Well… life at the Moby has been a little busy the last week… hence the lack of lots of posts! I’ve been pretty busy…. I had made a goal with myself to try and get as many projects and to-do-cards done as possible in the month of July and not to start any new company projects until I got things a little more caught up.

You see, I’m a kind of 43 pots on a 4 burner stove kind of gal.

Imagine that. Homeschooling, single mom, banjo pickin’ band member, small publishing business owner, 50+ website runnin’, major bluegrass venue runnin’, graphic artist and crazed gardening, urban homesteader with a mobile home to rehab and all that. Me? Busy?

Luna and me get as much hammock time in as we can, and sometimes, there’s not too much time for that!

Well…. it’s a ritual and I really like seeing how the week in the gardens have gone and so, here’s the tour! We finally got some rain, and that has been a HUGE BLESSING…. it was getting a little depressing there… 4 weeks without much more than a sprinkle. Dreadful. We had two good days, but we could use a little more but I’m happy for the two at the least and everything is greening up and happy in the gardens.

We’ll start on the ugly side of the Moby…. of course, I’ve given up on corn in the long bed, but Jessy and I planted fresh sunflowers all over and the ones that are there are doing pretty darn good. They are about a foot and half high already. And the birdhouse gourds and mini pumpkins are doing pretty good…. we’ve got one little gourd so far. Lots of flowers….

The new raised beds are doing great… corn, raddish, tomatoes, peppers, cukes and beans.

Got a white pumpkin growing on the plants in the grow bag…

Well, the wheat is pretty much done. It’s getting kind of scraggley and well, it’s looking done. I think this week we’re going to harvest it. I don’t think we’ll need to rent a big combine or anything. Scissors will probably do the job in a few minutes. We are hoping to have enough for a pretty vase of wheat or something like that. It was a fun experience and all, but clearly we are not wheat farmers. It just didn’t really thrive. We’ll cut it and maybe plant the plot with beans. I’m really digging the beans we’re getting and they are a quick enough crop that I’ll probably get something before the frost comes.

The potatoes are going nuts. They are so top heavy they are falling over. I know that when they do that, they’re suppose to be getting ready to be done. I am resisting the urge to dig some up…. we still have two bags in the pantry, so I will wait till those are gone before we pull one and see what gives…. ooooh… the waiting is such sweet agony!

Broccoli is doing great! Wish we had planted more of it!

Cabbage is SO cool…. I wish I had planted more of these as well!

Peppers are doing great! I think another week or so and we’ll have to start picking peppers…. I promised the kids to make some stuffed green peppers with lots of ooey mozzarella cheese and I hope they will be converted to liking sweet peppers. They said they would try them….

The tomatoes are starting to come in…. slowly, had several great cherry tomatoes for my salad and lunch… and one nice red Brandywine… but there are a few others getting ready. Can’t wait. Ain’t nothing better than a big juicy homegrown tomato right out of the garden….

Cukes are not doing great this year… I have about 3…. lots of flowers, but not all seem to be making it to cuke stage. I suspect the dry spell is not helping. They might not like the shady bed they are in… I planted 4 more plants out in the new beds, in full sun to test and see how they do. I was hoping the slightly shady spot would help to keep them cool and all, but the lack of consistant water has been hard on them. We’ve been doing the best we can to water, but still, they have had a few days of really wilty looking leaves and there’s a little yellowing and all on the leaves… it’s been rough on them.

The pole beans are FINALLY putting out beans! They have putting so much energy into climbing all over the place… seems they forgot about making beans! Tim’s building me a compost center and it will have two small pole bean beds on either side and space to run up and over the shed! That will be fun….

Carrots are growing, but they just see like they are taking forever. When I pull a sample one, they are just thin and nothing to them. Raddishes were a big disappointment as well. I’m not sure why, but well, I planted another packet of carrot in a few of the thin areas of this bed, and a pack of raddish over in the sunny beds, just to see how they do. If they don’t do well, they are off the list for next year. Carrots at the farmer’s markets are plentiful and cheap! I’d rather use the space for something that does well.

Got a whole half bed that is empty save one lone sunflower! I planted it today with 2 scraggly cabbages we got at the garden center and a pack of spinach. The spinach I planted in the other bed is up and trying to get going. I love baby spinach leaves, so I’m hoping to have a little bit of it in a few weeks and then some more mature to make dips and such with… great with fresh homemade bread.

We’re going to scout out a few other garden joints to see if we can get some discount broccoli or cabbages, some cool fall plants that might actually do pretty well over in this bed. We’ll see!

I’m really unhappy about my pumpkin plight.

I had envisioned pumpkin vines all over my empty lot, with tons of pumpkins to give away to some of the neighbor kids.

Well… we have two growing. That’s it. One orange, one white.

I’m pretty sure that the dry spell has just done them in. They are flowering, but they are just not doing well. We’re sad.

Our apple is really coming along. It’s exciting because it tells us that maybe next year, we’ll have lots of apples, or at least more than one, hopefully.

Maggie is calling our garden, the Number One Farm. Because we have one apple and one pumkin and one gourd, and one blueberry and one raspberry… HAHAHAHA… Smart ass kid. Next year we’re gonna have like 3 or 4 of these things… hahaha

Been kinda on the broke side this month…. July is not a great homeschool publishing company month… most families are enjoying the summer and having fun, doing vacations and all that. It will pick up, but well, it’s been a little on the thin side.

However, we could not pass up this awesome deal…. 50% off all fruit stock at a local nursery. We bought this cute healthy grape vine, loaded with fruit for only $9.99. Maggie has adopted it as her plant pet, and we have named her Marie (after all, aren’t grapes French?) and she was planted at the corner of Maggie’s fort. We’re going to get a few big cup hooks to kind of help her to climb up the walls.

I think we’ve already decided that we’ll be scraping up pop bottle money to go and get Marie a friend for the other side of the fort… and Jessy wants to nab a couple beautiful blueberry bushes for her pets… we love fruiting perennial plants…. and 50% off is a deal!

Well, that’s the garden update for this Sunday evening…. It’s really almost Monday, but hey, that’s the life of a stay at home graphic artist…. I often burn the midnight oil. But I wanted to get my update here, because even if you all don’t care so much… I get a big kick out of seeing it week to week because it changes so!!!

Gardens grow up so fast don’t they?

And by the way… we’re up to 9 pounds of produce off the gardens!

YEAH!!!!!