I Made a Small Upgrade to My Garden & It Made a BIG Difference

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:00:05]What is going on everybody? Welcome back to Real Life with SLR.

[00:00:11]Y'all, today is gearing up to be another bright and sunshiny, beautiful day, despite the fact that we've got nothing but rain on the agenda. Pretty crazy, huh? It's a little humid right now. kind of overcasty, but it's actually pretty nice because like I said, we're planning on having nothing but rain.

[00:00:36]Let's come on in here into my garden. I want to show you guys a few things. It's been a little while since we were in my garden together.

[00:00:47]Check it out, guys. Yay!

[00:00:52]Look at all this greenery, friends.

[00:00:56]It's looking so good in here.

[00:01:05]I love how this ground fabric is holding up. It's doing so good. I am having quite a bit of grass grow right here along the blocks, which I knew was going to happen. And I'm probably going to have to come here with the weed whacker and whack that down before it gets too tall. And I do have quite a bit of grass and things growing inside the blocks, but I planted wildflower seeds. So, I'm not sure if that's like the wildflower seeds that I planted sprouting out or if it's just grass. There are some areas where it's clearly just grass. Like over there, clearly that's that's grass. But in other areas, it's like I don't know.

[00:01:45]Is that going to turn into some pretty wild flowers? Is it weeds? I don't know.

[00:01:50]And uh even in some of these other spots, like right here, that guy right there, I'm pretty positive is a volunteer cucumber cuz like a couple seasons ago, we had the kids out here helping us uh plant the garden and they did spill some seeds and um you know, every once in a while we have volunteer plants just pop up. Like I've had volunteer tomatoes and by the leaves and by the look of it, that really looks like a cucumber. So, I got one that's popping up on the outside of the blocks right there. And I think I'm just going to leave it alone cuz it's food, you know. But there's actually a couple more on this side here, too. And correct me if I'm wrong. If you don't think that it's cucumber, let me know what you think it is. Uh, I'm going to let it kind of grow and see what happens. But look at this one right here, too. Like, this guy looks like it's probably cucumber. I don't know. And then there's this one over here.

[00:02:48]which this guy I'm like pretty positive, man. It's got flowers on it and everything. Like it's really vining out pretty big. Um I'm trying to encourage it to kind of go go this way and so maybe it can kind of kind of go up on this trellis, but we'll see. I I'm pretty sure though, guys. I don't I don't know. But it it looks like a cucumber plant to me. So, I got those ones that are probably cucumbers. But then I actually did a thing, too. And um I planted some cucumbers over here.

[00:03:25]And I ended up getting those cucumbers from Walmart. Um I was going to get some from Roxan. However, I took way too long on going over there and um cuz we've been so preoccupied with the house build and stuff. And long story short, she was like, "Well, if Mel's not going to come and get them, well then I'm just going to keep them." She kind of built something for her uh her garden area and she's keeping them now. So, I ended up having to go to Walmart and pick myself up some. And I got a couple of different kinds over here. These ones right here are the cucumber, the heirloom straight.

[00:03:56]But I got it right there. I got it right there. And I got it right there. And then these three over here, they're cucumbers as well, but they're a different kind of cucumber. These ones are the slicing cucumbers. So, I wanted to give you guys a quick little walk around in my garden today because things are definitely growing quite a bit and um it's been a little while since I've been in here with you guys. Now, one thing that I still have yet to do is I still have yet to put the automatic watering system back inside here. And I'll be honest with you, I feel like I'm probably going to have to just wait until it's a good time for Gary to come down and help me out with it because I've never installed one of those things before. Now, I feel like I probably could do it and I could do it do it well. All right, I can follow instructions. However, it's going to take me like a good portion of the day to get it done where Gary, he's installed it each and every time. and I feel like he'd be able to just come down here, bada bing, bada boom, and it'd be installed. So, he already told me he's going to do that for me. It's just a matter of when. Uh, right now, he is currently doing a lot of the plumbing upstairs. And if you guys stay tuned to the end of the video, I'll give you guys a sneak peek on what Gary's got going on with the pecs going everywhere. Um, and then it seems like when Gary hasn't been working on that kind of stuff, like I said, it's been raining so much out here lately. So, the timing just hasn't been opportune for him to be able to come down and do that watering system for me.

[00:05:30]However, in the meantime, I did get sent something that I'm so excited to use and I'm going to use it with you guys today.

[00:05:37]I've already used it once. Um, it is the ZJ Fanner retractable 100 foot hose. Y'all, this thing has been so handy uh in the meantime since I haven't had my automatic watering system set up.

[00:05:52]Installation was very, very easy. It went up very quickly and it was pretty much already put together straight out of the box. All we had to do was just mount it here. And um I'm really happy that I have this because all of my plants that are inside, you know, little uh my buckets and stuff are not going to be on the automatic watering system, only the beds. So, I'm still going to have to come down here and manually water all of these plants. Well, with the retractable hose, I'm going to be able to just, you know, bring it on over here, turn it on, and water my grapes. No problem.

[00:06:41]It's really nice, guys. I can use this little le lever right here where my thumb's at and I can control how much water I want.

[00:06:49]I can go full blast or I can turn it off all with just the thumb maneuvering. I could do a halfway if I don't want it to be so hard.

[00:07:02]And the kit came with everything. It came with all the mounting hardware. It came with the actual retractable uh container and it came with the spray nozzle. The spray nozzle is pretty nifty because like I just showed you, you can use it all just with the your thumb really, really easily. And it has several different settings right here on the top. So, I've been using it on angled because I like the way that it sprays angled where it goes straight and then also down. So, I could reach the plants pretty well even just standing right here. Got to get that water flowing real quick.

[00:07:45]But it does have several different settings. For instance, shower full flat mist soaker cone and then jet jet moves pretty far. Look at it's going all the way over to the other side of the garden just to stranded from here.

[00:08:20]This thing's really nice to have inside the garden because it's a 100 ft hose and it's retractable. So, that means that I don't have to spend any time winding it up. And it reaches my entire garden with ease. I'm sure I could actually take this down to the animal area and fill up the water over there if I wanted to or the chickens because the hose is just that long. One other really cool thing about this particular retractable hose is that the enc casement right here, let me get a little closer and show you. So, this enc casement is a little bit different than other ones on the market because of this down here. I don't know if you could see it or not. It looks a little dark on my camera, but you see those holes right there? Those drain holes are pretty important because if it rains, which it does all the time out here, or if you get water inside your unit, it allows the water to actually go out and drain out. So, it's not going to get moldy in there. It's not going to start stinking.

[00:09:16]We had a retractable hose in um in Arizona and it did not have the drain holes and it stunk. Anytime that I would pull out the hose, it would be like pew.

[00:09:27]It was It was bad. So, so far so good. I really like the ease of installation. I like the hose itself and I like that they thought of the little things such as the drain underneath because that really does make a big difference. So, I figured I would water some of my plants and I would show you guys um what we got growing on out here. Catch what I did there? Growing on.

[00:09:51]And my hose is just going to come along with me. Let's stretch her out real big.

[00:09:56]Let's take her all the way to this back portion of my garden.

[00:10:02]Still going.

[00:10:04]See that? And it locked into place. So, I'm not going to be fighting it, you know. So, let's start over here in the um the herb garden area. Let's give these guys a nice drink.

[00:10:21]It was supposed to be raining all day today, but it's not. I mean, it's nice and overcasty, right?

[00:10:31]But no real rain.

[00:10:36]Let's give these guys a nice little drink and then I'll show I'll do some show and tell with you guys.

[00:11:03]Heat. Hey, Heat.

[00:11:09]Heat. Heat. N.

[00:11:19]Heat. Heat.

[00:11:40]Nat la.

[00:12:16]All right. Well, I got my garden watered with ease. That was actually really easy and really nice to be able to walk around my garden and get everything nice and soaked and watered and I didn't have to spend a bunch of time winding up a big stupid hose. It just did it automatically. So, that was really, really nice. Again, a huge shout out and thank you to our video sponsor for sending us their awesome product, sponsoring today's video and the channel. If you guys are interested in picking one of those up, I put a link listed down in the description below. I also pinned it to the top of the comment section. I think it's pretty awesome and I never take on any items that I don't think would be really beneficial for the homestead as well as beneficial for you guys. So, if you guys are in need for a nice 100 ft long, automatically retractable hose, this seems to be a good one. I I never heard of the brand before, but now that I have, I'm very impressed. I think that it's going to last for a really long time. Time's going to tell, but so far so good. Seems really nice to me. So, again, if you guys are in the market, check out the link listed down in the description below. I also pinned it to the top of the comment section. But now that I got all the plants watered, let's go around and check it out and see what we got going on. Um, I did do some light weeding. All right, you guys saw me doing some. And I have to say, all right, there's a clearcut winter. The garden beds right here were so much nicer to do the weeding, and I was able to get all of the grass and all the weeds out of them. However, the garden beds in the middle that I did not do the replacement ground fabric to, um, clearly there is a lot of grass still growing inside of those garden beds, and it's not nearly as clean or as easy to deal with as what these ones were. The problem that I'm running into is that if I barely even touch uh the ground fabric right here, it like disintegrates and rips and it's so weak. The grass is able to grow just right up and through it.

[00:14:16]So, I'm kind of kicking myself because when I laid down all the ground fabric, I did debate it. I was debating whether or not I should do these middle sections. And I was wondering if future Mel would be mad at past Mel. And future Mel is definitely shaking her finger at past Mel. Why didn't you? And I still might, you know, I still got some of that really nice ground fabric over here. And I still might come over to these middle section areas and kind of do some patchwork, but that's literally all it's going to do is patchwork. I'm going to just, you know, cut a few pieces here and there and just put it in there. And that's a big maybe. Um, I really should have done it when I didn't have anything planted in here or when I only had one or two things planted. Now I feel like I'm just this is what it's going to be until all of these plants are done producing for me and then, you know, I'll go back and do it then. So, it is what it is. You live and you learn. I I kind of had a feeling when I was doing it that that's what I should have done, but yeah. Anyways, I was able to get the majority of the grass and the weeds out.

[00:15:25]These long ones had hardly anything in it at all. Uh the ground fabric over here is doing fantastic with keeping just the plants that I want in here. So, let's go over what I got growing and we can show you guys some growth and uh we can see a few things. Cuz as I was walking around watering, man, I've got some stuff sprouting. Some things are producing. In fact, there's several things that I can bring into the house right now if I wanted to. Okay. So, right here we've got some beautiful spearmint growing. And it's actually two plants cuz this was one that I grew from last year and that I transplanted here.

[00:16:02]So, you'll notice this right here is the spearmint. And then this is actually oregano. So, there's a little spearmint, little oregano, and then right here, kind of the same thing happening. This is the oregano, and then there's a little bit of spearmint. So, I guess they just really like growing together.

[00:16:19]Who would have thought, right? But I got I got them. They're growing pretty good.

[00:16:23]They smell like I wish I had smell vision because standing right here like you can you can smell it. It smells super good. Now, right over here. All right, we got some some sweet basil. And this is doing really good. In fact, I can pull some of this off if I wanted to today and start using it inside um like my spaghettis on my pizzas. Just using it as a nice seasoning. Same thing with those. I can start pulling those and using those um fresh or I could even dry it out, which I might come back and start drying some of that oregano for some of the seasonings. But sometimes you want fresh and I can come out here and pick out the fresh immediately if I wanted to. Now, the margarine, same thing. I can come out here and start picking some of these and start drying them. But I want this to bushel up a lot bigger than what it currently is. Uh, but even as it is right now, like this one back here, it's got a little bit bigger leaves. The leaves don't get too big on the margarine, it just kind of bushes. And then once it bushes more, then you chop it. And then you hang it upside down and dry it. And then you use it kind of as like the Italian seasoning. That's part of what that is right there. Now, right next door, we've got some beautiful rosemary. And this one is going to bushel out uh quite a bit more, too. And it's going to get a lot thicker. This one I wouldn't really mess with it and leave it. I would not really mess with it right now. I would kind of just keep letting it do its thing. It's still kind of small for for the needs. You would I would have to use like all that. So, I don't really want to do that. So, I'm just going to let it keep growing. Now, right over here, we've got all of this beautiful parsley.

[00:18:03]And this parsley, I could use it today if I wanted to. Just come out here and pull some of this out and use it as I need to.

[00:18:12]over here. Man, my cilantro is starting to get huge. I've got a lot of cilantro.

[00:18:17]In fact, it's starting to seed out. I can come down here and uh chop it down and it will keep growing. It's not bad.

[00:18:25]It's not ruined. Um it doesn't it's not like gone to seed and and wasted. In fact, I could just come down here and it's kind of like the onions. It's going to be the gift that keeps on giving. So, cilantro is one of those things where either like you love it or you hate it.

[00:18:40]Some people say it tastes like soap. I don't have that. It's never tasted like that to me. It's always been really good. So, I don't know. Um, but I do like cilantro on our street tacos when we make them. Usually, it's just like some meat, uh, some onion, and the cilantro inside a corn tortilla shell, double shelled, and kind of just like cooked till warmed up. You know, that's how we do our street tacos around here.

[00:19:05]And I like the cilantro on it. I feel like it gives it the perfect flavor that it needs and it mixes in perfectly with the white onion. So, um I definitely have plenty for our next taco night, that's for sure. Looking on down over here, it's looking a little limp just because I just watered it. But this is kale, guys. This is going to grow tall and bunch out and get a lot bigger. This has a long way to grow. I got some more kale kind of coming through that hole, too. And it looks like a few volunteers just kind of just decided to sprout right there. So, I'm just going to leave it alone. Um, I planted like some mixed lettuce, like sprouts right in here. And it seems like this is the only area that even sprouted. The other two, nothing happened. I don't know if it was just the ground covering, you know, and like the plant being not that strong to pop it through. I'm not sure. But that's the only area where anything sprouted. But that's all right because right next door, look at all of that lettuce, friends. I've got some beautiful variety lettuce right here for some salads and for some sandwiches and for whatever I need. Um, I've actually already been out here and picking off of this thing several times. These big, really nice leafy lettuce pieces are fantastic because I'm not really eating bread right now, even though I love bread. But these really big pieces of uh of leafy greens like that, they work fantastically as opposed to bread. So everything that I've been eating like my hamburgers and stuff like that, I've been eating it inside the lettuce. And in fact, remember those street tacos that I was just telling you about?

[00:20:42]Exactly. Instead of having a taco shell, you can do it with the lettuce and it tastes just as good. All right. You're not missing out on anything. It works out really good and I really like that.

[00:20:54]that I have these really big pieces of greens that I can use as replacement to bread andor shells. So, yay. That's pretty good. Right now, looking on over.

[00:21:04]All right. Looking on over this way, we've got tomatoes.

[00:21:08]Tomatoes.

[00:21:11]Now, these guys right here are actually like the beef steak big boy tomatoes where they're supposed to get like real big and hearty. I don't have any actual tomatoes growing on them yet, but we've got some flowering going on. And that's going to turn into tomatoes. We got some more flowering going on. Same with over here.

[00:21:30]And this guy over here. Same thing.

[00:21:34]They're just about to the size where I want to grab those cages and throw the cages on there. In fact, let's just go ahead and do that before I squirrel off on something else.

[00:21:48]Heat. Heat.

[00:22:14]Hey, hey, hey.

[00:22:44]All right, that looks so much better, friends. All of my tomatoes got little cages around it. They're standing up a lot taller and prouder. I did do some quick light pruning to them, so they should be good. Um, while I was pruning, I did notice a few things. So, these ones, they just got the flowers on it.

[00:23:04]There's no actual tomatoes on it. These ones are the beef steaks. It's going all the way up till about right here. Um, and then that one too is a beef steak. But these ones right here, these ones are my like small cherry tomato. Look at that, friends. I got some small cherry tomatoes already growing.

[00:23:25]Peekaboo.

[00:23:27]Hey. And then over here, too. Look at that. I got some more growing on this one, too.

[00:23:35]So, yay. So, my tomatoes are doing really good and I knew that they would because tomatoes grow fantastic out here in Arkansas. I have gotten like a overabundance of tomatoes every single year that we've been out here. So, Arkansas is definitely great for growing tomatoes.

[00:23:55]Over here though, friends, I've got all of my onions growing and they're growing pretty darn good. I've got some yellow onions right there. I've got some red onions. And then of course I got my tall leafy green onions. The gift that keeps on giving and never stops giving. These guys are doing fantastic. And in fact, they are ready. If I wanted to pull any of those out and use them for any kind of seasoning or on tacos or in soups or in whatever, you know, with eggs or something, I can use those now. And in fact, I've already gotten several bundles off of them and they just keep on growing. So that's a good thing, right? Uh looking down over here, we've got my squash and my peas. And the squash I or I I got from uh sherams, but the peas I started growing from a seed.

[00:24:42]So check these guys out. I've already got the tiniest little baby squash starting to grow, which is very encouraging. Uh this plant has lots and lots of little vines on it. I think another little squash is going to grow from that nub right there. We'll see. Um, but there's there's definitely more flowers on it and uh more nubs. So, this one is already starting to do pretty good. I'm surprised it's not really wanting to climb up. It's kind of wanting to go out, but I'm just going to let it do its thing and it'll keep growing. Next to it, I have another uh squash plant. And the same thing, it's got lots of little nubs going on back there.

[00:25:25]And like right there, those are going to be some squash right there.

[00:25:30]So that is very, very encouraging. And that's the kind that it's going to be like that.

[00:25:38]Now, right here, these are all of my snap peas that I'm growing from seed.

[00:25:43]And I'm very happy that they were able to bust through this yucky cheapo paper.

[00:25:49]But look, I barely even touch it and it breaks. So, I'm not super surprised on that to be honest with you. But they're growing and they're growing pretty good.

[00:25:56]Let me get this piece of grass out of there. They're starting to do pretty good though. They're starting to kind of come on out. They're not really attaching themselves to the trellis just yet, but it won't be long.

[00:26:13]They're starting to come on out.

[00:26:17]Now, off and over on the other side over here, this is where I got all of my peppers. And y'all, when I was watering them, I was like, these ones down here are the pepper better bells. And these ones, you can see right here on the top. Look at all those little sprouts we got going on.

[00:26:39]Uh-huh. Got some sproutage.

[00:26:42]Same thing over here for the little pepper bells.

[00:26:46]And now these ones right here, they're the sweet banana peppers. Same kind of thing. little little tiny little sprouts kind of going on the top. And this one is the pepperchini. This one's the sweet banana pepper and this one's the pepperchini. And I have a little tiny baby pepperchini growing right there.

[00:27:04]So exciting, friends. And now this one right here is the pablano pepper. And would you look at that? You see what I see? A little baby pablano pepper. One tiny little one. We're hoping that this is going to grow a whole lot more. But hey, one is very encouraging. I'll take it. And then right next to it, friends, we have the Tam jalapenos. And these jalapeno peppers again, still they got some flowers kind of going on. I got a little baby bud right there. And if you look, look at that. That little tiny nub is going to be a jalapeno.

[00:27:41]Same kind of thing going on over here.

[00:27:43]Just kind of some flower in and nubbing out, but not really anything too much to write home about. But they should do pretty good. I've haven't really had any issue growing tomatoes or peppers. They seem to grow really good in my area, so I'm very encouraged. These guys should do pretty good as well. Looking over across the way. All right, these are my eggplant plants.

[00:28:06]And I don't know if I'm doing something wrong, if they're getting attacked by bugs. I don't really see any bugs, so I'm not sure. But all of the eggplant leaves look kind of like Swiss cheese, and they feel a little crispy. I don't know what I should do, to be honest with you. I don't see any bugs underneath.

[00:28:27]I don't see any bugs like around. So, I don't know why the leaves look like that to be honest with you. It doesn't The plant doesn't look like it's doing super good. It doesn't look like it's dead, but it also doesn't look very good either. So, I don't know. Those are six eggplant plants, and we're just kind of hoping for the best.

[00:28:48]Over here, though, we've got some watermelon starting to spread out. Let's put them over here just to have them over here. I still have, as you guys can tell, this whole area that I want to put some other stuff. I just I'm not sure what I want to put here. We have a really long growing season here in Arkansas. So, it's not like I have to rush to put anything in, but at the same time, I do need to get it in if I'm going to get it in, if that makes sense.

[00:29:15]So, I got some more work to do in here in this garden. I do know that. Um, I'm just been busy helping Gary and doing all the things, you know. So, we'll see.

[00:29:24]Put some suggestions down below, though, if you guys know our area. We are in the I guess kind of uh northwest corner of Arkansas. So, that's our zone. If you think that there is anything that would grow really good that I can either plant by seed right now um and get started for this season, let me know. Drop it down in the comment section and I'll see what I could do about growing it here in this area for y'all. I'll see what I could do. And then over here, I do have a little bit more space right in this area, too. But I figured like the watermelon vines are probably going to take some of that up. I don't know. Over here in this corner, though, I ended up getting some radishes growing from seed.

[00:30:00]And radishes are one of those things that my daughter Julia eats like apples, man. She loves radishes. She just comes out here and just like snatches it. It's so good. It's actually really good for you, too. Kind of spicy. I use it for like pickled eggs. I use it for um different recipes and stuff. I put it in salads. It's really good in soups. It's another one of those seasoning type things. So, I really like the radishes and they seem to be growing pretty good.

[00:30:27]I've probably got another several weeks for those, too. But by the looks of it, they look like they're doing pretty well. And then last but not least here in my garden, friends, my grapes. I ended up moving my grapes over here to this corner, put keeping them inside the bucket, but we put them over here in this corner. And while I was standing over here watering them, I had a little surprise. Look at that, friends. You see that?

[00:30:54]Is that baby grapes I see starting to sprout?

[00:30:59]Little baby grapes.

[00:31:03]A That's exciting. That's very, very exciting. So, yay. I hope that they start doing really well. I hope that they grow bigger and we're able to get at least one bundle of grapes off of them. That would be nice, you know. But, I don't know. You know, we'll see. Only time is going to tell what happens. So, I will say my garden is doing pretty good. I'm extremely happy with how it's working out so far. I definitely want to get the automatic watering system in, but with Gary and I being as busy as we are right now, it's really up to the mercy of when Gary has the time. In the meantime, though, it is really nice that I have the 100 foot retractable hose now that I'm able to use here in this garden. And that's really nice for not only in the garden, but taking it down and over to the animal watering areas, using it, you know, maybe on the trampoline if I need to or over in the chicken pen. The hose will reach all of those areas. So, that's really nice that I have that set up now. And it didn't take too long. You know, it was really, really, really easy. So, I'm really happy with how everything's turning out.

[00:32:05]The only thing that I am really just kind of like, darn it, I'm still kicking myself and I'm a little upset with myself that I didn't put the correct ground fabric in this area and replace it when I was replacing it in the sevens or the L's.

[00:32:20]Past Mel knew better. But here I am in future slashpresent Mel and it is what it is. I'm I'm just going to keep growing along, keep doing what I'm doing. I I've kind of succumbed to the idea that these middle ones are probably going to have a lot of grass in them. It is what it is. I'm I'm going to have to come through too with the weed whacker and whack down all the grass on the edges. But I might end up taking some of your guys's advice and pouring like that salt. It's not really like poison, but it's like a salt poison of type around the edges and seeing if that will kill it off. I'm just always a little bit hesitant when I put stuff like that near food that I'm eating. So, I'm going to look into it a little bit more. Um, but it does sound like a good idea and I could just do kind of like a barrier on that and then that would kill it.

[00:33:13]Everything that's growing inside the blocks though, like obviously there is a lot of greenery growing inside the blocks. I know a lot of it is grass, but I feel like a lot of it too is those flowers that I planted like the variety of butterfly flowers and like pollinator flowers and um just you know all that kind of stuff. I feel like if I just leave it alone, all right, and like res, you know, resist the itch to yank them all out um that I'm going to start seeing some really pretty colors in here. So that's what I'm going to do.

[00:33:48]I'm going to give it some time and see if I start getting flowers. If, you know, if I don't get any flowers, well, then I can always go through and yank them all out. And as far as like the grass and stuff, I can come through with um just straight up scissors and just kind of cut it. So that way they stay about block height. So when I'm doing all of my chores out here, picking the weeds and then also harvesting up some of the vegetables that it's not like, you know, tickling me and I have to like fight around it in order to do that. But for right now and for today, I'm just going to leave it alone and just see what happens. I was the one that planted a lot of these flowers around these edges, right? So I don't see any flowers yet, but that doesn't mean that they aren't flowers. So we'll just have to wait and see. We'll see what happens.

[00:34:37]But you know what? As for uh for today, I'm really happy with how the garden's looking. I'm really happy with how everything's going. I got some food growing. I was able to take care of some of the maintenance. I got my awesome hose hooked up over there. Got some cages around my tomatoes. So, all that stuff is doing really, really well, and I'm very happy with it. Now, before I move on into the house and show you guys a little sneak peek on what's going on, uh, with all the plumbing that Gary's working on up there, I wanted to show you guys one more thing outside. So, outside of my garden right here, all along this fence line, I have these wild blackberry bushes growing, friends. And there is so many berries growing right now. Can you guys see all of those berries? Like, holy heck, man. And right now a lot of them are like red, right?

[00:35:29]But there are some black ones in there.

[00:35:32]And when they turn black, that means that they're ripe and they're ready for eating. So there's several like just right up here. Look at this.

[00:35:41]I got these right here. These are just ready for the pickings.

[00:35:47]I've got some over here.

[00:36:01]There's a ton of them up there, too.

[00:36:03]Those are a little harder to reach. I got to get those from the inside. Uh, but they're all over the place. Complete like all over.

[00:36:33]That's a lot of berries. A lot a lot of berries. They're doing so good over here on this hill. We're about to have a huge harvest here really soon. And they're good. And they're good for you. And they're fresh. I mean, straight off the bush.

[00:36:56]Mhm.

[00:36:58]So, here really soon, like really, really soon, me and the kids are going to have to come out here and pick out as many as we possibly can. And then I'm going to have a big old jamming day.

[00:37:09]Yes, sir. I'm going to have me a big old jamming day. Except this time. All right.

[00:37:16]Funny little story time. Okay, so when we first moved out here, I made some blackberry jam and I made it like how you normally make jam. I, you know, rendered it down, added a little bit of sugar, added some pectin, got it all set up inside the jars, sealed them, did everything. When it came time for me to open up the jars and use my delicious blackberry jam for the first time, I realized that I made a uh a doors stop, a lawn ornament. Um a fake decorative piece of food. You know when you go to like model homes or whatever and they have like the fake fruit basket on the table? That's pretty much what I made because apparently wild blackberries like this, they have natural pectin inside it. And um you do not need to use like store-bought like the packaged pectin in order to make it kind of like gel up and set more. This has the natural stuff inside it. And I didn't know that. All right. I didn't know that cuz all the jellies and stuff that I've ever made before has been with store-bought fruits, not wild, you know, random fruits. And so the first year that we moved out here, I actually learned that very valuable lesson that I do not need to add any pectin.

[00:38:31]That was scary. That was a big old bee.

[00:38:33]But I do not need to add any pectin to the um to the blackberries because it has enough naturally inside it where it'll set up and jam by itself. So this year and then after I after I learned that lesson the first year um I was successful in making jam out of blackberries and it was delicious. And this year when I do it, I'm actually going to hopefully be able to record it and share with you guys uh how I make my blackberry jam. And me and the kids will be jamming. So anyhow, I'm going to go inside and see where Gary's at and what he's up to. Maybe we'll give you guys a little sneak peek as promised for those that stayed true till the end. So let's go in here and see what's going on.

[00:39:15]>> Hey. Hey.

[00:39:16]>> Hey. So you've been working really hard all day in here and yesterday. Mhm.

[00:39:21]>> How far are we?

[00:39:23]>> So, I am uh at a point now where I'm at a standstill and I got to go to the next thing.

[00:39:30]>> Oh, >> electrical.

[00:39:32]>> Oh, >> so soon as I can get electrical line ran, I can uh sort of close this side in. So, >> yay. So, that means that we're going to be sleeping in our beds again here soon.

[00:39:42]>> Real soon. Yeah. I wish it was tonight, but we're going to have to wrestle with some more big old piping and wire, which I need a I need a hand for that. And I sort of need my hand to heal up a little bit more. I smacked it really, really good with the crimper and opening it.

[00:40:00]Little forewarning to everybody, you know, when you open that thing, be careful because that thing's got some force.

[00:40:06]>> Ouch.

[00:40:07]>> And uh yeah, it happened with the very first one yesterday. As soon as I went to go get it and I went to go do it, I wasn't even really paying attention to it and they just they got me just perfectly.

[00:40:17]>> Yesterday y'all went all kinds of sideways, man. We started like we woke up with the greatest and best intentions. You were like brighteyed and bushy tailed and like doing a bunch of pecs and he was Gary did get on it, you know.

[00:40:28]>> Um but then immediately, you know, dogs got into food coloring. Snake happened.

[00:40:34]Like had to go and pick up the kids. It rained a bunch yesterday and then we had church last night. It was just >> a lot. a lot and things did end up going sideways. So, you got in quite a bit of work, but you didn't get a full on day yesterday because of all of the side skirt ski. However, we're going to show you guys where Gary's at right now. Um, and you guys can watch a lot of this madness happen, and he's going to walk you through and kind of bring you guys forward with a lot of the next steps and stuff. So, stay tuned for that. Keep your notifications turned on. But, as promised, let's check out the sneak peek.

[00:41:03]>> Oh, yeah.

[00:41:04]>> All right. So clearly our bedroom is still, you know, we got a bomb. We got this paper going off. And look at this though, friends. Bum.

[00:41:16]>> There it is.

[00:41:17]>> We've got pecs. We've got water coming in and water going out. Hot and cold.

[00:41:25]>> Yep.

[00:41:26]>> So, it's looking really good, though, guys. This was a lot of progress in a short amount of time. We've got plumbing going out from both of the bathrooms upstairs and that's done. We've got water now going into those areas and it's almost done. Like Gary said, we got to do that electricity bringing it from the downstairs panel inside the maintenance room upstairs to the panel up there and connecting it. And then basically when that's ready, um, we can stuff the insulation back in the holes and close this thing up and never have to open it up ever again because the drywall is going to go straight up on top of that. We don't have to open it up and mess around with it. So, we're so close to finally not having to open anything up again and not having to deal with itchy scratchy show with, you know, >> insulation dust and and all this headache. But, you know, it has been a bit of a headache, but we knew that this was going to be the way that it was going to be when we moved into our basement without, you know, finishing it. But, I will still stand by it, man.

[00:42:26]I will stand by it. It is better than the trailer.

[00:42:30]I will stand by that.

[00:42:34]>> As long as you knew that it was going to be this way, that's that's all that matters.

[00:42:37]>> Yeah. It's it's not the the greatest living situation at the present time, but we're making it work. And, you know, it won't be long now. We'll be getting this thing done sooner than we think. So anyway, I want to say thank you guys so much for hanging out with us today and a huge shout out and thank you to today's video sponsor. Again, I put the link listed down in the description below.

[00:42:57]Also pinned it to the top of the comment section if y'all are interested in that 100 ft retractable hose. Check it out, guys. It is on sale right now. So, grab you one while while the getting's good, okay? Uh but we are going to jump out of here. I'm going to try to jump back in with you guys tomorrow and I'll do my best about getting that Simple Life video out as soon as possible. If not today, then it will definitely be tomorrow. So, until the next one, friends, know we love y'all and we hope you have a good one >> and we'll catch you on the next one.

[00:43:23]>> Bye you guys. Later.