Canning Jalapenos

We picked all of our jalapenos ahead of a freeze.  We canned most of them as whole jalapenos and also made some jalapeno, carrot, onion relish.

Garden Update

Making Laundry Detergent

Fall Garden Update

New Chicken Tractor

Vegetable Garden Update

Chicken Thief on the Loose.....

Garden Update

Update Sept 1st 2011

Fall Garden Update

Planting Green Beans for Fall.....

Rain, Finally....

Vegetable Garden Update August 2011 Video

We made Homemade Tabasco Sauce

Fall Garden on its way up......

The Heat is on.....

Today is the 25th day in a row with 100 or above heat.  So far it is in 3rd place for the hottest summer on record.

Doesn't look promising for the garden....

Fall Garden....

I am getting a few things in the ground for the fall garden.....

Hummingbird taking a break.....



Caught this Hummingbird taking a break.  I have rarely seen a Hummingbird sitting but this one sat here for about 3 minutes and let us watch her.



Making pots out of recycled newspaper.....

Vegetable Gsrden Update July 2011

Getting Ready for Fall Garden

Getting fall garden ready.  The dry looking spot in the middle is where I plant my fall garden.  It has been under a cover crop of rye grass since winter.  It is going to be turned under today and allowed to mellow.  We will begin to plant here around August 1st.  I have already started broccoli plants under grow lights.

Planting Sweet Potatoes...

Tomato Picking Video

Video of tomato picking.  We picked a total of 8lbs 5oz of tomatoes today.  Also I introduce my great fierce owl.....

Trying out the new camera....

Got a new camera for my birthday.  I am offical 39 and some change today.  Really like the pictures that I took this evening.

How does a chicken lay an egg???

I have always heard you should always carry a camera with you.  Today I know why.  We were walking out back towards the chicken coop and saw Mozelle, our bantam hen, kind of acting funny so naturally we investigated.  All of a sudden she starts to lay an egg right in front of us.  All the years I have raised chickens and probably the thousands of eggs we have gathered I never saw one of my hens lay an egg.

Now that was awesome.  I just wish I had my video camera with me at the time.

Chickens working Garden....

New Update Video of Vegetable Garden on YouTube...

Our first gourd.  Hopefully this will keep well once it is ripe.  Gina will use this for fall decorating.

I have shown some pictures of my chickens but I thought over the next couple of weeks I would introduce the chickens by name.  This is Butterball.  She is a Turken.  The name "Turken" arose from the mistaken idea that the bird was a hybrid of a chicken and the domestic turkey.  Butterball is quite nervous of our presents when we are in the pen.  As seen in the picture, she often will hid behind the tree until you leave.  She lays a small/med brown egg.

Fresh Picked Flowers and new video on youtube....

Gina and the girls went out and picked some pretty flowers.  They do this alot and Gina always has fresh flowers to brighten her kitchen.

I also uploaded a new video on youtube.  I explain why I am doing the things I am around here.  Hope you enjoy.

50 dollar Deck is finished....

Peach Picking Day...

We went to the Red River Peach Orchard Friday morning.  We picked 15 lbs of peaches to make jam and freeze the rest.  We had a great time.  After picking we each had a glass of homemade lemonade and peach ice cream.The biggest surprise of the trip was a quick rain shower that we ran into on the way.  I was excited the whole time we were there dreaming of that rain making it to our garden.  I was disappointed to find out that it didn't.  As of today we haven't had a drop of rain in 26 days.

Vegetable Garden Update

Tomatoes.....

Tomatoes are doing really well.  Hopefully I will be posting a really nice harvest in a week or so.  I covered the tomato plants with a shade cloth to try and aid them in setting new tomatoes.  According to Texas A&M tomato plants will not set fruit once the outside temperture gets above 93 degrees.  It has been above 93 here for weeks now.
So far I have seen several new little tomatoes.  Maybe the shade cloth is going to work???

A few update pictures.....



Black eye peas are just about ready to pick.



I can't wait to have black eye peas and cornbread.

Purple Hull Peas planted on June 1st are coming up.  We had a good germination of most seeds.

Zucchini is producing a lot.  We are picking daily.

We ate our first okra of the year this week.  We have picked everyday this week from a 10 foot row. 

It is hard to beleave that any flowers can look this good in the heat we have had this week.

Lucy is watching over her flock.  She is definatly the leader of the pack.

Our newest addition to our homestead.  Annie is playing in Gina's compost bucket.

First sunflower blooms...

This is our first sunflower to bloom.  From this angle it almost looks like an airplane.

We have reached 100lbs in fresh fruit and vegetables.....



After today's harvest we finally reached our first harvest goal of the year.  This year we have weighed everything, fruit and vegetable, that we have taken out of the garden.  This is the first year we have ever done this so I am not sure what to expect.

My goal this year is to grow 500lbs of food.  This is not great compared to some of the gardeners that I follow that have raised 7000lbs of food in their backyards but it is a start.

To the right top of my blog is a harvest summary that I update daily as we weigh our harvest.  You can keep up with my harvest there and sneak a peek to how close I am to my goal.

As of today I am at 102lbs 10oz.

A few pictures in the garden this morning....

We planted flowers in this old log by the wood shop.  They have really done well here. 

One of our chickens "Ruby" was playing peekaboo with me this morning.  She kept peeking back and forth around the coup.  She wasn't sure about me being in the run with her.

God has really blessed us this year.  My only prayer is just some rain.

Vegetable Garden Tour Videos

Fresh Eggs and First Tomato of the Year

We love our fresh eggs.  We have 8 laying hens that we get 5-8 eggs a day from.  As you can see most of our layers lay brown eggs.  We have 2 that lay  small white eggs.  We also have a bantam rooster and hen.  The hen laid her first egg yesterday as well.  We hope someday that we can get her to set on some eggs and hatch some chicks.

This is our first tomato of the year.  It is not real big weighing in at 6oz.  There are tomatoes twice this size in the garden that are not ripening yet.  Any tomato is better than no tomato.  We are hoping for a good harvest this year.  The tomatoes are loaded but any new blossoms are burning up in this heat.

Garden Update

Black eye Peas planted on June 1st germinated in 4 days.  They are thriving in the heat.

Closeup of black eye peas

Tomatoes set a lot of fruit.  With the 100 degree days we have had the recent blooms are burning up.

Jalapeno Peppers are looking good.  Every plant is loaded.

Corn is looking ok.  I am not sure if any of them are going to set any kernals in this drought.  I have been watering but not siure if it is going to help or not.

Wildflowers are not bothered by the heat.

Butternut sqaush is looking good.  This on is about 4" long.

Garlic is Harvested

Gina is braiding the garlic that we picked today.  We harvested almost 5lbs of garlic.

We braided 3 of these for storage.  They will keep in a cool dark location.  We hung them in our storage room with the onions.

Heat wave.....

The weather has turned on us.  May was great for the garden with plenty of rain to keep everthing growing.  June on the other hand.....101 degrees yesterday.  I spent half the day watering everything.  I would get all the way across the garden watered and the other side would need watering again.

This was the garden in Febuary.  I felt cooler looking at these pictures.

We did manage to get out and pick the last of the plums.  We canned another 11 half pint of jam.  We were a pound short of plums for my recipe so we added strawberries.  Plum Strawberry jam.  It turned out awesome.

We harvested 16 1/2lbs of plums off of the crooked plum tree this year.  Not bad for a tree that I had given up for dead 5 years ago.

Time to Plant Purple Hull Peas

In this video I am tilling under green beans that have stopped producing, preparing rows and seeding purple hull peas.

Cucumbers....Will not be long....

The cucumbers are loaded.  It will not be to long and we are going to be canning pickles again.  The only variety that I planted in called Homemade Pickle. They are a small canning cucumber.  The average 4" long and are perfect for pickles.

We have rested some this week after canning over a hundred jars of green beans, corn and jams last week.

The green beans have been tilled under and purple hulls and black eye peas planted in those beds.  I am looking forward to next week to start canning again.

First Pumpkin of the year

This is my first pumpkin of the year.  I actually didn't plant this.  It came up in my compost bin and vined into my yard.  I am going to let it stay and just try to keep it contained.  The pumpkins that I planted are blooming but no pumpkins yet.

Blackberry Picking....

We spent Monday morning picking blackberries at RC Dairy and Farmstead in Collinsville, TX.  We had a wonderful time.  Their farm is always so neat and tidy it was just a pleasure to go and walk around for an hour or two.

We picked a gallon box of berries.  They were all so big and juicy.  That afternoon we canned 10 half pints of blackberry jam.  We also picked another 4lbs of plums from our tree and canned another 9 half pints of plum butter.

Our total jam/butter to date is 36 half pints.  That should last a while.  We probably will not be preserving more jam until the pears are done around July.

Video of me planting Black Eye Peas

I am planting black eye pea seeds using a 3/4" pvc pipe.  It helps save my back.

The first part of the video is a slide show of the bed preparation.  The second part is a video showing my technique of actually planting the seeds.

Thanks for watching.



Pictures of Vegetable Garden

I wanted to share the progress of my vegetable garden as of today.

Two of my onion buckets.  One of the buckets has been taken over by a tomato.  I left it there.  I could not imagine pulling up a tomato plant.  Not sure what variety yet. 

My tomato plants.  I am tying them up using a modified Florida Weave.

This is my green beans and squash.  The beans to the right are finished and are going to be tilled in this afternoon and black eye peas are going in here.

Right side of Greenhouse.

Left side of Greenhouse.

East side of Garden. 

Potato Bed.