A big THANK YOU to everyone who has sent in their photographs and stories. I hope by sharing other people’s pictures and stories here on One Hundred Dollars a Month we can all have a rock star garden this summer. Keep them coming!
Hi Mavis!
My name is Gloria. I live in a small town in Southeast Missouri with my husband and two sons. I am expecting my first daughter in one week! We moved back to the town where my husband grew up in order to be closer to our parents only 4 months ago.
We bought a 20 year old house on 7 acres with a large workshop and pond. The house sat vacant for two years and still needs a lot of work. I am thankful for my handy father and husband! Moving in five months pregnant meant we could not tackled most of the things we’d like to do.
Our first outside priorities were planting some perennial fruits and starting our laying hens. We planted blueberries (in the front flower beds thanks to your inspiration!), raspberries, strawberries, thornless blackberries, and mulberry bush I bought from the local Gardening Club sale.
The beds here were (after being abandoned for two years) and still are in awful condition due to my condition! Next year perhaps I can tackle the weeds and spread mulch.
I did not plan on doing any gardening or farming with our impending baby, but my husband was eager to grow his beloved Scotch Bonnet peppers and have fresh eggs again.
The garden got started but beyond watering has not had the attention it needs. Currently we have a variety of heirloom tomatoes, scotch bonnet peppers, pickling cucumbers, cabbage, and cantaloupe. Next year we hope to fill them more, mulch the paths and build a nice fence with pergola entry gate. I hope my photos are encouragement for anyone just starting out, working full time and with kids.
Sometimes it hard to get going. But any progress is progress.
We were excited to find a small, untended orchard, elderberries, and wild blackberries already on the property. Now to figure out how to care for those poor pear and plum trees.
We built our coop with 4 exit doors so that we can rotate pastures. I didn’t want them free ranging with neighbor’s dogs as a threat and barefoot children running in the yard.
We used whatever materials we could scrounge and mixed leftover paints for the outside. I like having little garbage disposals for the leftovers and overripe fruits and veg.
After the baby arrives and I recover I am eager to explore our two acres of woods and see what other wild edibles we can forage. Any idea what these purple wildflowers are?
Keep up the good work. You are a breath of fresh air from the seriousness of so many other blogs, tv shows, and news!
– Gloria
Looking for more Mavis Mail Submissions? Pop on over HERE to find them all.
If you would like to have your garden, chicken coop, pantry or something you’ve made featured on One Hundred Dollars a Month, here’s what I’m looking for:
- Your Garden Pictures and Tips – I’d especially like to see your garden set ups, growing areas, and know if you are starting seeds indoors this year. If so, show me some picture of how you are going about it.
- Your Pantry Pics – Pictures of your pantry/fridge/cabinets, as well as a short blurb {at the very least} about you and your food habits.
- Your Chicken and Chicken Related Stories – Coops, Chicks, Hen’s, Roosters, Eggs, you name it. If it clucks, send us some pictures to share with the world.
- Cool Arts & Crafts – Made from your very own hands with detailed {and well photographed} pictures and instructions.
- Your pictures and stories about your pets. The more pictures and details the better.
- Garage Sale, Thrift Store and Dumpster Diving pictures and the stories behind the treasures you found including how much you paid for them.
You’ll need to send in a Minimum of 5 HIGH QUALITY pictures and the stories to go along with those pictures. Do not send in a couple of grainy photos and a sentence about them. I can’t post that. It doesn’t make for an interesting or informative story.
If I feature your pictures and the stories behind them on One Hundred Dollars a Month, I will send you a $20.00 gift card to the greatest store in the world: Amazon.com. You can send your submissions to me at onehundreddollarsamonth @ gmail.com {spaces removed} and be sure and put Mavis Mail in the subject line. Thank you. I’m looking forward to your submissions.
Go HERE for the official rules.
Brianna says
Congats on the baby. I wish all the best for a healthy baby and mama, easy delivery, and quick recovery. Your property looks like it will be wonderful in the future.
Mrs. C. says
Those flowers look like elderberries.
Sherry says
I was going to say the same thing, elderberries.
Julie says
Yup I think they are elderberries too
Jean says
They also look like pokeweed which is poisonous.
Deb says
Poke has HUGE, single leaves (look a bit like big chard leaves) and red, herbacious stems, and the berries tend to be larger (maybe the size of frog-eye tapioca). Elderberries have leaves that are made up of several smaller leaflets off a single stem, and are shrubs, so they have woody, bark-covered stems/trunks. The berries tend to be smaller, maybe the size Israeli couscous or so. Find a couple of good pics so you can be comfortable using elderberries – they make nice wine, jelly, etc. Some Midwestern wineries will buy elderberries, as long as they are not “roadside” picks that might have been sprayed. Enjoy! Deb
Teckla says
Pokeweed makes good greens, but do your research. Parts of the plant are poisonous and parts are not. I grew up eating poke, lambsquarter, dandelion and a lot of other edible plants that I can no longer remember. Mom also made “ink” for us kids using poke berry juice and water and taught us how to make “pens” from chicken feathers. We had such fun! I was also thinking elderberries. You are blessed to have the woodsy area on your property and I;m sure you’ll discover many good things to forage!
Kathy says
We still eat poke every year. My family can’t wait for warm weather in the spring and we start looking for poke everywhere. I parboil it two or three times, drain it real good (squeeze the water out of it) put it in a hot iron skillet with some bacon grease and cook the moisture out then I add beaten eggs and stir to cook. It is similar to a spinach fritatta. Wonderful eating.
That looks like elderberry to me, too. We make jelly with the berries and it is better, in my opinion, than grape jelly. I concur on not picking it roadside because it gets sprayed
Jennifer says
Great post, love the pics! Our chickens only lay brown eggs so it was fun to see yours. Of course any egg is a good egg.
Julie says
How lovely and well done on what you have achieved. I think possibly as much as me this year and I don’t have the excuse of being pregnant nor of having two other children to look after, so pat yourself on the back. It looks amazing, something my husband and I used to dream of having when we were younger, now half an acre back garden seems too much.
Angela D. says
Gloria! Your efforts are wonderful! I wish we would have started our blueberries right when we moved out to the country–5 years later and it has still not happened (too many other things have taken precedence.) And how right you are about the chickens running around: my children have never gone outside barefoot, even though that was one of the very reasons we moved out here in the firstplace!
Good luck and God speed with your delivery!
Peggy says
Yes, congratulations and best of luck to your growing family. 🙂 And the elderberries! And the potatoes! My mom made the most incredible elderberry jelly, she would send us kids out around the farm just before the birds got the berries and pick away, and the reward was that amazing jelly, and my dad was an Irishman from County Galway, had potatoes every single day of his life that he was able to eat, <3 , your potatoes are beautiful, just beautiful! 🙂
Gloria says
Thank you all for the kind comments. I hope to have as bountiful a garden as Mavis some day. I have to remind myself that hanging out with my kiddos takes precedence over projects as much as I’d like to hammer them out! It’ll come little by little and one day my kids can help, right? Baby girl is here and healthy. That’s all I can hope for right now!