May 30, 2020
by dhoytt
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Garden Produce in Home Made Hamburgers

Here are some pictures of my garden produce I used on some hamburgers today. I used Swiss Chard, basil and tomatoes from my garden along with onions from the store. I warmed the Swiss chard, basil and onions on the grill with ground black peppers, garlic with a dash of butter then sliced the cherry tomatoes and placed them on the burger after everything is cooked.

Swiss Chard in garden.
Cherry Tomatoes on the vine.
Basil plant in garden with smaller purple basil plants coming up from seeds from past years.
Swiss Chard, basil and tomatoes from garden.
Swiss chard, basil, onions ready for the grill.
Hamburgers ready with eggs, Swiss chard, basil onions, Gouda and cheddar cheese.
About to dive into hamburgers!

May 24, 2020
by dhoytt
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Early Morning Gardening Complete

Did some early morning gardening keeping the grasses and weeds in check after I cleaned my grills and threw some meats on the Traeger smoker.

It’s amazing all the little grasses that come up weekly. The grass and weeds most under an inch tall mostly but after I was done today that grass and dirt intertwined in the roots was about half a 5 gallon bucket.

Anyway some items like the Thai basil bush the bees love are producing and other plants like my “husky cherry tomatoes” are thick with ready to turn red fruit.

I have gotten several sweet and purple basil sprouts from seeds mixed in the soil from when I turned and mixed the soil with my rototiller. Also getting some squash and cucumber from seed mixed in the soil from rototilling.

I kept one side of the garden for plants that run and have vines like squash, cucumbers and watermelon plus a couple of rows of peppers. The other garden has tomatoes egg plants, Swiss chard and items like that. I have spices like basil, rosemary, sage, tarragon and mint on both sides in various spots. Plus have my raspberry and grape vines dominating the background.

The side with the running vines and plants doesn’t look as developed but when they start growing they will be all over the place.

Here’s the pictures:

This side of garden has Thai basil, peppers, cucumbers, squash, watermelon and some other herbs.
Another angle of side of garden with vines that run almost forgot about the always present grape vines and raspberry bushes.
This side of the garden has my tomatoes, eggplant, Swiss chard, and one lonely habanero plant along with herbs.
Another angle of tomatoes etc.

I will be adding other items as I get time and moving some of the items once they get to a certain size that came up from seeds mixed to various spots from my turning over the soil from prior years plants. I moved one plant today that had come up to close to a pepper plant that sprouted from a prior years plant.

Can’t wait to start eating from my garden again regularly!

May 22, 2020
by dhoytt
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Quick Wood Fired Wings on Traeger

Had a taste for some wings and didn’t want to trust my satisfaction to a restaurant so as I normally do made my own. I didn’t do my favorite honey flavored hot wings but some garlic Parmesan.

They turned out good and I let them cook a tad bit longer than normal as I wanted the meat to come off easily but not fall off.

I put my personal rib rub I sometimes use on ribs and pork plus a garlic Parmesan sauce after taking them off the grill. Followed with a Beck’s beer and some Jim Beam neat. Turned out okay I had to slow down as I downed about 15 wings very fast.

Here’s the pictures of the process:

Mixing in oils and other liquid enhancements plus some rub.
Ready on the grill after getting the grill warm and smoking
Getting the garlic Parmesan sauce ready.
Wings ready on the grill.
Wings off grill ready for immersion on garlic Parmesan sauce.
In t the bowl awaiting garlic Parmesan sauce.
Garlic Parmesan sauce.

Well after being this I was committed to wing consumption and that was the last photo. Now posting this listening to Snakeice’s House of Beats sipping on whiskey.

May 16, 2020
by dhoytt
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Smoked Salmon

Well I think I have the makings of getting the smoked salmon technique down, I just need to fine tune it a bit. The part I need to fine tune is the rub and washing it fully off before drying the salmon. I did this on my Traeger Pro bbq pellet grill with applewood pellets.

The salmon was a bit salty but I found a good sweet dill sauce recipe to balance the saltiness out. This sweet dill sauce will be my go to salmon sauce as well as a good sauce for some poultry or pork dishes.

I did an Atlantic Salmon along with wild Sockeye Salmon great flavor outside of being a bit salty as I mentioned above. Next I’ll do one with less salt and properly wash the rub off before drying and one with no rub.

I’ll also start posting more of my bbq and smoked delights maybe even go back in time to post some favorites since I did take the pictures already.

Anyway here’s the photos of my smoked salmon this past week along with photos of the process. I’ll link to the recipes later hopefully.

April 19, 2020
by dhoytt
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2020 Vegetable Garden Ready

The 2020 vegetable garden is set and ready to go! There will be some fine tuning as normal, plus additions of plants. This year I started a preliminary type drainage near the back wall for when I’m pressure washing the excess can drain off.

I basically changed the entire soil composition of my soil more than normal this year. I always add top soil and mulch but this year I also added sand and used my rototiller to mix it all together to 2 feet below in depth in stages on various days as  you can see below.

Anyway here’s the latest pictures of my garden more information is coming later.



April 12, 2020
by dhoytt
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Metamorphosis of Over Run Vegetable Garden

Some pictures showing the over grown vegetable garden after being away for over 6 months and then not being able to tackle it when I first got back. So much was going on when I got back my mom in hospice trying to get her care. Then so many other personal things and projects like taxes coronavirus canceling work schedule and other functions like HOA board responsibilities, registering car, smog for truck, maintenance for boat, unpacking from trip, straighten up houses etc. I start lining up working on garden and the ultimate unthinkable my mom passes and my dad just passed in December they were married 63 years. My dad’s passing hasn’t sunk in fully and I needed to step into the role to get the funeral and other arrangements in these self-isolation times for my mom not really having time to grieve after doing the same in December for my dad.

Now working on the garden something I used to share with both parents keeps me occupied and the garden is in horrific shape but as you can see it’s coming along after one weekend of putting in a bit of work. I still have much to do.

I had to work on my rototiller replacing a fuel line one the large rototiller then the lighter cultivator/rototiller I had to take apart the rewind mechanism.

Still got quite a bit done and I have plants on deck from nurseries and saved from the garden I will replant. I took out the drip system as I always do every year so I could till the soil then add in some mulch. Thankfully I also have a smart sprinkler controller I installed last year from Gro so I can disable the vegetable garden zone from a phone app while I have the drip system disabled.

Still a bit to do but here’s some pictures of the horrific state of the garden I had to deal with and the progress I made this weekend.