Last week one of my big projects was to clean out the container gardens on the back porch and to harvest my last tomatoes for the 2015 growing season. 🙁 I can’t remember a year when I was able to harvest ripe, heirloom tomatoes the last week of October. How late were you picking tomatoes this year?
I jumped ship on midweek and headed to the east coast. The weather was LOVELY. A perfect mix of chilly mornings and sunny afternoons. While I was there I harvested a couple of butternut squash and a giant green striped cushaw squash and stuck them in the pantry to enjoy the next time I’m there. 
Farmstand Apples $17.00
My big find while on the east coast last week was stopping by a local farm and picking up a bushel {42 pounds} of Granny Smith apples for $17. That works out to be about $0.40 a pound people! And YES, in case you are wondering, you CAN fit a bushel of apples in your carry on luggage {but nothing else}. To say the TSA lady behind the scanner had a chuckle would be an understatement.
Winco $16.61
I also stopped by Winco last week to stock up on some bulk items. Did you know you can buy orange Jell-O in bulk? I think my favorite deal was tapioca pearls for $1.58 a pound. The HH LOVES homemade tapioca pudding and now we have a years supply. 😉
Bakery Outlet $9.82
I also popped into the bakery outlet to snag a few deals on bread. At just over $1 an item I’d say I made out pretty good. Bread is one of those things our family eats every single day and I can’t stand paying full price for it. By the way, if you can find Thomas Maple French Toast bagels…. they are freakin’ AWESOME!
Since I was only home for 3 days last week I didn’t make many meals from scratch. Instead I opted to make a big pot of spaghetti for the boys and a pot of Valley Food Storage Potato Soup for the boys and let them fend for themselves.
By the looks of the garbage can this morning it looks like they survived on pizza, chili, crackers and bread while I was away. Someone bought a bag of barfalicious pork rinds too. Ahhh boys. They are a funny lot, aren’t they?
~Mavis
Total Spent This Week $43.43
Weeks 1-28 Shopping Exclusively at Costco $1,229.25 {$43.90 a week/$175 a month average}
Weeks 29-43 Shopping wherever the heck I want $423.26
Total Spent Year to Date $1670.62
Go HERE to read more Shopping Trip Stories.
Lana says
I am still picking cherry tomatoes and my plants are still setting new blooms. Crazy!
Kristina says
Still have lots of tomatoes in central CA! I’m going to need to call it done so I can pull everything out and get some winter veggies planted. You wouldn’t technically be allowed to bring fresh produce from out of state into CA; that’s how we end up importing new non-beneficial insects (and we’ve got plenty here to contend with already). I’m not sure thAts in the TSA’s job description, though…..
Deborah from FL says
Regarding bulk Jell-O, I’ve found that several flavors of 6-packs are a better deal through Amazon, even after taking sales into account. Just my 2 cents…
Mavis says
Wow, I’ll have to check that out. If I can have it delivered straight to my door instead, you better believe I’m gonna do it.
Marcia says
This post made me LOL. Bringing back a bushel of apples?? Question is, what airline? Because I’m wondering if you brought the apples in your carry-on, did you have to check a bag and pay for it? I assume not.
Ah, boys. I remember when my husband used to travel, I survived on bagels and cream cheese. Then we had our kid, and I felt like I needed to feed him real food. But I’d make too much. Let me tell you, even the yummiest meal, by day 4 (because husband eats more than we do), gets old. One day I made myself a salad and my son something else – I think he was 2 – and he wanted to eat my salad instead. Funny.
I’m sad I’m not on the East Coast sometimes. I miss apple season. My step-dad lives in western PA, and he’s got 4 or 5 spies trees, and they are LADEN this year. He had to prop up the branches. Apples are on sale like crazy, and I’m scouring the shelves for my beloved pink ladies. And of course, some of the apples in our stores in CA are still from last year. 🙁
Mavis Butterfield says
I brought the apples back in my carry on so no, I didn’t have to pay for the bag. I had a hard time getting it in the overhead bin though. 🙂
Ellen in Clackamas says
Hi Mavis,
my plan was to pull the last of the tomato vines so I could clean up my beds and get some fall seeds planted. Then we had the monsoon on Saturday so I didn’t get out till yesterday and low and behold more ripe tomatoes! The vines are so brown and bedraggled but I was so happy to see those lovely red gems out there (plus a couple of yellow ones from a plant that didn’t do anything during the scorching heat). You totally scored on the Granny Smith apples! And our stores are getting the new crop of HoneyCrisp apples…my new favorite!
Julie says
Might that have been you I saw in my local Costco late Friday morning? We have a grocery store and 2 farmers markets who sell bulk jello in lots of flavors.
jen says
Just so you know, the illuminati cabal are poisoning the population through the food. For instance, the Sara Lee bread you bought has rubber mat material in it and it is in the ingredients as azodicarbonomide. The bread has the poisonous High fructose corn syrup which hardens the arteries and this is why some people get heart attacks. It also has soy which is now Genetically modified frankensteien foods which mutate the human dna with non human dna like viruses, fungi and insects etc. The illuminati is behind this. You should look into this. You will have to spend more to get healthier foods, but it will save you in medical costs down the road. Just a hint. Look up GMO foods and find out the truth.