another full basket

This is our second big batch of tomatoes. The first big batch is almost all gone! We plow through these goodies like there is no tomorrow.

And we saw a little bad boy chomping on our tomato plants. Naughty, naughty Mr. Tomato Chomper!

Our weekend was just as full as this basket of tomatoes. How was yours?

meet our tomato garden

{paul robeson}

{big zac}

{cherokee purple}

{cherokee purple}

{genovese costoluto}

{orange icicle}

{green grape}

{purple calabash}

{banana legs}

I told you our love for tomatoes is serious.

Today is my Bravey's birthday and we will be taking orders from her all day long! Happy Thursday everyone!!!

they're rolling in

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.

{tomatoes from left to right: paul robeson, momotaro, black cherry, and yellow pears}

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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DIY rolling garden bed

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.

in the sun

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?

a mole

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!!!

***edit***

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

week's end

Whew! That was a busy week. Between the rainy days and the sunny days, there was a lot of playing, cleaning, and most especially gardening. The girls were all out with me yesterday playing as I was planting. My hands are so calloused and roughed up from all the gardening (and I already have dry hands to begin with). I ought to use gloves but it just doesn't feel the same. I like feeling the soil and bringing it up to my nose and smelling it! Best of all, I love that there are flowers outside that I can bring inside.

But after the days of gardening, last night I conked out in bed. After I read, I meant to go downstairs to snack and get my camera to upload pictures and blog, but then I was so tired I couldn't move and then fell asleep. Ben came upstairs to check on me, which woke me up, and I realized I still had to wash my face, floss, and brush my teeth. I hesitantly got out of bed to do so, but went back in bed to floss, then fell asleep while flossing. Ben had to wake me up to brush my teeth. Man oh man, I was tired. It is a good hard working kinda tired though and not a morning sickness tired. The days are getting better for me... praise God!

Things I learned this week...

- No one is selling any peony plants in our local nurseries.

- These would make the cutest gardening shoes.

- This thrifty challenge sounds like fun.

- My main problem isn't my impatience with the girls, but I have a much too demanding spirit and self-will. I need to be much more unselfish and prayerful about everything, but especially the girls.

- Child commercialism is so deceiving, of course own-ness also must be given to the parents. Watch this documentary.

- This book is such an eye opener. I really love it. Read it.

- Sales like the one over at Ms. Tips are always friendlier on the pocket book.

What did you learn this week? Happy weekending!!!

oh me oh my

Yeah. Remember our pretty garden? Well, that disappeared very quickly once the fall/winter rains hit and we got pretty busy, then the weeds took over. We simply let everything go as we got busy and we just never planted for the winter, so we figured we would just get our summer harvest ready once March came around. It is March now and my friend asked to have her wedding shower here next month for about 100 people so um... yeah, we better get started cleaning.

Here are some before pictures:

Luckily Friday, I finished my end of taxes early, then went to work in the backyard right away. I spent a bit of time on Friday doing some major hacking and pulling. Then on Saturday, I spent all afternoon into the evening doing more pulling, but also did some digging and planting. I love getting my hands all grubby in the soil. It feels so good to be outside gardening. I can't say I am great at it, but I really do love it.

I was so exhausted Saturday night and could not move after I came in and took a nice warm shower. All I wanted to do was lay there and I didn't even want to eat! It was a good kind of exhausting though. I am so thankful that my horrible morning sickness days are behind me and I can get out and be useful again (here's to answering emails next)!

While I pulled weeds I was thinking about how I ought to get rid of things that hinder me from my walk with God. While planting new flowers, I was thinking about how God got everything right the first time he created everything. There was no trial and error for Him. Lastly, gardening was such a good reminder to me to enjoy the Creator more than the creation. These are just more tidbits of my heart and thinking.

I have yet to take after pictures because I am so not done. Rains were due on Sunday, so I wanted to make sure to get as much planting in on Saturday. I can't wait for the rains to stop because I need to go to the nursery and get more plants. I plan to get back out this week to do more gardening. Spring... here we come!!!

Tell me what your weekend was like.

vintage tins

Friday, already? Wow. I am totally glad! It has been nice getting things back to normal around here and I can see my floor again now that everything has been cleaned up (kinda). Yesterday, I caught up on most my emails and went through iphoto deleting tons of pictures because we are running out of space on our computer. I am snap happy so we had tons of doubles, triples, quadruples from one shot, so you can imagine how full our hard drive is.

Also, one thing I have gathered from some of your emails is that many of you are requesting more recipes, is that right? We will hopefully try to get more out there, but it is difficult cause I am not the cook and Ben doesn't blog. I must convince him to get on this space and share what he cooks! Something, I am looking forward to is the cooking that will utilize our freshly planted herbs. We planted them in some vintage French tins and I think they look most lovely that way. I went back and forth between planting them all together in a bucket, or in the garden bed, but I really like the look of this much better.

There are still a few herbs I would like to get like garlic chives and another cilantro because the one we had died, but currently we have basil, sage, tarragon, hot & spicy oregano, and chives. Anyone have any other herb recommendations?

I am planning to do a shop update sometime Monday morning, which will include these dollhouse pillows (includes a giant one). I meant to do it today, but Friday snuck up so fast, so it will have to wait until Monday.

Time to get started on my Friday... I am craving Indian food, so I am hoping we can get some tonight. Enjoy your weekend and don't forget to come back tomorrow to meet another Cakies sponsor!

p.s. My sister is hosting a giveaway and has a little interview. Plus a couple weeks ago, I did a short bit about our summer table for The Stir. Check it out here (scroll down to see ours).