Mums about to bloom...

So pretty.

How to get rid of fire ants naturally

I wanted to know the cheapest natural way to kill fire ants, because we have A LOT of them in our yard.  And I didn't just want to destroy the anthill and have them build another one somewhere else...I wanted to kill them so they would never build again!  So I did a little research, and guess what I figured is the cheapest fire ant killer?

Water.

Yep.  Boiling water.

How great is that?

I spent a good portion of one morning boiling big pots of water and dumping them on ant hills in our yard.  I made sure to soak them good, even if it took two or more pots full of water.  That was several days ago, but look at what is in the place of all of those anthills...

Piles of dead fire ants.  It works!

Today's harvest...

  Tonight's dinner.  :-)

Easy Italian Pasta

This quick and easy Italian pasta is great recipe for using up garden tomatoes and fresh basil!  I created this dish because we had a lot of tomatoes that needed to be used.  We like this pasta so much that we've eaten it 3 or 4 times in the past few weeks.  My husband says it's like pizza in a pasta.  :-)


Easy Italian Pasta
4 medium tomatoes (diced)
1 handful of fresh Basil Leaves
1 handful fresh Spinach (optional)
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
4 cloves garlic (minced or thinly sliced)
1 lb. noodles (I've used bowtie or penne)

Cook noodles according to box directions.  If using Spinach, drop into pot with noodles after they are done.  Drain.

While the noodles are cooking, combine olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic in a small pot .  Saute garlic over medium heat for about a minute.

Add tomatoes and basil and continue to cook for 3-5 minutes until desired tenderness.

Combine vegetables with noodles.  Top with shredded mozzarella.

Enjoy!

A Garden Tale - Part 1

Ok, so I have taken numerous photos of our gardening process this year with the intention of showing them to you all, complete with regular updates, but I have been really slack (or really busy) and have totally neglected to do so.

 We used an assortment of items we had around the house.

Egg cartons are not a good idea.

So here's some "back story" right now, complete with pictures!  This is our third year gardening and this year we decided to plant almost everything from seed, which we haven't done much of in past years.  In March we planted most of our seeds and kept them indoors near a window.  We made mini greenhouses out of plastic bags to keep in moisture and humidity.  It all worked out pretty well.

 Most of the first batch of seeds we planted.

Our first year we mostly grew everything in pots.  Last year we grew our garden in a small spot near the house with a few plants in pots on our back patio.  This year, we decided that we really wanted to go much bigger and better.  So we tilled up a spot about 20' x 30', bought some fencing (since we have deer, rabbits, and squirrels in our yard often), and started getting it all set up.

Tiny sprouts.

More tiny sprouts.

Another new thing for us this year is growing in raised beds.  For these, we really couldn't afford to build boxes so we just piled up the dirt until we had raised beds.  Raised beds help to maintain moisture and reduce weeds.

Seedlings.

Next we mulched.  Mulching around garden plants is another way to keep the moisture in and the weeds out.  We have a big compost pile this year, too, but it's not quite ready to go in the garden so we've just been raking up the under layer of leaves and using that.  It has helped out tremendously.

Squash & Zucchini seedlings.

As I mentioned before we have already started harvesting some vegetables and herbs.

Zucchini.

Watch for my next gardening post in which I'll share about what we're growing and show you some more pictures.  :-)

 Squash.

Our First Garden Harvest

We harvested our first vegetables (not including all the herbs we've been eating already) from our garden this week!  I'm super excited to see all our hard work paying off.  Already our garden looks a ton better and bigger and healthier than last year.  So far we have picked two zucchini, two cucumbers, a few leaves of lettuce, and some cherries.  The cherries aren't technically in the garden, but we have been picking and eating them this week.  :-)

In the next few days I expect to be picking a few squash, more zucchini, and more cucumbers.  There's really nothing like growing and eating your own pesticide free produce that is real and free!  I hope that our garden saves us a lot of money this year.

I know I've been really bad about posting up our garden progress this year, but I promise that I'm still going to give you the story.  It's quite interesting really.  Be looking for another gardening post this week!

Gardening progress...

Remember how our garden looked here? Well now it looks a lot different and we recently decided to put down some pinestraw too. The pinestraw helps to discourage the weeds, keeps the veggies from rotting so much on the ground, and helps to keep the moisture in the ground longer.

We've been harvesting some veggies from each plant, although not as much as I expected from some of them. We have had some issues with the squash and zucchini rotting before it is ready to be picked. Our tomato crop is picking up slowly and I think we will start getting a lot more tomatoes soon. The bell peppers have done really great, as well as the basil and the cilantro.

Here are some pictures so you can see what the garden looks like.

zucchini

squash

bell pepper

roma tomatoes

better boy tomatoes

marigolds

some of the main garden

cilantro

basil

cherry tomatoes

Did you plant a garden this year? If so, how is your garden going? I'd love to see links to your garden posts!

From the herb garden...

As promised quite a while back in this garden post...here are some photos of our herbs. They are getting very big now. I wish you could smell them too. They smell so delicious!

Cilantro

Basil

Our first bell pepper...

Here is the first bell pepper from our garden. Isn't it pretty? I let Abigail hold it and she wanted to eat it. I'm so glad she loves her veggies!

A Flower Garden...

We planted a little flower garden. It's amazing how much enjoyment you can get from a few flowers. There's just something about them that can brighten your day. Abigail is already trying to pick them. :-)

Planting a Garden...

(one end of our garden)

We planted our garden this week. This is our second year of gardening since being married. Last year's garden was in pots and was a great experience. This year we're going a bit bigger and planing a larger variety of plants.

(bell pepper)

Gardening is a fun, family activity as well as frugal and healthy. Growing your own herbs and produce can save lots of money compared to buying it all in the store. Gardening your own food will allow you to know what is in it too. If you want to go natural, organic, and pesticide free, you can. That is what we will be doing for sure.

(tomato)

Here's what we're growing in our garden this year:
tomatoes (a few different varieties)
yellow squash
zucchini
bell pepper
cilantro
basil
parsley
strawberries

(zucchini)

We still plan to add a few more too:
cucumber
jalapeno
rosemary
mint

(squash)

We have several fruit trees to harvest too:
cherry
pear
apple
plum


I will post some photos of our herbs soon, and some of our flower garden, so stay tuned!!

Growing A Garden

With food prices continuing to rise, I know that many families are looking for ways to stretch the grocery budget without spending more money. One great and increasingly popular solution is gardening. Gardening is a great way to beat some of those atrocious vegetable prices and have some fun learning something new.

I have honestly never been much into gardening, mostly because of the bugs and getting really dirty and such. But recently we started a small vegetable garden in pots on our back patio. Using pots helps to cut out most of the weeds and also to keep everything contained. Pots can also be moved to another location easily if need be. Starting out we planted tomatoes, basil, cilantro, and strawberries. Yesterday we added some parsley and oregano. I will also be getting a bell pepper plant from my sister soon. We planted some marigold flowers as well, because they help to keep tomato bugs away.

Since we only have 3 family members right now, we often run into the problem of buying a pre-sized bunch of cilantro, or a package of tomatoes, etc., and having some of it go bad because we couldn’t use it all soon enough. Part of that is lack of good planning to cook with all that I buy, but part is also due to the pre-sized portions. Having our own garden will eliminate that problem since we can just pick off as much as we need. If we have extra, we would love to bless family and friends with it

One last idea…getting your children to help out with the garden will be a great educational experience for them!

For more Frugal Friday ideas check out Crystal's site here.