Profiting from bad news

The latest bad news comes in the form of tomatoes. A salmonella outbreak has caused a shortage of tomatoes in many areas of the USA. McDonald's announced today that it will suspend using sliced tomatoes in it's sandwiches until further notice.

Now if you have started a vegetable garden already this year, good for you. Did you plant enough tomatoes? If you did then you will probably have no problem selling the extras that your family doesn't use at the local farmer's market. Fresh fruits and vegetables will be high priced this year. California is experiencing a drought and the price to transport produce from Mexico will be going up.

If you have not started a vegetable garden this year yet then it is time you did. Even growing a few vegetable plants in huge pots on the patio will help your food budget. Get together with friends and use one of their gardens to grow food.

My vegetable garden is almost a year round effort with perennials such as strawberries and rhubarb. I just planted tomatoes and pepper plants last weekend and today will be adding Italian green beans. I have a fondness for the more unusual vegetables like lemon cucumbers so they will be grown too.

Last year we didn't buy any vegetables from the store for the months of May - November. That saved us about $25 a week.