Cool storage Shelves Giveaways

With the way the economy is these days ( and for the past 15 or so years) investing in your pantry is one good way to come out on top. It seems every time we go to the store the bill is higher for the same cart full of items.
Stocking up when there is a good sale, growing our own veggies, buying in bulk, canning, dehydrating, the list goes on of ways to preserve what we are growing or buying today.
But where are ya gonna put it all?
Enter the Cansolidator Pantry. A shelf unit designed to keep a natural rotation of using your canned goods in the order in which they were put up.

I hate digging through the pantry, cans fall over, its dark and I can't see if I have something or if I have run out. I need about 10 of these. BUT I'd be happy to win just one and I and YOU have a few chances at doing just that over at The mommy files. The giveaway for the Cansolidator Pantry ends at 11:59 p.m. PST on Monday, June 29th, 2009.

ORRRR...I need this one.




And right now I or YOU could actually win this big bad boy...WHAT? You say. WIN IT? yep, just click on over to Shelf Reliance's blog and follow the rules to be entered. Could you imagine, storing all your canned goods right there and have them roll right out eager to replace the one you just removed....it's type A personality heaven. And pretty doggone neat for the rest of us.

Greenhouse update and a cool bug

Well it's been almost a week since I have posted so I wanted to get some greenhouse pics on here. We'll start with one of the roses that was replaced by Gurneys. It's a climbing America rose. Dark salmony pink. A light smell. Gorgeous. It's in a pot right now until more landscaping is complete, then I will put it in its permanent home.

That old metal table in the back is my outdoor potting table. Garden Junque very chic and all the rage. Cost a whopping 5.00 at a barn sale. The top opens up to 2 compartments and it has faucets on the front.
Next we have a bed of blue lake green beans, something got in and chewed on a couple of leaves but I brought out my home made "stop yer damn chewin' on my plants" spray and they stopped. If you would like to know what it is:
Neem oil
Orange citrus oil
eucalyptus oil
lemongrass oil
palmarosa oil
water

teaspoon of the 1st 2... 1/2 teaspoon of the rest into a quart sprayer fill with water.


Here are the Big Bertha peppers. flowers are starting to pop open. I hand pollinate for now but will bring in a few bumblebees when there are enough flowers open on everything.


This is a tomato from seeds my friend Mandy sent me from Plantswap. They are called "Red Robin" and come true from seed saved. A cherry tomato that only grows to about 18" tall but produces lots of fruit. Happily grown in pots outside, or in a very sunny window.

These are a few Fordhook Lima Beans, I am planting another bed of them, did not want them coming all at the same time.

These are some of the yellow straightneck squash on the right and black zucchini on the left. Larry's real happy about these, hahaha (He keeps saying he doesn't like squash but he sure eats it up when its in bread or on his plate with onions and cheese. Or grilled on shish kabobs.

These are my garbage bag potatoes grown in straw. They have really shot up after I took this pic I really packed in the straw around them. You can see how far they have come since my post in May.

Next post I will show the new strawberries and how the tomatoes are doing and my pet spider, she is growing. But here is a little guy I saw on the side of a concrete step in front of the porch...

Oh I wanted to show the little cutting force pot I made. A friend over at plantswap showed us a tutorial she found online and I made one. These are apricot tree cuttings and a rose cutting and one from a pink spirea.



I so want a hydrangea. If I see one while driving around I will stop and ask for a cutting, I'm like that.

Larry is MORTIFIED at how I will just talk to strangers. We were in the store and a woman was stocking a shelf and she asked if she was in my way. "yes" I said. She looked so shocked then started laughing and said that's the first time anyone told her she was in their way and that she really appreciated my honesty...well she asked.

We have those 16 barrels behind the work shop but built this scaffold to hold a few more down by the greenhouse. We are installing a sink and a shower inside so this will gravity feed the water in.


Well thats all for now. Until next time Happy Gardening.

I WON !

For the second time in about a week, I've won an online giveaway.
Omaha Steaks "Fire up the Grill Package" was reviewed on The Mommy Files Shannon is a sweetheart, I don't know her personally, but she does some videos on her reviews and she just is. I can tell these things. She also had a giveaway for this package.

In the Fire Up the Grill Package from Omaha Steaks, you receive the following items:
Filet Mignons
Top Sirloins
Boneless Chicken Breasts
Omaha Steaks Burgers
Boneless Pork Chops
Stuffed Baked Potatoes
Chocolate Lover's Cake

Larry and I have not eaten beef in almost 10 years but there's some yummy looking chicken in there. ( And MMMmmm CAKE!) We may invite our beef eating friends over for a Fathers day cookout.

Speaking of beds....

I saw this photo online and if I were to come into some big bucks...I would have to splurge on a bed like this one.

Strawberry bed update
It's really disappointing when you try to support a small business and they really let you down.
I told about my strawberry bed and that it took a long time to get my plants but I forged ahead and planted them and began the wait....and I waited and waited some more for little green leaves to appear.
I thought those plants were very dry when they arrived, I soaked them over night and planted them the next morning. They never woke up from their dormancy they were *sniff* ....deceased.
I got my butt right back online and ordered from Gurneys25 Earliglow strawberries for 9.95 and 25 free.
I had them in 5 days from ordering.
BIG beautiful roots, packaged great in 2 seperate bags, damp roots and already green leaves ready to get nutty.
The others were wrapped in one layer of newspaper, no green leaves and a bit of mold on some of the crowns. The sandy dirt one the roots was very dry and most of the roots were small.
I have replanted and will post a picture in a few days.
Now I want to say a little something about Gurneys. They are a good company. When I ordered my blueberry bushes it was too early to plant so they held off shipping and when they went to ship, my card had expired. They shipped anyway, with no payment from me.
They sent an e-mail saying that they went ahead and shipped so I would not miss my planting date and to just go ahead and send them my updated info.
And last year I bought a rose collection from them, 4 climbing roses for 19.99,
When they came we were not home, they sat outside in the snow all day until late that night...I planted them the next day but they did not look good. It was a freak cold snap and had been 5' the whole day they sat outside by the porch. I waited until everything started budding and 2 of them sprang forth, 2 did not.
I called Gurneys the end of June and told them that 2 bit the dust and could they replace the 2. They said they would ship this spring. They sent me all 4. The whole collection again. Not just the 2.
Now that's customer service.

I WON !! A necklace and I have an apple.

For the last 2-3 weeks I have been entering "giveaways". Gardening and doing around the house is kind of hard with your fingers crossed, but it's paid off. I won a Sterling Silver Zodiac Dog Tag Necklace !! Retail Value 96.00 Now how cool is that? I was googling around one evening and searched "frugal". Which led me to a site that does reviews and product giveaways for alot of childrens' type booty. But there are some adult items too.


Then I hit a link to another review site, entered a few giveaways, by leaving comments and visiting product websites and commenting on what my favorite item was other than the one featured.
Which led me to....Katie, her site the-giveaway Has some great product reviews and awesome swag (I just learned that term).


I admit I was skeptical, Oh me of little faith (not really I actually have a tremendous amount)I've never won anything on the internet. I've won a few times on the lottery (always 180 or less) But never a piece of sterling jewelry.

I picked "Libra" for Larry. I'm wearing it, but it's his birth sign. I am a crab. I love crabs, to eat, to watch, but not to wear.
So now for about 20 minutes before I go to bed I sit and peruse giveaway sites. One leads to another and it's fun to enter and even more fun to actually win.

I will be posting here and there about other product review sites and giveaways I'm entering so you can enter too. But be sure to check out Katies' site.

I love finding plants whose seeds I forgot I planted.
This little guy has been hiding in a tray of flowers that I started some weeks ago. I was doing some transplanting and saw it. An apple, a cameo apple I was eating one day and pulled out a seed and stuck it in with the flower seeds to see what it would do.