2024 Frugal Living Challenge

suzeesu2000

I dehydrate loads of stuff: greens, blitz into powder, onions again blitz into onion powder, tomatoes for tomato powder, peppers, celery, courgettes, sweetcorn, carrots, parsnips, chilli. Same with garlic for garlic powder, absolutely stinks the house out unless you do it outside.
You can dehydrate fruits, I do bananas, apples, pears, Brilliant for drying herbs too, then either crumble or blitz depending on how you like to use them.
just be cautious of smelly foods like garlic, onions, chilli peppers etc as they do have a very potent odour…..seriously it will get into all your soft furnishings. I wait for a dry day and then use an extension lead and do it in the garden. Much better.
I have done a huge selection of veggies then turned to powder, mixed together and reconstituted with chicken stock for soup, takes up a lot less room than freezing. I just use the clip top glass jars that the Poundshop sold before they went bust, they were £1.50 for small ones and £2.50 for biggies. About a third of my pantry shelving is glass jars with dry stuff in. 

mandy47

suzeesu2000 said:

I dehydrate loads of stuff: greens, blitz into powder, onions again blitz into onion powder, tomatoes for tomato powder, peppers, celery, courgettes, sweetcorn, carrots, parsnips, chilli. Same with garlic for garlic powder, absolutely stinks the house out unless you do it outside.
You can dehydrate fruits, I do bananas, apples, pears, Brilliant for drying herbs too, then either crumble or blitz depending on how you like to use them.
just be cautious of smelly foods like garlic, onions, chilli peppers etc as they do have a very potent odour…..seriously it will get into all your soft furnishings. I wait for a dry day and then use an extension lead and do it in the garden. Much better.
I have done a huge selection of veggies then turned to powder, mixed together and reconstituted with chicken stock for soup, takes up a lot less room than freezing. I just use the clip top glass jars that the Poundshop sold before they went bust, they were £1.50 for small ones and £2.50 for biggies. About a third of my pantry shelving is glass jars with dry stuff in. 

How long will it keep once dried? 

suzeesu2000

Mandy, if you use an oxygen absorber and don’t keep opening jars…..probably 5+ years. If you store in heat sealed Mylar bags with oxygen absorber …….20+ years. 

Personally I use mine within 12 - 24 months, good food rotation is a must for me. Just to be on the safe side.

mandy47

Thank you suzeesu2000

Prudent

Thank you suzeesu2000 I have found this very useful. I am hoping to have some surplus veg this year as it is our first year with a full allotment plot. Just wondering if we have an other veg growers on this thread? I am about to research heated propagators and I am looking for recommendations. I am also hoping to grow plenty of flowers both to support wildlife and for my own enjoyment. We have a polytunnnel which we put up in the autumn, I am hoping this will both improve the scope of what we can grow and allow me to dry some flowers.  

suzeesu2000

Oh Prudent I am literally green with envy. I have the tiniest of yard space. Cant spread out as DH has to have room to get his mobility scooter in and out. My space is about 20 feet x 2 feet. Yes that small. I grew lots of courgettes, peppers and celery last year. Just used the last of the courgettes from the freezer. Had them diced for stews/soups, courgetti, sliced for quiche and pretty things. Grew DK green, striped and yellow. Plus we get minimal sun in the yard as it faces east. 

The side that I am allowed is against the brick wall so I grew cherry tomatoes in baskets on the wall. My peppers were in baskets on the house wall. You have to improvise as I am determined to help my budget by growing stuff.

YT is excellent for expert growers giving advice too. I didn’t know you could save seeds from the flowers of marigolds when they finished. I do now and won’t be spending a penny on them ever again. Growing flowers in with your veg is great for encouraging bees (especially yellow flowers) to pollinate things like courgettes. 

I have next week earmarked for getting out into the yard to clear up from winter, put two new metal raised beds in that were a gift and getting my compost going. Lovely lady who runs a rabbit rescue gives me free rabbit poop - excellent fertiliser. Also use dried seaweed from our local beach as that’s free too. 

I think I’d go mad if I couldn’t get out to potter.

Florafauna

@suzeesu2000 Im so impressed by your veg growing in a little space. I grow mostly in pots and up walls also though I have a small metre square raised bed. I've got calendula planted amongst the onions and garlic, first time this year so interested to hear of your success.
Still making do with my existing swimming costume for the lido even though I'm tempted by a fancy expensive one.
No mending yesterday but minimised lots of paperwork and cardboard boxes. The house feels calmer which is nice.
Hope everyone is OK in this stormy weather 

Prudent

Thank Suzeesu2000 I grew in containers in a small space for ages. I spoke to a friend who had an allotment and realised the scope she had to grow. She told me how to add my name to the list and I was thrilled when my first plot came up. It was just a quarter plot, deeply over grown and on heavy clay that baked solid in the sun and became waterlogged in the rain, but I was hooked. Later last year we got offered a full plot, again massively overgrown but with better soil. 

The poly tunnel was a totally wonderful and unexpected. Our local council is extremely poor (politically correct wording here) at providing any kind of care. Unpaid carers in the area were on their knees after the pandemic. The local carer support centre worked hard at fighting their corner. The end of a long saga was that the council agreed to pay a £1000 grant to any unpaid carer who met a high level of care. The grant specified that it must be spent on a relaxation activity and the poly tunnel fitted that criteria.

Poor OH did most of the clearing of the plot as I was so ill last year and his friends helped him put up the poly tunnel and shed. When I got the first wee plot he said he would help me clear it, but that was his limit. Now he is hooked and is down every day pottering around and feeding the birds. The big focus for us is supporting biodiversity. I am hoping we can put in a wee pond this year. 

mumtoomany

Morning all, just catching up. 

@suzeesu2000, before we moved here I too had a very small growing area, around the same size as yours. Have you though about raspberries? I grew them up the wall with other plants in front. Always expensive to buy, but easy to grow. My sister used to plant raspberry canes on waste ground near her house. Free fruit for everyone. 

@Prudent, we now have 13 acres. I have a polytunnel and several raised beds, Also lots of fruit trees, sheep, and chickens. Any extra veg I grow, I put on a table by the gate, with an honesty box. The money I make I use to buy seeds compost and veg in winter. No storage problems then.

Frugalling away still here. OH is now officially a pensioner, but his pension will not be paid until February. Trying again to eat down the freezers.

Hugs to all, mumtoomany.xxx

Cas

Evening everyone, just catching up. Hope everyone wasn’t badly impacted by the storm.  One of the nearby apple trees dropped its remaining apples thanks to the gales so I’ve gathered a carrier bagful which I’ll use to make apple jelly, stewed apples, etc.

I’m also trying to grow more this year. Last year it was potatoes, strawberries, blackcurrants, Jerusalem artichokes, wild garlic, herbs (mint, thyme, rosemary, chives, fennel), spring onions (grown from scraps) plus we have a couple of hazel bushes. Now that we’ve had some frost I’ll be digging up some of the Jerusalem artichokes.  Never tried them before so looking forward to experimenting with them.

Rhubarb is just starting to poke through so have plonked buckets over them to use as forcers until I can get something bigger.  I’ve ordered some seed potatoes plus some potato growing sacks. Aim is to grow the earlies in the existing pots and the main crop spuds in the new sacks. I’ve only just finished the potatoes I grew last year so I’m looking to grow even more this year with the aim to be self sufficient for spuds.

Dad is also going to help me grow more this year in my 3 small beds. Tomatoes are his speciality! I’d like us to grow the stuff he grew when I was a child like cabbage, lettuce, peas plus raspberries, beetroot, kale, sprouts and beans.  I’ve got some small patio fruit trees (apples, pear, cherry, plum) and I’m hoping they will produce fruit over the next few years. 

@mumtomany_2 and @Prudent  I would love to have the space you both have.  It must be such hard work but very rewarding!

@Suzeesu2000 thank you for the dehydrating suggestions and for the inspiration for what you can grow in a small space. I need to put my Ninja to better use and get on with my garden planning!