Gradening for beginners

Today's post is all about how to start gardening. I get asked all the time what are your secrets? What advice do you have for a beginner. Number one advice for beginners, is be a beginner. huh? That's right, start with a few plants, I cannot say this enough. Either start a small container garden, or a small raised bed garden. It's easy to get excited, when all those plants are blooming, the birds are chirping, the fresh smell of spring is in the air. If you truly want to be good at gardening, don't let cloudy judgement get in the way. Its better to plant few and it grow, than plant too much. When you get too excited and plant a ton, usually you wind up with hardly any. That even goes for those who have gardened a long time. It's easy to jump in and want to plant everything you see. Gardening is VERY hard work, tillering, and planting is the easy part. How can you say that Debbie???? You have to rake,  plow, tiller, dig holes,  plant,  water, seed, etc..... Yes I know and that's why I am warning you, that is the easy part of gardening.
So if I have finally convinced you to start small, we can start with seeding.
Number one tip for seeding, don't buy expensive pots. Yes, we all know there are a billion cute expensive seed starters out there, don't waste your money. My favorite seed starters are Free. They work better than anything you could buy. Start saving you cans, soup, vegetable, what ever you buy that comes in a can save it. Milk cartons, plastic butter containers, Ice cream container, even the card board half gallon ice cream containers, egg cartons, egg shells, the options are limit less. Lets say you don't have enough to plant all the seeds you wart, buy a pack of Styrofoam cups. The key is drainage, make a few small holes in the bottom, and you have a great seed starter. Next picking your seeds, what do you use the most? Don't try to start with growing broccoli, carrots and lettuce. Start small, 3 tomatoes, 2 squash, 3 peppers, and 2 cucumbers. You can fit all of these in a raised bed. Then start some easy herbs in a container, like basil, chives and parsley. Then stop, starting small is the key to learning. It may sound like nothing, but you didn't run before you crawled did you? I have seen  dozens of people start bigger, and almost always it don't pan out, or what turns out are just a few plants. Why not have a few amazing plants, that make plenty. If you learn the basics, do well with a few, then double it next year, and try 1 new thing.
Step three for those who have mastered, without a doubt these plants. Don't seed beans and peas. They grow faster, to just start them in the ground, you get healthier plants, that are less likely to die. I also prefer to start my cucumbers that way, but that's because I plant like 10 plants. Fences are a wonderful tool to same some space. If you have a fence plant your garden next to it. You can run you butter beans, green beans and you cucumbers to save space. This gives you more area to plant. If you are starting with a raised bed, plant it next to a fence. Tomato cages are another wonderful tool. When you plant tomatoes in the ground add a teaspoon of Epsom salt, it prevents bottom root. Trust me bottom rot, will ruin lots of tomatoes if it starts. Plant things around your tomato plants to detour bugs. Chives, mint, marigolds, basil, petunias or parsley are good things to help detour bugs. Plant you peppers between your tomato plants. Check you tomatoes for tomato worms, they can take inches off you plants fast. I like to feed them to my chickens, if I find one. Pour your coffee grounds out near your tomatoes. Crush egg shells up in the garden to prevent slugs and fertilize the garden. Banana peels are great for tomatoes and peppers, just cut them up in smaller pieces.

Quick healthy steak lunch

As a homeschooling mother I am always pressed for time. Being a mom of four boys, I am always trying to save money. Most Importantly as my children's role model, I am trying to find healthy lunch Ideas.  I Have spent years, searching, creating, and modifying healthy lunches for my kids. With four boys in the house, it can get very expensive to feed them three healthy meals, and snacks daily. The boys are always home, and as boys usually are, they are always hungry. We have always been big vegetable eaters, and I have always been particular on teaching my kids to eat healthy. Eating sandwiches for lunch everyday, just isn't an option for me. We only have sandwiches twice a week for lunch. So I have created some easy lunch options, that are mostly inexpensive. Today's lunch option may sound expensive, but its really not. Lets start with the steak, I bought my steak for 4 dollars at our local grocer. It was just thin strips of steak, that I marinated, and cut smaller. It could be even less expensive, if you buy your steak in bulk. If you do buy larger pieces, it's just a matter of cutting the steak into small pieces. I only used roughly about a pound of steak today. Once you have your steak cut into small pieces, you marinate them. I like to use any type of steak seasoning, and worstershire sauce. Today I used Mrs dash steak seasoning and frenches worstershire sauce.  I find it easier, as well as much more tender, if you can do this the night before.

         
                           

Start a pot of boiling water, and cook as much rice as your kids will eat. I prefer brown rice, but white rice works well too. While your rice is cooking, start on your steak. You need to add your pieces of steak to the pan, when they are half cooked, add two bags of stir fry. You can find the stir fry on sale for 1$ a bag, or if you coupon maybe cheaper.



 

 

 
Next add an onion, chopped small, and that's it, cook it till tender. 

 

 

Spread the stir fry over rice and lunch is served. When you get the hang of it, it should take no more than 20 minutes to complete lunch. We take an hour for lunch, it allows me to get lunch ready, kids fed, and put the baby down for his nap after lunch. Once I have the baby down, we can jump right back in on school. While the baby naps I have some uninterrupted individual time with the kids, to work on difficult areas of study. That's it for today, I will share more, quick, recipe's later. This recipe also works great for dinner :) It can also be modified by using strips of chicken breast as well. For chicken breast I recommend adding Rotisserie seasoning instead of steak seasoning.

Lunch for 5 for around 7.15. That wouldn't even pay for two happy meals :)