A good bunch of grapes

Well after several years of waiting and trying to beat one small dog out of picking all the ripe grapes we have a wonderful crop. These are wine grapes and since all the tags have faded I do not recall what they are. All I know is that I am finally getting enough to make a small patch of wine. It is so strange that even in such a drought as we have been going through the grapes are doing really well. Two years ago we had way to much rain in a short period of time I thought I had lost the whole bunch of vines. Thank goodness that was not the case. So here are a few photos for you to look at and think of the bottles of wine it will make. I shall post a picture of one of the bottle once I get it made this winter. We don't have a cellar or cool place to make wine so I need to wait for cooler weather.

Some old heirlooms makeing a presences

As I had written several posts back I planted some unusual heirlooms in my veggie garden. So here is one of them I just recently harvested. It is a Sheep's Nose Pepper. I am still looking for those heirloom tomatoes to start producing now.

Rain Rain Go Away Come Again Another Day

That is a children's song I remember from when I was growing up. After almost 2 years of not having any really good measurable rain I am finding this to be a terrible song. Last week many of my fellow master gardeners and I attended a rain barrel making workshop. Billy Kniffen who is the big guru for rain water harvesting here in TX ran the workshop. I have posted some of the photographs my friend Marilyn Pease took at the workshop. I am now ready and loaded to make a string of barrels for over in my veggie garden. I will take pictures of my progress on my barrels.







This is Billy showing us how to drill the holes in each barrel.













There are several types of barrels and ways to use them here in the photo. You can use it to have a continual drip feed to a birdbath or wildlife water system, like the one below.





The next photo is a way of using rain water catchment for wild life. It is called a Wild life guzzler