Finally, our tomatoes are rolling in slowly. There are a ton of them out there growing in the garden and now little by little we are able to enjoy them inside. We have a serious love for tomatoes.

I have a feeling there will be a whole lot of tomato posts in the near future. We do have 34 varieties growing after all…

Tomorrow is August 1st and most of the new sponsors are already up and I will have a fun little announcement in the morning. Here’s to one month left until babycakies 4 makes an appearance… YAY!!!

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Don’t forget to try and win this and this!

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The final count for tomato varieties we have growing this season is 34. Good golly miss molly!!! We were running out of room that Ben had to build another bed. This time he made a rolling bed and we have it on the concrete. He used redwood and the approximate measurements 4′(w) x 2′(h) x 2′(d), with 4 casters on the bottom for easy rolling (though this thing is pretty heavy, so it does take some muscles). There are different ways to make this, but he followed the same design he used to make the raised beds, which he had originally learned about from Sunset.

He added wooden poles up the sides and top, so we would be able to string up the tomatoes vertically as they grow. If you look at the raised beds in the first two pictures you could kind of see our tomatoes, but these pictures were taken a month ago and have they have grown like crazy since then! We have already seen some baby tomatoes on many of the plants and we are anxiously awaiting the day we could pick them and eat them up.

I think we are mostly done planting for the season. I got some french broom in (to replace one of the many plants the pocket gopher ate) and some type of growing vine. The heat has now taken over our days and I don’t think too many plants will fare well being planted at this time. We learned our lesson from planting last summer as we lost many plants because there was not enough time to get established before the heat set in. I will be ready this Fall to get my Spring plants in, but we will see how that will go as tending to a newborn and the bigger ones will definitely take precedence.

Do you have a Summer garden? What kind of crops do you have?

Once I get the backyard semi-cleaned up, we will give you a little tour soon.

We worked on projects all weekend long. Ben finished his garden bed and now is about to start another. Yes, another! I worked on my own project, but am far from finished, though at least I have a direction. There is at least one trip to Lowes every weekend, but often there is more than 1 trip in 1 day. With all these projects it feels like we can’t ever catch up on the ordinary things. For example, all the laundry is done, but sitting in a huge pile outside our bedroom. And I mean huge, people, HUGE! I just need one day alone to get all the ordinary house things out of the way and another day just for email (so sorry if you are awaiting a reply). Golly gee, will I ever catch up?!

On another note, since you were so helpful on my previous post (I am looking at all your suggestions for the yellow dress). I am looking at Singapore Math or Right Start to use for our homeschooling math program. Anyone have any thoughts or suggestions on those? I would love to hear them or learn about what program you may use if you are schooling at home.

Ben had a day off so we could catch up with some stuff that needed to be caught up. The main one was getting the vegetable garden, more like tomato garden, ready. Last year, we had 29 varieties of tomatoes, this year we plan to have to close to that amount, but the fun thing is we are trying some new grafted tomato varieties out. We are pretty excited about those!

It takes so much work to get a garden ready. We had to take out all the dirt from all 4 beds, mind you they are 9′ x 4′, then put down some hardwire cloth to protect against our new friend, mr. gopher (it isn’t a mole or a vole, but a pocket gopher) devouring our crop, then we had to add the dirt back in, add some metal posts for the tomatoes, along with some new compost, then more dirt, and more compost, then mix it all together. This must be done 4 times and with the sun beating down on us. We. Are. Tired.

The girls helped when they wanted to and played the rest of the time under a nice shade. Ain’t being a kid grand?! It was fun to all be out there together as a family and the girls were happy as can be getting to be outside. They brought out as many toys as they could and were playing school and mommy and scootering about all day long.

I can’t wait to officially get these tomatoes in the ground and Lord willing enjoy a good harvest. There is so much to learn with gardening and all the technical stuff that comes with it. I am glad Ben is good at researching all this stuff (and enjoys it too) because there is so much science and planning behind a garden.

The rest of the evening will be spent eating cupcakes and yogurt and sitting around because this mama and her baby belly are super duper tired (and the allergies have kicked into overdrive)! Tomorrow all the work will continue again…

How was your day today?

We have got a mole *vole (or maybe a mole or both!) in our garden.

Last week, as I was watering, I would notice little mounds of dirt on top of the mulch and I just thought the girls either dumped dirt there or I forgot to cover that spot with mulch. Then, I noticed more every few days and so I told Ben.

We now have about 6 plants gone, two of which were my favorite poppy plants, so we really gotta get this thing before it devastates the rest of the garden. We know it is just after the grubs in the dirt, but in the process the little dude scratches out the roots and then the plant just dies. Plus, this is all happening in my favorite corner of the garden!

We have flattened out the mounds to see where the mounds will reappear tomorrow. We are gonna try to get this little dude out. Dead or alive. Sorry PETA!

Anyone have any tips on how to deal with this kind of pest in the garden? We are trying to avoid using any chemicals. Remember when we had those grubs filling our soil? Now, we got moles. If it isn’t one thing, it is another. I wonder what God is trying to teach us through this?! But if you got tips, please do help!!!

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* I saw the little dude today and it isn’t a mole, but a VOLE!!! I think. Keep the suggestions coming…

This season we planted about 12 strawberry plants and I am hoping they do well, so we have our own organic strawberries to eat from. I gave Soulie a little tour of the garden and all the strawberries. I was telling her the name and trying to get her to repeat it, but that didn’t work so much. Then, I finally picked the ripe (some overripe) strawberries we had ready, rinsed them and gave them to Soul. She was instantly a fan.

So much a fan that when we weren’t looking she started grabbing off any semi-red strawberry off any plant that she could get her hands on. How do I know? Because I knew she had eaten all the picked ones and we already cleaned her red face up. A few minutes later, I looked at her face to see it smeared with red all over again and her chomping down on some strawberry leaves. She picked and ate the strawberry leaves and all!

Now if we see some strawberries missing or are left wondering why nothing is growing… it’s because we have a straw-burglar on the loose! Watch out!!!

p.s. Are you ready to style your home? Rachel’s e-course is now up for grabs! Purchase it here. And my friend Citlalli is having a giveaway here. Always something fun in blogland!