Shopping and Gas This Week: A Few Bargains at the Store

Nothing to do with shopping and gas this week. Just one of the joys in my life. This is one of the salad baskets that I planted in spring. However, I haven't picked from this one in a month. You want to know why? There are a couple of birds nesting in this basket! I am trying to leave them alone in their space. As the weather dries out, I may have to water the basket a bit. So far, it's been very rainy, so no need to water.

Shopping

I finally went grocery shopping. I went to Fred Meyer, in part because I needed potting soil, hair dye, and an incandescent lightbulb for reading (easier on my eyes than LED or CFL), but also for milk and bananas. Hair dye was a buy 5, save $1 off each. So I bought 5 boxes, enough to last many months. They were nearly sold out of potting soil at this Fred Meyer. I bought what I need to get through the summer and hopefully early fall (growing veggies indoors under lights in fall and winter).

In the food half of the store, I found half-gallons of skim milk marked down to 99 cent each. I bought 8 half-gallons, enough for the next 4 weeks. The sell-by date is the 23rd of June, so I'll be freezing most of this milk. I also bought 1 gallon of whole milk for making yogurt ($3.29). In the shelf-stable clearance section, I found a single, dented can of mushrooms for 49 cents. There was really nothing else of interest in this clearance area this day. In the packaged deli section, I found 14-oz packages of uncured hotdogs marked down to 99 cents. I bought 8 of these packages. I froze 7 of them. Bananas have gone up in price from 49 cents/lb to 59 cents/lb. That's still a pretty good bargain for fresh fruit, so I bought 2 bunches. In total, I spent $22.22 on food. I also picked up some items for Father's Day dinner. However, my two daughters paid me back for those items, as they cooked Father's Day dinner as their gift to their dad. 

Gas this week

Driving home I saw diesel for $6.19/gallon. That's pretty shocking. I remember a time when diesel was always cheaper than unleaded.

It was my other daughter's turn to pay for gas this time around. She shopped around a little. The station directly across the street from the pharmacy where she was picking up a prescription had unleaded for $5.44/gallon. The closest Costco has gas at $5.16 today, down 17 cents from the $5.33 price last week. The high price in my area is $5.99/gallon at the local Shell. The neighborhood 7-11 that I've followed for the last few weeks had lowest octane unleaded at $5.83/gallon this morning, no change from last week.

My Front Yard Pumpkin Patch

Last winter, I mentioned the huge mound of compost we had delivered. I think it was 10 yards. We top-dressed our front lawn, mulched all of the areas that dry out in summer, and amended the soil in the backyard vegetable beds. 

With the very last couple of yards, we built a patch in the front yard (hidden from the street by some trees and shrubs) for my newest vegetable planting area.

In mid-May, I hurriedly got everything planted after we returned from our trip to Arizona. Above is what it looked like by the end of May. The white things near the back are milk jug protective coverings for the corn plants. At this point, I didn't have everything in the ground yet.

Here we are about 3 weeks later. My new area is neither a bed nor a row. I like to think of it as a patch. It's my warm season patch. In it, I've planted pumpkins, winter squash, summer squash, peppers, corn, pole beans, sunflowers, and the last 4 tomato plants that didn't have a home (others are in the back yard beds). I planted the whole patch rather densely, with the idea that weather, slugs, raccoons, squirrels, or rabbits might thin it for me. So far, not much has been thinned and I may need to thin some out myself.

The idea for the patch came from a neighbor who has grown pumpkins in a stretch alongside her front yard lawn for the past couple of summers. I loved the idea of a larger pumpkin patch and one with more sun than my backyard patch provides. We had this space in the center of our circular driveway that we've been planning to re-landscape in the next few years. So, why not put it to use to grow my much-wanted pumpkin patch this year and next? From there, I began planning to add more of the heat loving plants that sometimes struggle in my more cooler backyard. The front yard patch is bordered by our asphalt driveway and in full sun for most of the day. As I planted the backyard beds, I ended up with some extra plants. So in those went as well.

I'm excited at the prospect of more pumpkins and squash. We'll have to see how it all grows.