Starting the second season

Howdy all!

One of the nice things about living in SE Texas is that we have a long growing season.  My tomato's gave it up in the near 100 degree heat, so out they went.  In went beans, cow peas, pintos, black, and red beans.  Down the middle went some melons and squash.  Cantaloupe, spaghetti squash, summer squash, and zucchini.

My Herb bed, some doing real good and some getting better.

My Black Berry bed with Strawberries underneath.  Next year will be awesome!

My peppers didn't so much as die in the heat as I have more than I could use.
I'll plant onions in one half, and Garlic in the other half for the winter soon.

I added some new rabbits and got rid of the old. I still have a male New Zealand, but i'm just fattening him up.  When my first American Chinchilla gives birth he's dinner.  The American Chinchilla is a large breed meat and fur rabbit that is rare since the fur industry died back.  I now have 4 does and one buck.  All but one doe is registered.  Her babies will be for meat and the others for sale.

My rabbit hutches under my mesquite tree.  Fans removed due to rain on the way.

Granite, my buck.

Dawn

Whisper

Ashley

 

Pepper!

And now the rain barrel project.  I've built a stand that will hold 4, 55 gl rain barrels.  My plan is for all of them to be open top blue barrels.  There is a lid that I can remove, so I can dip out water if I need and for ease of cleaning out as needed.  I'll channel the water in with pvc piping on the top to get the water in and the same on the bottom to get it out.  That will have to wait as its fixin to rain so I put a temp in to fill the one barrel to see how long it will take to fill.

A quarter of an inch of rain took 15 min to fill one barrel.

Critters!

Here's some fresh pic's of the critters around my back yard.

Buckwheat, Californian.

Hansel, New Zealand

BeBe, Californian

Pepper, American Chinchilla

Mixed cali/newsie bunnies

One of the babies ready for her close up.

Henny, Barred Rock

A couple of my Buff Orpingtons

The harvest has begun!

Hey all!  Time for an update as harvesting has begun.  Mostly green peppers and tomato's! My garden is really doing good for its first year, so I'm really happy.  Here's the pics!

Lots of green peppers

Blackberries and strawberries

GREENS!

Globe basil

Lotsa tomato's

Some more herbs

poblano's

Jalapenos

and serranos!

Pineapple basil

Tomatillo's and slicing tomato's in the back

Lets can some Slow Cooker Texas Pulled Pork.

Ok, here's something for my friends interested in learning about canning.  Your going to need canning jars, pints for this one.  A pressure cooker.  A pot to heat the lids. Tools of the trade.  And last but not least, something to can!  This time I'm making Slow Cooker Texas Pulled Pork, using a recipe from Allrecipe.com.   This makes 5-6 pints.  Here's the link. 

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Slow-Cooker-Texas-Pulled-Pork/Detail.aspx

Roxy on guard duty in case any pieces of pork try and make a run for it.

The juices ready to get soaked up.

The cooked pork cooling so I can pull it!

Looks good shreaded

Back into the pot it goes to soak up all that delicious juice!

Loading up the jars.

Place on the hot lids, and ready to load!

Cook at 10 pounds of pressure for 75 minuets

Loaded and read

After the pot cools, remove the lid and place on a table to cool.

Once cool, check to make sure the jar is sealed by pushing down on the tops.  If they click when pushed down, the jar didn't seal.  If not sealed, open it up and fix some sandwiches.

The Garden is in!

Howdy,

Well the garden is finally finished!  Those beds are here to stay!  The plastic wood is very heavy and a full inch thick.  I have 6 total 12 footers and 3 total 16 footers.  That's 9 beds and 10 cubic yards of garden soil I had to haul.  I'll add another 6 inches of Mel's mix come the fall as finances improve. 

Here's what my beds used to look like.

Three 6 foot beds to the right

Four 6 foot beds and Four 3 foot beds to the left.

  All the beds were made of salvaged fencing when my fence was blown down by hurricane Ike.  After four years it was time to replace them and space them better.  Ive also increased my garden square footage from 234 square feet to 360 square feet.  

After I moved and straightened the fence this is how it turned out!

My 12 footers to the left!

My 16 footers to the right.

Broccoli, Napa cabbage, and some root crops.

Blackberries and strawberries under them!

Green Peppers with marigolds to help repeal bugs.

Egg Plant on the close end.  Basil at the other end of the front half.  In the other half Jalapeno's, Serrano peppers, and Hungarian hot wax peppers.

In the back bed Tomatillo's in the front half.  Slicing and cherry tomato's in the back half.  The two closer beds both have Roma tomato's.  My other two beds will have corn in them.