Playing Catch-up

Summer has come and gone and I won't say I'll miss it this year. It was hot, humid and rainy. I didn't put a garden in because of the cold, rainy weather this spring. I should have attempted something, especially after seeing the prices for produce here! The Farmer's Markets in this area are outrageous to say the least. I know we are in a more prominent area, but gouging will stop me from buying local!

 Wegman's was running a sale on frozen veggies. A pound bag was 79 cents, so I made sure to dehydrate some. I saved 20 cents a pound and all the work was pretty much already done. I told hubby to wait and watch, because the sale ran quite a while, I was sure the veggies were going to go up in price. They have gone back to 99 cents a bag or more, but the bag sizes have gotten smaller. Yup - price increase!

It appears it's really time to buckle down and get serious. We had some serious crop failures this year with lots of rain and flooding plus an early freeze/snow in the midwest as well as down south! Potatoes, seed corn, sugar beets, and dried beans were some of the crops that were affected. I'm sure we are now going to see some price hikes with everything. Those are major crops and many things in the food industry depend on them.

Currently, milk is running $4.20 a gallon at Walmart and Sam's and even more for name brands. I've stopped buying fresh milk. That's just too expensive - especially when other parts of the country are selling as low as $1.50 a gallon! I hate living in a regulated state. It's supposed to help the farmers, but I just heard on the radio that Deen's is going under, because sales dropped, Walmart no longer uses them (Walmart does their own now) and what they do sell isn't enough to support them. It's really sad when specialty milk is cheaper than the real thing! I can get almond milk for $1.75 for a half gallon! I've switched to powdered milk.

I'm anxiously awaiting my garlic order to arrive. I'm very late getting them in, but figured I'd take a chance and try. MIgardener had a sale of them, so I picked up 3 different bulbs to try. According to my tracking number, they are supposed to be delivered today. We've had such cold temps - quite a bit below normal, so hopefully they will do ok. If not - I've only lost 3 heads of garlic and $10.