We spend hundreds of dollars on groceries every month. For many of us, the money spent on groceries is one of our largest bills. This is especially true for those who have large families to feed. With the cost of groceries on the rise, finding new ways to save money on groceries is extremely important.

Sign up for the rewards card offered by your grocery store. Walk up and down the aisles and you will see plenty of sales on the items you need but you have to be a rewards card holder in order to be eligible to receive these discounts. It only takes a minute to sign up for these rewards cards and it will be worth your time to do so.

Using coupons is one of the easiest ways to save money on groceries. Unlike a rewards card, customers can use their coupons at any grocery store that accepts them (unless they are store specific coupons). Coupons are readily available in newspapers and several online sites.

Check out coupons.com. They have an option available to customers that stores coupons on grocery store rewards cards. Not all grocery stores participate in this program but several larger chains do. If you have a store in your area that participates in the program, start shopping there to save money on your groceries. All you have to do is visit the website and select the coupons you wish to use. When you head to the store to make your purchases, your savings will be deducted when your rewards card is swiped!

Many people who are looking to start enjoying their crop early begin to plant seeds in early spring. This allows the plant to grow quite a bit inside and later to be transplanted to a garden outdoors. This early jumpstart takes out the usual time where most people need to wait for the ground to no longer be frozen and the weather to improve before they can plant seeds. When you start indoors you do not have those worries as you can control the environment in which they grow.

All you need to start early is soil that drains well, small containers, an area that gets good sun indoors and some water. Nothing special and no different than what you would be doing outside when you go to plant seeds except by starting them inside in small containers you get that extra jumpstart and can shave weeks off of your first harvest. You can grow inside for many weeks before you transplant your plants outside into the garden. This will also help you ensure you have enough plants growing for what you need in the upcoming season by knowing how many seeds planted have started to grow you get more confidence in there survival when moved outside.

If you use peat pods they are very small and take very little room to store in a house. You can place them in a window sill and as soon as you see the first leaf unfold transplant them to a larger container. As soon as the soil is no longer frozen and the climate is ready for planting seeds you can transplant your already few weeks old plants outside.

If you are planting tomatoes in the garden you will also want to create your own tomato cages to help support the plants as they grow. The reason tomato cages are used is as they mature they become very top heavy with many arms growing off of the plant and then with the addition of the tomatoes themselves growing in, the top can start to pull the plant downward. The goal of the tomato cages is to support all of the upper body and the arms as the tomatoes grow in. This helps ensure you get a healthier crop and are very easy to build on your own. Once built, you can reuse your own tomato cages each year to save money and time.

• To get started in building your own tomato cages you need a wire mesh roll, wire cutters and pliers.
• Roll out two to four feet of mesh and clip it free from the rest of the roll
• Take the ends and using your pliers bend in the metal from each edge to connect the ends forming a circle out of the metal
• Now place a steak in the ground along the stem of your plant and hammer it gently into the ground
• Lower your circle of mesh around the plant
• Use string to secure the plant to the steak and the tomato cage as needed

These are very simple to create and each year you can store them off as they are or undo where you connected the tomato cages so that they lie flat and can be piled for easier storage.

Many apartment dwellers or home owners in the city battle over space when it comes to gardening and having room for their plants. Window boxes are an easy solution to this problem and in my opinion a must for anyone trying to live self sufficiently within the city limits.

Window boxes provide space where no space is naturally available. We all have windows in our houses now image if we could plant a handful of flowers or vegetables wherever we have those windows. It creates space where so many give up since they do not have any! You can grow tomato plants, peppers, and any herb you could want inside window boxes.

This tiny garden of its own can provide for you and help you cut down on your monthly grocery expenses by saving money on fresh produce and herbs within a few months. The window boxes also help someone interested in gardening but not quite ready to fully commit to large garden and is worried about the maintenance that comes with the territory. Window boxes are self contained and can be used one year and if it is decided it was too much hassle can be discarded without any evidence it was ever there. If you enjoyed the window box you can try adding a second one in the next season and so forth.

Too often people are deterred from trying to live self sufficient because they think it is only for those who live out of a community. Window boxes is another example of how anyone living anywhere can at least live a little self sufficient.

These days seems like the word organic can be found everywhere you look so only makes sense that now we have organic soil added to the pile. So what is organic soil exactly? Great question!

Organic soil is simply soil that has not had any nutrients added or chemicals provided except for those that are naturally available. Most of us have used Miracle Gro on their garden. Once you have used Miracle Gro you no longer have organic soil since you have enriched the dirt with unnatural ingredient. In the summer as you see your crops growing you also see bugs coming. This means use of pesticides to control your pests in the garden. This use of pesticides in the garden also will make your soil no longer organic.

If you are looking to create and maintain organic soil, here are a few things you want to keep in mind.

• Use of chemicals in your soil can damage and make the soil less healthy for your plants over a period of time.
• Use of chemicals creates overtime a dependence upon chemicals within your soil as you no longer allow natural process to take place.
• Organic Soil has higher levels of nutrients than those that are treated with supplements.
• Organic Soil produces healthy fruits and veggies that are always editable and do not result in chemicals leaking into our water supply.

One of the benefits of using organic soil is also that it is free compared to spending money on chemicals or nutrients and supplements to add to your garden. Finding healthy alternatives and natural solutions to common gardening concerns in the long run will provide a much healthier and happier garden for you to enjoy.

If you are thinking about getting a chicken but not sure consider a bantam chicken. Now, they are not great producers of eggs, they are behind the norm, but they make great pets if that is what you are looking for.

Bantam chickens are motherly in nature and are cute to look at. They are very friendly and will get a long with any other chicken you put with it. They make a great first introduction to having a chicken as they are so easy to maintain and care for not to mention their temperament makes it simple.

If you are interested in learning more about getting your own bantam chicken, here is what you need to know about raising bantam chickens. Here are some links to help you read up on raising bantam chickens as well as where to purchase one and build a coup for.

Bantam Chickens Resources

Everything you need to know about a bantam chicken

Buying a bantam chicken

Building a chicken coup for a bantam chicken

More information about bantam chickens

Many people are used to planting in the ground and find the concept of container gardening more restricting than beneficial. These 4 container gardening tips are aimed to show you why it is actually the other way around. How containers are actually much more effective than in the ground gardens for many people.

Container Gardening Tips

1. Flexibility: It is very hard to grow a garden in the ground in that you need to prepare the soil which could take quite some time to get it perfectly balanced. Not all plants require the same water and sun requirements therefore in some cases you need to build more than one garden to support your crops. Container gardening allows you to be flexible in that you can place your pot wherever best suits your plant you are growing. You can also just focus on the plants water and nutrient needs without worrying about impacting nearby plants.

2. Mobility: For me, one of the biggest enjoyments in the garden is rearranging and playing with the configuration of everything. Raised beds and gardens in the ground are great as baselines but if you build a container garden you can intermix your pots wherever you want, move the blooming plants to the front or if a plant is not doing well, bring it inside to get special treatment.

3. Pest Control: It is much easier to treat a plant in a container with sprays than in the ground. You can even remove the plant and transplant it to a new container if needed; it goes back to being flexible. Also many plants work to repel insects; you can plant these in containers and disperse them around your gardens and porch to keep your garden bug free.

4. Decoration: Many people like to add flavor and color to their gardens. A container allows you to pick a pot that stands out and works well with the plant you are about to put inside. You can even make your own pot, paint one you purchase or be creative and turn something into a pot to add more character.

I hope these container gardening tips help you in making your garden a little more interesting this year. If you are wanting to read more, check out this article about container vegetable gardening.

Going to the living self sufficient theme, the question is always asked, why pay for it when you can do it yourself regardless of where you live. This idea goes well with eggs and so why not have your own city chicken to produce for you.

City chickens are a pet with benefits. Sure goldfish are easier but what do they do for you? City chickens provide you breakfast and cut your grocery bill down a few dollars. If you are living in the city and want to learn more about city chickens, I would check out this site. The author has a few books out on the subject and has some great information regarding the laws surrounding city chickens as well as some normal questions and answers she has gotten over the years.

The biggest thing you might need to remember is that you have neighbors and they may complain. You also live in a city which may have laws against you having a city chicken. These are generally from what I can tell the two biggest deterrents to having a pet city chicken. If you think you can swing it, go for it. Make it work by talking with your neighbors ahead of time to get their buy in. Try to be respectful of where you build and place your chicken coup. Even offer up some eggs to the neighbors to get on their good side!

Having a city chicken can be a good amount of fun. Good for kids to learn about how the world works and where their food comes from while learning the responsibility of taking care of a pet.

The old cliché about the early bird catching the worm may not apply to gardening but the earlier you plant garden, the earlier you can harvest your crop so I am going with it. Now learning when is it too early to plant garden or in some cases, too late to plant garden comes with experience. Each year you might know your weather better than the generic averages given out.

Where I live there is always one more frost two weeks after most people say it is okay to start planting your garden. Since I have lived here for a while I know that so I wait until I see the temperatures consistently above freezing and notice the ground not as hard. You get a feel for these things after years of planting a garden.

This article provides a good overview broken down by crop type when you should plan to plant garden. This is a great way to start out and as you go see what works for you. Watch for patterns in the environment and see how your crops do. Each year tweak your seeding schedule to make sure you maximize the output of your garden.

One thing to keep in mind is that if you are going to start your plants early by seed than this may not apply to your garden. Generally if you are going to start your seeds inside, you want to start at a much earlier timeframe so that you are transplanting a growing plant by the time most people are only laying seeds.

One of the best parts of building garden compost is to help cut down on waste and filling up the landfills. Reusing what can be reused while adding value and nutrition to your garden. However, many people don’t know what can or can not be put into their garden compost pile.

Putting certain items into your garden compost can actually cause much more harm than good, in fact, it could kill your garden out if you build your compost incorrectly. So, how do you learn what you can or can not put into your garden compost? I would start here with this post from Lighter Footstep. I thought the article was well written and had some really good information.

I think most people will find that they put bread products into their garden composts. This is probably going to be the most often guilty number but really as I look at the list I could see a lot of people trying to compost almost everything on their list. Some gardeners try to use their compost in place of their garbage completely but as you can see by this list, that is not a good idea.

The list continues to talk about what you should not recycle as well. Some interesting items in there that I would not have guessed and some more obvious but a good list for anyone who is involved with building a garden compost or recycling to get familiar with to make sure they are not causing more harm than good.