Plant review: Peppers

Fish Pepper:

A beautiful little pepper plant with it's variegated foliage and oddly colored/striped peppers. This guy was slow to start producing, honestly we didn't think it would even do anything. It's heat is a #3 according to the Seed Savers Exchange heat index. I found that to be true, although I don't eat straight hot peppers so I really wouldn't know. Average pepper size was around 2 inches, tiny but with a kick. I'll grow this again next year only probably not as many plants.

Sweet Chocolate:

Only a small handful of these got to the chocolate color before we had to pick them due to cold. The ones that did make it to the chocolate stage were beautiful, a shinny brown outside and brick red inside. Not as sweet as the name implies, they had a bit more heat for a sweet pepper given it's heat number is #0. Not anything unbearable but warmer than your traditional 'green pepper'. This little plant was pretty prolific, which was surprising. I only put 3 out this year, next year I will grow more.

Joe's Long Cayenne:

Prolific, loaded, weighed down. I put in 5 of these thinking that should be enough for all the salsa I want to can. YIKES I am over run with these. We had the same problem with the cayenne as the chocolate, due to cold not many of them are red like the name cayenne implies. Our harvest was mostly green but some we managed to pamper to red. Much of these we will dry and have green cayenne powder. I intend to grow these again but not as many since they did so well. Heat #3.


Quadrato Asti Giallos: (Green Bell Pepper)

I didn't think these would attain much size but was surprised. They didn't get to the grocery store giant size, but held there own for stuffed green peppers. A really good sweet taste it's heat number is #0. The plants only had 7 or less peppers on them. I had a hard time germinating these, so I'll make sure to double the amount I try. I was only able to put 3 plants out in the garden and I'd like at least 6 or more for next year.


Wenks Yellow Hots:

Another prolific hot pepper a #3. These guys were tall, leggy plants and loaded with little yellow hot peppers. They get a lovely fire orange the longer they are on the plant. I had the easiest time growing this variety. It was the first to put out "fruit" and produced for the longest time. I will grow this again but not as many since I had two other varieties of heat for salsa's.

Next year I would like to grow an Anaheim pepper for a larger roasted pepper. I ended up purchasing some of these from the farmers market to roast and freeze. I roasted much of the Wenks harvest they will make a great spicy addition to pizzas and hummus. Knowing how poorly the germination rate was, I will  make sure to start more of the varieties I really like or felt I needed more of. I was pretty happy with our pepper choices for this year and how well they performed in this strange growing year.

first knitting project

In my not so spare time, my neighbor Kara has been giving me the basic's about knitting. I caught on quickly this time because I've already had another basic knitting lesson from my other friend Gayl. I 'got' it when Kara taught me. I practiced and practiced with a small ball of yarn and eventually moved on to this:

It's my first ever knitted dish cloth. Wonky and not quite square, but still I did it!

SlowFoodUSA egg campaign

Thank you SlowFood this is awesome! I urge everyone I know to please sign the petition for our food safety. Keeping my own backyard flock has made me more sympathetic towards the treatment of our animals and the entire food industry.

Thank's to Halpern Homestead for allowing us to support up and coming farmers and for our winter meat supply! It's video's like this that make me appreciate people who are on the leading edge of this food revolution.

Interior decorating?

To the fair

Jake and I went to the fair yesterday to take a look at all the livestock animals. It was fun, the farm possibilities spread way out in front of me. I was really hoping to see more large breed meat rabbits. The only ones we saw were: New Zealand (all white with red eyes), Californian ( white body, black feet, nose, and ears, red eyes) and Creme de Argent ( flecked tan and white with brown eyes). The only one of these we would consider raising is the last one, the Creme de Argent. Commercially it's very easy to get a hold of a New Zealand or a Californian since that's what most backyard growers raise. Honestly I want something that doesn't scare me when I look at it. Red eyes and all that. I know weird right? But whatever, I am the way I am.

New Zealand and Californian images from here.

The raising rabbits for food is still an open discussion between us, we've not decided yet to go ahead with the idea. I think it's a logical step though considering what we already do here. We aren't able to raise chickens in any quantity, not with out Jake going insane from the noise. Chickens have a tendency to get rather loud and sometimes obnoxious, plus we have close neighbors. :o) Rabbits don't smell either, that was one thing we noticed when walking from the rabbit area to the chicken area at the fair, it got stinkier as we walked to the birds. 

We did check out the goats too. They actually had a dwarf nigerian dairy goat for me to see. They are about the size of Kai only much thicker. It would be a manageable addition to this small farm..... however I haven't lost my marbles entirely, one thing at a time. I must ask myself do I want an unbreakable milking with every morning and evening while the goat is producing milk? A question I can't answer yet because I am still working on rabbits.

In a constant busy state

Life is crazy right now! It's not all work and no fun though. I've been in demolition stages of the garden for the last week. Pulling plants out that are done and generally harvesting everything I can get my hands on.

Our tomatillo plants did not like this really cold weather, the whole plant started to yellow and look generally unhappy about the arrival of fall, so I harvested everything. Like a complete geek I forgot to weigh the end result so I'd have some idea of what we pulled from 4 plants. My best guess is about 15 pounds or less, that is loosely based on how heavy the basket was bringing the haul into the house. Here is the husked and about to be washed tomatillos. They almost filled the sink.

Yesterday I pulled almost our entire bush bean harvest. It consisted of Montezuma's Red, Hutterite Soup, and Black Valentine they are red, white, and black respectively. I am not worried about keeping the plants straight because the beans are so obviously different. So I dumped them in a giant pile and got to hulling the bean pods off the plant (mom helped with this big pile.... thanks mom.)

In other exciting news..... look it's our first grape harvest!! Although I am not sure if harvest is really the right word for it.

We intend to make a very small bottle of wine..... HA HA! We tried it though and it could've stayed on the plant about a week or two longer and they'd have been a bit sweeter. Still, we are looking forward to next year when we may actually have some to eat!

Into Fall

We've officially leaped into fall. Day time highs in the mid sometimes 70's and lows in the high 30's. This is mid-late September weather for us. It's proving disastrous for our tomato harvest, the cold nights and slow to warm mornings are not helping them ripen, 2010 has been a challenging growing year.

I went to Goodwill and Value Village our two local thrift stores and purchased what I call "shit sheets." They are usually ugly, torn, and generally the wrong size for any bed in my house. But being 3.99 or less per sheet it saves the pocket book as well as the garden. I now have a giant rubbermaid tub full of blankets, sheets, (fabric) shower curtains, ugly sewing fabric, random pillow cases and old paint drop cloths. I never said it was beautiful.

When Jacob and I first started removing the grass in the back yard to make way for a garden, the 'yellow house neighbors' yelled over at us "you guys putting in a new lawn?" we replied "no, were putting in a garden." Ever since then we've been the 'don't speak to them they are the crazy neighbors.' Honestly, pointing and hushed conversations on the deck with any visitors to there house ensued.... it was rather childish. Admittedly, it took us 2 years, first in sod removal, raised bed construction, irrigation, and bringing in loads and loads of compost. This is our first real year of growing something other than garlic and cover crops.  It looks really good out there, and it should with how much freaking effort we put into it. Anyway long story short, Jacob and I were outside orchestrating the sheets when 'yellow house neighbors' (we don't know there names we run in VERY different circles) yelled over at us again. "I've been meaning to tell you guys, your garden looks amazing!" He made mention of his wife's family who have a garden and have been struggling with it during this crazy growing year. We said thank you, and we appreciated his comments. Then that was it, he went back inside and we went back to hanging sheets.

I don't think our 'yellow house neighbors' could see this, the potential of growth, color and food. To me, the garden looked like this all along. I envisioned rows of ruby tomatoes and amber sunflowers, tall leafy carrots and emerald salad greens. What I'm saying is colors, textures, and scents all blending into a beautiful garden. I saw this all along and now that it's finally here it feels 'right', like yep, I thought so. Does that make any sense? Probably not.

Contentment might be a better word for it.

Solar Highway

A quick post.

I was just emailed this video and thought it was profound and way outside the box thinking. The concept, solar highways to generate electricity. The vid's only about 4 minutes long. Enjoy...