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I just purchased a smoker made out of a 55 gallon steel barrel last weekend from someone based out of Riverbend right outside of Modesto. The unique part of this is that it is a standup vertical pit not laid down horizontally. He also put a design on it but when I burnt out the insides Tuesday or was it Wednesday it ran the design off the pit but left the impression in a spooky manner I like.

I actually found a local place here in Sacramento that has steel barrels for sale and I think I will design my own pit and create a vertical and horizontal smoker then sell off a few of my purchased pits. I'll also buy a barrel for my dad who made his own horizontal pit about 20 something years ago and he wants to replace his in the stand he created.

Here are pictures of my new pit BBQ Pit Smoker as it joins my grilling lineup:

This year my vegetable garden has taken on a different look. The grapes vines I planted the year before came out like mad this year along with the raspberry bushes. I tried to build some structure for the grapes to grow over and still may get a trellis. The artichoke plant that overran a huge part of the garden last year is gone replaced with its smaller runt cousin.

The collards are looking hearty, along with my Armenian cucumbers and one of my zucchini plants. Beans & peas didn't come up as I wanted so I may replant some more. My Okra wasn't doing great so I planted another plant in a different part of the garden and that plant seems to have stabilized.

Overall I have a promising looking garden plus an ultrasonic pest deterrent device I picked up because of the rodent issue I had last year in my garden. Take a look and hope your garden does well if you have one!

Made some delicious drinks over the weekend with this new liqueor Ty-Ku its a light liquor and it seems to mix nicely with a wide variety.
 
I mixed it with some Remy Ma VSOP Cognac to make something they call Godzilla. Even made what they called an Asian Mojito!

Tonight I wanted something light to sip and started to make a nice neat traditional martini but then mixed some Ty-Ku, Grey Goose Citron, Bombay Gin and mint leaves from my garden shook it up in the shaker with some ice and it it is delicious!

 Only issue is its Monday so will not be able to indulge too much but this weekend I'll be sipping more! Now just trying to find things to fill my bar out and give a lot of options when people stop by.

That and a quick dip in the pool in the night about 9 pm PDT after Monday Night Football worked just fine to relax me with some cool a$$ music on my site @ http://dhoytt.com/snake-ice-radio-blog/

Finally able to get some pictures of my vegetable and flower gardens.

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Well last week I pretty much got the vegetable garden in the backyard and the flower gardens in the front yard finished except some spaces purposely left open for future updates or seasonal vegetation.

I rototilled around the huge artichoke plant that is now producing like crazy. In the garden on the other corner in backyard I tilled around the existing sage, thyme, parsley, chives & strawberries that stayed over the winter.

To compliment my existing herbs I planted, basil (didn't last over winter), mint & more chives, & green onions.

I planted Roma, Big Boy, & Yellow pear tomato plants. I also planted eggplant, hot jalapeno, Serrano, banana, red chili & three kinds of bell peppers.

For the root type vegetables I planted red potatoes, garlic, & red onion.

I also planted watermelon, zucchini squash, mammoth sunflowers, sweet corn, Swiss chard, collard greens, and mustard greens. Today I got some celery, cilantro & summer squash.

I almost forgot I also planted last week some peas, green beans, black-eyed peas (cow peas), a grape vine & another blueberry bush.

I still have a raspberry vine & what I believe is a blueberry plant from last year that survived the artichoke bush from last year. Reminds me I also planted some asparagus I hope is out of the way. Last year the asparagus, grapes raspberries, greens, Swiss chard and other veggies were over run by the artichoke bush.

Last week I also made repairs and changes to the drip/watering system.

Today I also pulled up about 5 bags of weeds from the small corridor between homes I have as well as cut the grass and edged with the weed eater and pressure washed the patio and sidewalks in the backyard around the pool. Now I have the pool pumps going to get the dirt that inadvertently got in the pool from pressure washing.

All in all it was a long but productive day!

Tomorrow the finishing touches and time to hall off some trash perhaps. Ah yes I also got some ground cover flowers to go between my roses up front called "verbien tapien blue-violet".

Pictures later perhaps. For now I will have another martini & watch the pool lights change colors on this very pleasant night.

As I was removing 2 bags of weeds from my garden today I also took up some huge carrots I planted last year and noticed the artichokes are really starting to come in now!

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These are the first Artichokes from my garden. The plant is huge and finally giving me produce! Artichokes don't produce until the second year and this is this plant's second year and this second year seems to be promising much produce from this artichoke plant!

Here are some chickens I smoked this evening so I will not have to cook a main dish the rest of the week.

I used the "Indirect Smoking" method with my Char Griller model #2424.

They came out very tender and the smoke taste was all the way through the meat.

My first rack of ribs on my new gas grill came out fantastic!

I cooked the ribs on my new Charbroil Dual Gas Grill stainless steel grill model 463268007 that's hooked to my natural gas line I had installed in my new home as an option.

I also tried some new spices and a nice dry rub rib mix of spices I blended for half the rack. I used the same spices for my wet half of the rib rack as well.

The combination of my new gas grill and my new blend of spices was ridiculously tasty!

My previous gas grills flared a bit sometimes even with two separate zones made for indirect cooking a bit dicey with the rocks they provided.

With this grills flare guards over all 4 separate burners the flare ups were virtually non-existent.

Indirect grilling is great with this grill since I could separate the two halves of the rib racks to different areas of the grill because the sizes were different and I needed to control the heat and flames on each individually.

I was able to thoroughly cook the ribs and yet had the meat coming off the bone just the way I like with good flavor.

Let me go back and clarify this was my first pork rack of ribs. I have earlier done some boneless beef ribs.

When I first got the grill about a month ago I also did some rib eye steaks and they were damned near perfect my friend brought some nice vegetables and we really enjoyed that meal. She cannot stop talking about how good those steaks turned out. Actually the chicken I cooked that day was pretty tender and tasty too.

I then had someone help me rototill my backyard and cooked some nice inch and a half thick porterhouse steaks that turned out very nice with a little indirect cooking every once in a while.

I cannot forget the salmon fillets I threw on the grill and with that and use of the side burner I have tested the grill fully and have become very familiar with the hot spots and how I need to cook each type of food I grill including vegetables!

I now feel I have the hot spots indirect cooking and timing, flame control how the grill cools and heats as well as proper cleaning methods down and I'm ready to really rock!