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Join me on my journey of stretching a dollar through gardens and recipes

I am Lesley McGerald. I was in the workforce for over 50 years, and through no fault of my own, I apparently became too old to be employed. In fact, my last employer cautioned me in writing not to mention age discrimination, or my severance would be in jeopardy.

I am luckier than most folks my age, as my husband is still working. It does help a lot to have at least one income. However, I do want our money to go as far as possible. Going to the store or pumping gas is really scary now.

I heard our president say that we will probably be facing food shortages in the near future, and I knew I had to take action. I decided to start a garden to ward of starvation and have some diversity in our diet (thanks, Joe!).

I don’t live on a large plot of land. I have a smaller than average yard in a Florida neighborhood with a pretty strict HOA, so plowing up the back yard and putting in a fence to keep the local fauna out of the garden is out of the question. My only option is a container garden in my lanai.

My first step was to purchase a raised garden from Amazon. It was fantastic! Everything I needed to put it together was in the box, and the directions said it should take one person less than an hour to finish it. It actually took me about 5 hours over 2 days, but it looks great and works beautifully.

The next step was to visit Home Depot and look for vegetables. I did need a couple of large bags of soil, so I picked up those, then I found cabbage, Serrano pepper, combination bell and hot pepper, kale, cucumber and strawberries already started, so buying these plants and sticking them into the raised garden was a piece of cake. However, I also wanted to get the kind of vegetables we usually use, so I had to get seeds.

Planting the peas and beans was easy, because those are large seeds that you just stick in the ground. I also found radishes (I’m not sure how to use all those, but once I find out, I’ll post some recipes here). I spread some lettuce seeds in a separate planter, and it is coming up beautifully! I also started some kale and spinach in little starter pods. I may have transplanted those a little early, but most of them are still growing.

Everything is thriving, to the point I needed to get a couple more planters to give everything the room needed to grow. See the pictures below, and remember that if I can grow these in a small space, so can you!

Please contact me with any questions, comments or suggestions: at lesley@unwillingretiree.com. I