Peck of Peppers

      I am not sure exactly how big a peck of peppers is, but I just picked a heck of a lot of peppers before the colder weather sets in this weekend.  With shorter day lengths and cooler temperatures, I doubt there is any benefit to leaving the peppers on the plants.

Peppers picked October 29, 2014

      At the top are unripe green cayenne peppers and red ripe ones from the same plant.  Then left to right are poblano peppers, green bell peppers, lots of green jalapeno peppers, cubanelle peppers, and last on the right are chuska peppers.  Regarding hotness, the Scoville heat scale lists these peppers from least to hotter:

          Green Bell       0
          Chuska           0
          Banana           100 - 900,  grown this year but not pictured
          Cubanelle       100 - 900
          Poblano          2500
          Jalapeno         5000
          Cayenne         30000

      The cayenne are about as hot as we need to go.  A friend gave me a plant the I believe is a scotch bonnet pepper, over 100,000 on the scale.  I am afraid to touch the plant or peppers!
       I tried making hot sauce from the green jalapeno peppers, and it is worth a repeat performance.  That recipe called for refrigeration, which I prefer to the work of canning.  In any event, we need to eat a lot of peppers, or find ways to store them.  Anybody have recipes to share?

      Update 10/30/2014:  A friend emailed me that a peck is two gallons.  The critter keeper in the following picture is nearly 2 and 1/2 gallons, so I did pick a peck of peppers!  Thank you Lee.

Peck of Peppers

       

Summer Season Veggies

Tomatoes and Basil planted May 19th,  2013

      It took me a very long time to come out of winter hibernation this year.  Usually I start all of my tomatoes, peppers, and squash inside to grow out on the porch.  Just never got into it this year.  Then came sticker shock when trying to buy veggie starts.  Some tomato plants going for $3.49 per small pot!!  Finding the little six packs of tomatoes is almost impossible.  In the picture above, I have finally gotten some tomatoes and basil in the ground.  Nine days after the magic frost date of May 10th, yet we just had a frost so I was waiting.  With cooler temperatures recently, the tomatoes and peppers would not have made much outdoor progress anyway.

Peppers in the ground, May 19th,  2013

      How is this for intensive gardening?  The peppers run down the outside of this bed, garlic is in the middle, and tomatoes will be planted along the poles on the left side.  The garlic plants should all be harvested within a month, leaving more room and light for the tomatoes and peppers.  Grass clippings are used to fertilize and keep down the weeds.

Beans started, May 27th,  2013

      The turnips that had overwintered were finally pulled out and taken over to Highland Orchards for a treat for the pigs and chickens.  If you bought eggs there at the end of May and they were particularly good, that was my turnips!  On the left side of the bed you can see the white shelled Tenderpod beans, and on the rest of the bed to the right you can see some brown shelled Dragon's Tongue beans.  The Dragon's Tongue is the most moist bean I have found for eating raw.

Bean seeds covered

      Trying to avoid extra work, I just broadcast the seeds on top of the lightly hoed bed.  They were covered with about an inch of mushroom soil.  And yes, I remembered to soak the beans overnight in water before planting to get them fully hydrated.  I plan (hope) to do a better job of planting succession crops of beans this year.  There is still plenty of time to get in multiple plantings.

Bellevue Park Community Gardens

      This will be my fourth year for working my plot at Bellevue State Park.  I am a mere newbie, as some gardeners have been there since the breaking of ground 28 to 30 years ago.  The plots are 40 feet by 20 feet, and water is available by frost free spigots every 80 feet.  There are a total of 178 plots, with another seven or eight smaller plots.  I started over at the park to be able to have a veggie garden in full sun.  On these 90 degree days, it is more pleasant to garden in my partially shaded garden in the back yard.

Bellevue Park  -   July 3, 2012

       There is a Pin Oak lined drive to the left side of the barn that separates the two groupings of garden plots.  My plot is nearly in the middle of all the plots on this section closest to Interstate 95.  That is at times a drag to have to haul soil improvements into the middle, but probably lessens the pilferage from both two legged and four legged beasties being more comfortable around the edges.

Looking north to the sign to Philadelphia

More views of the extensive gardens

My garden, on the 40 foot side

      Here is a patch of swiss chard ready for some harvesting.  Lou's nephew planted his first garden this year, and planted the chard too thickly.  These are thinnings from his bed, to go along with two smaller plantings here and a larger bed at home.  Now I am the one with too much chard.  But since the squirrels ate my Bright Lights chard starts down to nothing, more is better than none.  The glass in the picture is actually a stack of most of the glass panels for my extensive cold frames at the park.  I am very happy to be able to store them all in such a small space.

      These pepper plants are off to a good start.  Most people have difficulty with peppers at the park, as the plants usually wilt and die at some point.  So it is a challenge to see if I can get a good crop.  All of my peppers were started by seed back in January, so it is already one success so far.

      The rest of the peppers at the park.  These were all extras after I planted 16 plants at home of eight different varieties.  A few plants have not even made it into the ground yet.  Usually there are losses at planting time.  This year I have lost only two plants, and have my first volunteer pepper plant.  That is a little sweet banana pepper in the above shot.

      What is this growing between the chard bed and the north side of the compost pile?  A couple of volunteer mustards, with the rest being arugula.  Did you read that Barb?  Arugula in the heat of July.  It is doing quite fine in the shade of the compost pile.  I have not seen any arugula start from the many places I threw seed pods.  But this planting must have resulted from some seed stalks that spent too much time on top of the pile before being cut into compost size pieces.  Maybe I will try to transplant some, or I may leave the patch as is just for snitching when I am at my garden.

Volunteer sunflower

      All of these pictures were taken around 5:45 AM this morning, during my attempt to beat the heat.  Is a sunflower really a sunflower before the sun is up?

Turning up the Heat

      Today starts a stretch of four days of scorching heat.  Supposed to be 97 degrees today, 100 tomorrow, and three more in the nineties after that.  I was out to the park early today, where my volunteer sunflowers are just starting to bloom:

Pollen on leaf just under sunflower

Jack and the sunflower stalk

      It is only June 20th, and this volunteer sunflower is already taller than the seven foot stake right next to it.  Is that seven foot stake too much to hope for the little tomato plant at its base?

      The Gloriosa Daisies are just starting to bloom at home.  They are very sparing in their self seeding efforts, so I really appreciate them when they do pop up in the garden.

First of the Gloriosa Daisies,  6/20/2012

Day Lily from plant give away

Orange Tetraploid Lily from plant give away

Tomato beds,  6/20/2012

      I dragged the hose out to the garden to water this morning before it got too hot for me to stand the heat.  It is not even 9:30 AM, and I suspect that I am mostly done for the day.  Here is a bed of 16 tomato plants, with peppers planted in front.  Behind is a second tomato bed with onions planted in front.  I have a bunch of basil plants that will probably get tucked into the second bed.
      There is activity again in the wren house.  I had intended to clean out the first nest, but now we have the case of a remodel rather than a new construction.  The birds have been doing a fine job keeping down the insect pests.

October Snow!!

      It's crazy.  It's October, the leaves are still hanging on to most trees, yet it is snowing.  A Noreaster is moving up the coast, with places in Maryland and Pennsylvania having received 10 inches of snow!  I still have peppers on the plants out back, and was going to pick them if this weather wasn't quite so yucky.  Two nice big Dr. Wyche tomatoes are still on the vine.  But instead of nice Indian Summer weather, we have white slush.
      Luckily there is a bit of cheer.  My Bird of Paradise that I've had for 25 years is faithfully performing its fall or winter ritual of beautiful bloom.  The show is just starting as it will continue to unfold as the days go by.  It is a ray of sunshine.

Bird of Paradise, 10/29/11

      You can see the Pin Oak tree in the background.  Most of the leaves still on the tree, yet it is snowing.  I wonder what the park garden will look like tomorrow.
      5:00 PM update.  The slop has turned into all snow, so it is not as bad to make the trip back to the garden.  And it was worth it to rescue these peppers if we get a freeze tonight.  In the bucket are assorted sweet peppers, and there are two plants of cayenne peppers pulled by the roots with the peppers still attached.  When the plants dry off, I think I will hang them in the porch for awhile.

Last of the pepper harvest, 10/29/11

 

Good Riddance Irene

      The hype for Hurricane Irene started at least a week before the storm arrived.  Unlike most storms however, she held pretty much to the anticipated path, which put Wilmington smack in the way of a big storm.  So preparations needed to be made to harvest veggies, move potted plants, tie down outside furniture, and clear off the porch.  I expected the gardens to be pretty much trashed, so I took pictures before Irene to compare with the later damage.

Backyard garden, 8/26/11

      The morning of Friday, August 26th, was misty and humid, lending an eerie feel to these pictures.  The sun flower in the background in the middle of the photo had finally had its first bloom on August 25th, the plant having grown to a height of about 12 feet!  Surely its days were limited with the hurricane coming in.  The plant was tied to a 4 x 4 pole at about the 5 foot level.  I expected it to break off there, as the sunflower plants are fairly brittle.

 

      The patio furniture was taken off the deck and tied to the ash tree.  The picnic table was flipped onto its back on the deck, and the little kids playhouse to the right of the picture was lashed to the maple tree.  A good move as it was to blow over in the storm, but it remained tethered to the tree.

Pre-storm back yard harvest, 8/26/11

      I picked most of the acorn squash for fear of them absorbing too much rain water.  Same for the white "Casper" pumpkin.  I was given the Casper seed, so tried it out.  The plant has been much hardier than the normal orange pumpkins, and looks to give me five or more nice little ghosts.  The cucumber plants have also lasted much longer this year, knock on wood.  The yellow tomato at the bottom right corner is "Dr. Wyche".  I was thrilled to see this first fruit develop, as I had grown Dr. Wyche last year from a gift plant.  It is a nice tomato, and I had unwisely failed to keep any seed from last year.  When a couple of volunteer plants popped up in the area where I had the plants last year, I transplanted them into the tomato row.  I now have two plants, and have already saved some seed for next year.  The tomato is big and meaty, has great flavor, and has an appearance that reminds me of a fruit like a mango.  Glad to have it back.
      It has been a good pepper year for me already, with many different varieties coming in.  The only hot one is the cayenne, and we actually ate one of the red ones last week and enjoyed it.  I found a recipe for green pepper soup which looks delicious, and am anxious to try that one.

Temporary indoor shelter

      All of the harvest from the porch had to be moved into the dining room.  The porch furniture came in too, and the shelves on the porch were put on their sides.  Now it is off to the park to document some shots before the storm.

Bellevue Park community gardens, 8/26/11

My Bellevue plot #84, 8/26/11

      Hurricane Irene finally hit on August 27th.  We in Wilmington were hit with 6 to 8 inches of rain, but did not seem to get the wind that had been expected.  We lost our power for 11 hours, just shy of the time to panic about our freezer.  The sunflowers at the park faired about as expected, with most of them toppled over or broken.

Bellevue Park, 8/28/11

My plot, 8/28/11

      The sunflowers on my plot got beat up pretty badly, and the pole bean trellis on the right side of this picture got snapped off.  It was repaired by strapping on a new upright to the piece still in the ground.  The beans seemed not to care, though there is a heavy infestation of Colorado bean beetles.  Unlike my peppers that have done well at home, there seems to be something at the park that kills off the plants at my plot.

My back yard sunflower, 8/28/11

      My sunflower out back made it through the storm without breaking or toppling!  Cindy and I went out the next morning as it was still quite windy, and put up an emergency 10 foot metal pole as support.  You can see the yellow crime scene tape put to good use.  For a couple of days the plant wilted as a result of too much water, but it looks to be recovering nicely.  The "too much water syndrome" has hit many of the tomato plants, so I think the tomato season will be downhill from here.  But overall, we were extremely lucky with what little damage we had.

This Casper made it fine on the vine, 8/28/11