Shary, Shary, Quite Contrary...

How does my garden grow? Quite well actually! I've tried gardening in the past. I started out in containers, and it was semi successful. I planted a full blown garden on a community plot with some friends two years back, but the bugs took over and we didn't get much beyond a few zucchini and more tomatoes than we could handle.

However, about a month ago, hubby and I decided to try a new gardening experiment. We purchased 3 five gallon buckets and made our own Topsy Turvy planters. It was super simple. We just drilled holes in the bottom of each bucket and put a plant in both the top and bottom. Our reasoning for doing this is because A) our ground is very hard, B) we have a small yard, and C) we're kind of lazy and this method eliminates weeding almost completely. We planted two zucchini plants in one, 2 pepper plants (one red, one green) in another, and 1 tomato plant in the third.

Just a few days ago we noticed that it's yielding results!

 Teeny Tiny Zucchini!

 Itty Bitty Tomato!

 Petite Pepper!

I can't wait to make zucchini bread, and fried zucchini, and zucchini lasagna and stuffed peppers. Yum! I however don't eat raw tomatoes, so those are mainly for hubby and my mom. Maybe I can learn to make homemade sauce with them. I'll be sure to update as the veggies grow and I will definitely post pictures of all the great things I make with them.

And now for my couponing deals so far this week.

Last night I scored this awesome find at Walmart. I've never used their price matching method before, but I decided to give it a try. Big Lots advertised All detergent at $3 per bottle. I had several $1 coupons but Big Lots does not take them, and so I took the sales ad to Walmart to have them price match. I paid just $2 per bottle for all four!

This evening I headed to Rite Aid. I'm collecting some baby items for a gift and they had a great deal on diapers. They were on sale for $8.99. I had two $2 off coupons and two $1 Rite Aid coupons, plus the $10 coupon from my previous shopping trip. So I paid a total of $1 per package of diapers. I wish I couponed this well when my daughter was a baby. I would have saved so much money! But, I will surely be prepared for any future babies that may come along.

As for the rest of the items, the Pert Plus was on sale 2 for $5, but I had $1 coupons making them just $1.50 each. The dish soap was something I didn't have a coupon for, but it was on sale for just .88 cents which I thought was a very good price. And the beverages were all FREE with coupons! My total out of pocket cost for this trip? Just $10.91