit, but a vegetable that acts like one—rhubarb. Perfect for pies and cobblers.
What’s in season in April? https://ift.tt/2HBs5sII recently realized that although I have word searches for fall, winter, and summer, I didn’t have one for spring. Maybe all the pollen made me lose my mind and not get that done sooner. With this post, however, I officially have a free Spring Word Search Printable Set. Just like with the April Word Search
https://ift.tt/2HpWLj0Being a homemaker is a hard job. The hours are long. You need to possess many skills. But at least the pay is good, hugs and kisses from those you love.
This post contains affiliate links which help support this site at no extra cost to you. Thanks for the support!
But making a home is harder than it looks.
It’s not any one thing — the family members who lack toilet aim or the daily kitchen duties or the budget woes or the parenting what-am-I-doing moments or the basement flooding- no, it’s not any of those things in particular.
It’s ALL of it.
It’s the cumulative effect of juggling the different roles and responsibilities and
circumstances we face each day and trying desperately to give each of them our best.
We want to lead beautiful, joyful, meaningful lives. We want our homes to feel organized, functional and inviting. We want to raise our families lovingly and intentionally. We want to invest in ourselves and continually grow as people.
All of these things are good. But that doesn’t make them easy.
The reality is, we can all use a little help along the way, from women who have strengths in areas where we struggle, or who are a little further down the road than we are.
What if you could learn organizing and decluttering methods to keep your household
running smoothly most of the time?
What if you could find strategies for balancing all the roles you need to fill – without going
crazy and without compromising what’s most important to you?
What if you had meal planning help, and could serve your family quick & healthy meals ?
What if you found ideas to improve your relationships – your faith, your marriage, and your parenting?
And what if you could find the support you need to create an intentional home and life – one that falls in line with your values and dreams?
Well, you can. 🙂
I’m so excited to tell you about the Ultimate Homemaking Bundle, a digital library of resources and tools to help you in all these areas and more!
Over 100 Resources to Hone your Homemaking SkillsYou can have over 100 resources perfectly picked to help the homemaker. And not just resources to help you get through your day and be a better homemaker but to help you take care of yourself and to feed your creativity.
Because if you are only constantly giving and never filling yourself back up, soon you’ll be running on empty and have nothing left to give.
You need to take a little time even if it’s just a few moments while you’re the bathroom and the kids are sticking notes under the door that just can’t wait. Yes, this has happened to me.
In those little moments, you can read a few pages of a homemaking book to help you feel better about how you are caring for your kids, or take a lesson in an online course to help you grow or discover something new.
If you want to stop living through each day as a homemaker and start thriving, the resources in the Ultimate Homemaking Bundle can help.
For six days only, everything you need (and then some) is in one fabulous package, for the most affordable price ever. (Seriously, just wait until I tell you the price.)
This year’s edition is the biggest and most valuable yet! It includes 62 ebooks, 30 videos, audios, & eCourses, 34 printables & workbooks, 2 videos, and 3 membership sites.
For way less than the cost of an “oops” Target shopping trip, you’ll get a complete library to help you:
Plus, it comes with bonus offers from companies you’ll love (this is one of my favorite parts).
Besides being packed with so much great stuff, one of the things I like best about the bundle is the price.
By offering it for a short time only, they’re able to give you access to over 129 digital products worth $3,680 — for just $ 29.97! (Nope, I’m not kidding. Can you believe it?)
All of those resources for just $29.97Here’s how it works:
Visit their website, take a quick look at all the goodness that comes in this package, then click the “Get my copy now!” button to go through their simple and secure 3-step checkout process.
You’ll receive an email with a login to their online access portal, where you’ll begin downloading your eBooks, signing up for your eCourses, and redeeming your free bonus offers.
Use their Getting Started Guide to pick the topic you want to tackle first and start your stress-less homemaking journey!
The most important detail, though, is that this bundle is available for just six days! After Monday night, April 16th, the sale ends and you’d have to buy all of these products individually.
I’d hate for you to miss out, so click HERE to learn more or buy the bundle.
It’s even backed by a 100% happiness guarantee, so you can make sure it’s right for you. No one should have to feel overwhelmed by homemaking because it costs too much or they can’t get the help they need.
Becoming efficient as a homemaker is one thing. Fully embracing all the messy moments and hard times and loving it (most days) is another. But it’s not out of reach.
Learn more or get your bundle HERE.
(Psst… the bundle goes away at 11:59 pm Eastern on Monday, April 16th, so don’t wait!)
Summertime evokes that airy, happy, colorful, light, bright, and relaxed feeling. And you want your home to reflect that as well. You can easily redecorate your home for summer with these easy, affordable decorating tips. Decorating Tips to Make Your…
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Ok, a disclaimer before we get started: The Pu Pu Platter in a Chinese restaurant isn’t something you would find in a restaurant in China. And Singapore noodles are unknown in Singapore.
My Singaporean friend was surprised when he noticed the item on a Chinese restaurant menu here in the United States, and couldn’t imagine where it was from.
https://ift.tt/2JEUgb8I have been having fun making some month specific word search printables lately. Somehow April is already a third of the way done. How did that happen? Of course, that means it’s a great time to add in a free April Word Search Printable for Kids. In a move that is different than some
https://ift.tt/2GR7CPrIt’s gardening season and I’m sharing some tips for how I am preparing the garden for the growing season. I hope they help your garden thrive too.
It’s that time of year, time to think about waking up the garden from its long winter sleep. There are always tasks to do when it comes to getting the garden ready for planting.
From deciding what you’ll be growing this year to preparing the garden for those new plants. It’s an exciting time of year for anyone who gardens.
This gardening season I’m going to be working with a few other bloggers to bring you Tuesdays in the Garden. We will all be writing about a gardening topic the second Tuesday of each month through September.
At the end of the Tuesday in the Garden posts, you’ll find links to what the other bloggers have shared that week too. It will be like a directory of garden tips delivered each month.
This week we are all introducing ourselves, our gardens and talking a little about preparing our gardens for the gardening season.
I garden in my backyard, well really it’s the side yard because that is where we get the most sun. My backyard is actually all dense shade and doesn’t really grow anything well except hostas. But we do have lovely hostas.
Our gardening zone is zone 8 and we have four raised beds I plant in. The soil is clay so planting in raised beds is a good option if your soil conditions are less than ideal.
We grow raspberries, blueberries, rhubarb, strawberries and vegetables in our backyard garden, as well as a few herbs too.
We live in the rainy part of Oregon, so growing hot weather plants can be a challenge, but in years past when we have a warm summer our tomatoes grew up over 5 feet tall.
I’ve also had a bumper crop of baby bell peppers when I get them in early and hand pollinate them.
It important to get your garden off to a good start by preparing the garden beds. This year I’m doing what I’ve found to work well in the past two years.
My old way of preparing the garden beds would be this process. I would till my beds, add in compost and organic fertilizer then plant.
But I was constantly fighting to get rid of clover. It was awful it kept multiplying everywhere.
Then a couple of years ago I only tilled one of my raised beds.
The rest I covered to kill off the weeds like my friend Jami does in her garden. She has shared doing this keeps her garden weed free so I gave it a try. And it worked.
In the last two years, my garden prep process is simplified to this…
At the end of the growing season or in January when I get around to it. I cover my vegetable garden beds with black plastic and let them sit covered for a month or so. If I’m energetic I’ll weed the beds before I covered them.
When I’m ready to plant, I uncover the beds. I add a layer of compost. I like to use mushroom compost but it is really fragrant so be forwarned. But it is a good fertilizer.
Then I plant.
Last year I only spent one hour all gardening season long weeding. That was it. I still have a few clovers here and there each year but it’s so much better.
If you haven’t given this easy way to garden a try, I would whole heartily recommend it.
Want More Gardening Tips? Click Here to Get Gardening Tips send to Your Inbox!
My strawberries are in their very own raised bed. I don’t cover them since they come back year to year. I just sprinkle mushroom compost on top of them and work it down a bit with my hands. That and watering is all I have to do to keep them growing well.
I’m getting hungry for fresh homegrown strawberries right now.
I needed to move the strawberries because my raspberries were spreading into the strawberries. They both really needed their own dedicated space and now they have it.
Once the weeds are killed off by the covers in my garden beds I’ll add a layer of compost and they will be ready to plant.
Preparing our Flower Garden BedsGrowing flowers at our home is a challenge.
My vegetable garden is situated in the only area of our yard that gets a good amount of sun. The rest of the yard is part sun to dense shade, so most of the plants I grow in our flower beds are shade-loving plants.
We do have a rose garden just outside the vegetable garden fence and that is the only area we have for full sun for our flowers.
My husband loves tending to the roses and that is mainly his area of the garden. We just finished trimming the roses to about knee height and gave them all a dose of Epsom salt. As well as spreading mushroom compost around them so they should be set for awhile.
For the flower beds, in the past, I’ve put down mulch and newspaper to keep the weeds at bay for the growing season.
I would love to put mulch down every year and help keep the ground moist but there is a problem with it. I do add a layer of mushroom compost at least around each plant but I don’t cover our beds with it because we have lots of rain and trees.
We have 7 trees in our average city lot. Which means we are constantly picking up leaves and we use a leaf blower for the job.
If you’ve ever tried to blow leaves out of mulch, you know the mulch goes everywhere. Raking them out isn’t much better.
When we get a nice heavy rain, which happens often in the spring, the mulch washes out on the sidewalk or into the yard. It’s just a mess.
Instead of adding mulch to keep the weeds down I just pull the weeds and put down a weed inhibitor. I do this a couple times of during the growing season.
But laying down a layer of newspaper or cardboard and then covering with the mulch really is a nice weed deterrent if it will work for your garden.
That’s a quick introduction to our garden and how I prepare both the vegetable garden and flower beds for the growing season. Be sure to visit the other Tuesdays in the Garden bloggers as they will be sharing tips for how they prepare their gardens and a little about themselves and their gardens too.
What tips do you have to share about preparing the garden for growing? I would love to have you share your tips in the comments below.
Find more garden inspiration by following this link.
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https://ift.tt/2HlSgDXIt’s Monday again and time to get our meal plans done. When you meal plan you can save money by eating at home instead of eating out. Which can really save you money.
If you need some meal time inspiration I’m sharing what’s cooking at our house below with recipe links.
This week we are having pita pocket bread sandwiches. If you’ve never made pita bread before check out this tutorial. It’s takes you through step by step the pita bread recipe I make at our house.
Our freezer is full of so much stuff, I need to stop buying and start eating from it more. So this week all of our meals will start with items from the freezer.
The spaghetti, enchiladas, and pita bread sandwiches will start with pre-cooked ground beef from the freezer.
The chicken dishes are already prepped and waiting in the freezer making them easy to make meals.
I love having the meat already prepped and ready to go. It really does make getting dinner done so much quicker and easier.
Our Meal for this Week,Dinners
Spaghetti with Garlic Pasta Sauce, Salad, and French Bread
Grilled Herb Rubbed Chicken, Mashed Potatoes, Salad
Kielbasa Pasta with Peppers, Salad, and Fruit
Ground Beef Pocket Sandwiches, Fruit, and Salad
Baked Breaded Pork Chops, Mashed Potatoes, and Green Beans
French Cranberry Chicken, Mashed Potatoes, and Green Beans
Slow Cooker Beef and Bean Enchiladas, Salad, and Fruit
Lunches
Leftovers most days
Sandwich and Chips
Burritos, Chips and Salsa
Breakfast
Toast and Eggs
Omelets, Hash Browns and Toast
Apple Caramel Oatmeal, Eggs, and Sausage
What’s cooking at your house this week?
Do you need help planning your menu? Find my menu planning tips here with a free printable menu planner page and here for my frugal menu planning tips.
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Find more menu plan ideas at Org Junkie too.
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