Gardening: My Tomatoe and Pepper Progress

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Here's a pic of our tomato plants in one of the 4' x 8' gardens and the electric fence protecting them. The plant stakes are 8 footers.

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Oldskewl said:
WOW! Those tomato plants are huge! Did you prune the bottoms? They look healthy.
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My wife has an awesome green thumb. She figured out the way to get the most production out of the 4x8 space by using organic (very stinky) fertilizer, pruning them and tying them to the poles. These are all indeterminate heirloom tomatoes. The "Versafence" is about knee high and fence controller keeps the 'effing raccoons oout of them, haven't lost a single one. :rockin:
 
My okra is about 6.5 ft tall now. I'm going to break up some ground by hand this weekend to plant my fall crops. Thinking about planting some winter wheat in another spot.
 
HarborTownBrewing said:
Had okra last night with some tbone. Okra and steak is one of my favorite combos.

Also had some home grown tomatoe:tasted almost a little chipolte and smoky. Really interesting and delicious.
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Okra and steak were MADE for each other, I too had okra and steak last night actually. One way that I've been cooking it is to just slice it, salt and pepper, and nuke it for 2-3 mins. I know that sounds like it would be terrible, but you'd be surprised. I'm trying to lose some more weight and get my cholesterol down more, so trying to avoid frying as much as I can. If you nuke the okra too long, it doesn't taste very good.

I ended up with a variety of Mustard Greens to plant called Tender Leaf, so no turnips this go. I accidentally bought forage wheat, but that's ok. It's a soft white variety, I imagine I will brew beer with most of it in the spring. Hoping to get the gardening done today.
 
I used a pick axe to break up the ground by hand, then used a hoe to make my rows, this is about half of what I'm going to plant for the mustard greens. There is another spot that I'm going to break up and plant. I laid black plastic down between the rows. Gotta be careful not to plant too many seeds with greens, the seeds are so small it's easy to over apply. When I was pulling up all the cucumbers and cantelopes, I was thinking how so many people who have livestock don't bother to feed that stuff to them! Winter cover crops are great, dunno why so many don't take advantage of that whole other growing season.

Hopefully I will get the wheat tomorrow or soon this week.

My okra is doing "ok"? haha

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HarborTownBrewing said:
Had okra last night with some tbone. Okra and steak is one of my favorite combos.

Also had some home grown tomatoe:tasted almost a little chipolte and smoky. Really interesting and delicious.
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estricklin said:
Okra and steak were MADE for each other, I too had okra and steak last night actually. One way that I've been cooking it is to just slice it, salt and pepper, and nuke it for 2-3 mins. I know that sounds like it would be terrible, but you'd be surprised. I'm trying to lose some more weight and get my cholesterol down more, so trying to avoid frying as much as I can. If you nuke the okra too long, it doesn't taste very good.
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Fried is hands down my favorite with okra, but sautéed with some thinly sliced yellow onion or shallots, some diced tomatoes, and a couple cloves of garlic or just some garlic powder even, and some salt and pepper is quite delicious, and healthier than fried for sure.

passedpawn said:
Habanero powder and flakes. The resulting product is very hot. I wore a mask and still ended up with sneezes and burning upper lip.

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Dang! That's nice! No eyes burning also?! I bet the smoke would be like walking through mace.
 
I like these okra ideas. I have always just fried them, but was thinking about grilling them as well.

My habs are all orange now, so I think it's time I pick them. I'm still trying to figure out what to do with them. Actually, I have a bunch of new ones blooming now as well which really surprised me.
 
HarborTownBrewing said:
I like these okra ideas. I have always just fried them, but was thinking about grilling them as well.
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Someone turned me on to grilling okra a few years ago and it's the only way we eat it now. Trim the stalk end and cut the larger ones so they're roughly all the same size toss in some pecan oil and salt and grill to your desired liking. Man that's good stuff. I have a SS grill topper plate to keep them from falling through the grate. I've been lucky so far that my wife hasn't realized that less okra make it to the table then left for the grill. ;)
 
estricklin said:
How long did you roast the peppers?
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I did a taste test with the cayenne and habanero flakes last night. Tortilla chips, sour cream, tossed with lots of flakes. Man, those hab flakes taste awesome - I couldn't stop snacking.

I used hickory wood on the hab flakes and you can definately taste it. So much flavor. Smoked flakes are a whole different animal than the storebought dried red chili pepper flakes.
 
I also used hickory for my peppers but I only smoked them for a few hours and then put them in the oven for awhile and then air dried them. Even then, the smoke flavor and aroma is huge. Very tasty stuff.

On a side note, the processing seemed kind of hard on my Cuisinart. The bowl was a little scratched and stained with the powder. I then made the mistake of soaking it in a strong solution of homemade PBW (90% Oxyclean and 10% STPP) and it left a lot of little cracks in it. I forgot it could do that to polycarbonate. :(
 
Advice Needed: I'm going to make habanero sauce tonight, which will include blending about 10 habs. Will I have a hard time getting the capsaicin out of the plastic of the blender?
 
passedpawn said:
I didn't. Soap and water. Everything cleaned up easily.
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Good to know, thank you. I saw some people post about how they couldn't get the oils out, and their next blended items tasted spicy and whatnot. My wife will absolutely not be pleased if I ruin something to blend hot peppers.
 
I managed to keep my tomatoes, squash, zukes and eggplants alive this summer in spite of the 30+ days over 100F, but with our rural coop's water they stayed barely alive. But suddenly we have rain, I'm picking 4-6 squash or zukes daily, I finally have my first green tomatoes and my Japanese eggplants are producing fruits. My cantaloupe has gone from 3 spindly vines with a couple of blossoms into a one square meter mass of vines and even a few small fruits. I don't know what it is about our water, but it will not germinate seeds and it will not encourage growth.
 
corkybstewart said:
I managed to keep my tomatoes, squash, zukes and eggplants alive this summer in spite of the 30+ days over 100F, but with our rural coop's water they stayed barely alive. But suddenly we have rain, I'm picking 4-6 squash or zukes daily, I finally have my first green tomatoes and my Japanese eggplants are producing fruits. My cantaloupe has gone from 3 spindly vines with a couple of blossoms into a one square meter mass of vines and even a few small fruits. I don't know what it is about our water, but it will not germinate seeds and it will not encourage growth.
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I was reading something recently about germinating seeds and it said that city water contains chlorine that might result in germination failure.

I kinda doubt that. I've grown my plants from seeds with normal city water. In fact, just this last week I had jalapenos and basil germinate. But I many seeds in a packet don't come up, so there's that. Anyway, that's all I got :)
 
passedpawn said:
I was reading something recently about germinating seeds and it said that city water contains chlorine that might result in germination failure.

I kinda doubt that. I've grown my plants from seeds with normal city water. In fact, just this last week I had jalapenos and basil germinate. But I many seeds in a packet don't come up, so there's that. Anyway, that's all I got :)
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We have a rural co-op, they only chlorinate periodically. I used to plant all sorts of seeds-spinach, beets, radish, etc. A few seeds would come up, not many. But after the first rainstorm I'd have stuff sprouting everywhere. My hops were alive this summer, and I watered them almost daily because of the heat, but the tallest one was 3'. We got our first rain of the year last weekend and suddenly I have hops 12-14' high, covered with burrs and cones. It's been like this for about 10 years, every since the co-op's primary well went dry and we switched to a well in a different area. They swear the water is the same, and it passes all the state tests, but there's something about it that's not good for plants.
 
I'd ask for a detailed water analysis from the local water co-op..After living in west Texas (Lubbock) for many years, I'd bet the pH level is through the roof. Even here in the DFW metroplex, the water pH of tap water from the North Texas Municipal Water District can run 8.2 or higher in the summer. Most vegetable plants are not happy at that pH!
 
Not vegetable related but an illustrative example:

"Marigolds were highly sensitive to high pH. Plants irrigated with nonsaline water with pH at 7.8 exhibited a 50%, 89%, and 84% reduction in shoot DW in ‘French Vanilla’, ‘Flagstaff’, and ‘Yellow Climax’, respectively, compared with plants irrigated with water with pH 6.4" DW equal dry weight analysis.
From HortScience October 2009 vol. 44 no. 6 1719-1725
 
passedpawn said:
I did a taste test with the cayenne and habanero flakes last night. Tortilla chips, sour cream, tossed with lots of flakes. Man, those hab flakes taste awesome - I couldn't stop snacking.

I used hickory wood on the hab flakes and you can definately taste it. So much flavor. Smoked flakes are a whole different animal than the storebought dried red chili pepper flakes.
Click to expand...

Yeah and I personally love pepper flakes, I eat them by the tablespoon on anything like pizza or pasta. I put my peppers on my electric smoker before I went to bed the other night, set it for 150-175F, in the morning they were starting to dry so I let them go all day while I was at work. That evening I put them in the oven for a short time on 275 to finish the drying. I'm the odd one because I usually use oak to smoke with, but I'm not prejudice to hickory. I crushed mine into flakes but have been going 100 mph, have not even tried them. I worked 12 hours today, came home and had to swap a water heater out, it's 4 am and I'm done finally.

I'm going to make some chili powder from some of the crushed flakes, I'll add some paprika and cumin to be sure. They sure do smell good. Thing is my plants are still loaded. I'll post some pics soon.

As for the chlorinated water I've never had a problem sprouting seeds with it. The only problems I've had with seeds not sprouting were form old seeds, (more than 2 years old typically) and too much rain when direct sewing, which causes seeds to rot. I've had the birds get their share too though. They seem to love turnip seed for some reason. I don't doubt there could be some benefit to watering with non-chlorinated, but it's not practical for me. I did grow a 1 acre garden one year, with all well water. It did pretty well, but was really too large to manage without a tractor.

Anyone ever grow peanuts? Something I keep wanting to do but have never tried.
 
Leaves will show soil deficiency before fruit will. It is also entirely possible you just grew a ****ty variety. There's so many that it's so hard to find what works for you. One of my favorite cherry tomatoes is the "Husky" which, oddly enough, is a Bonnie Plants variety, and available at Home Depot.

Tomatoes are difficult. There's a constant struggle between finding a tomato that has proper disease resistance for your location, is prolific, and gives you the quantity and flavor of tomatoes you're looking for. If you're also looking for an open-pollinated or heirloom variety, your fortunes may shift dramatically in one direction or the other.

The perfect tomato plant is my unicorn.
 
Leaves look pretty good, a little yellowing on some of the lower leaves, but that seems to be normal this time of the season...

Fruit is just really small....

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I finally tried my hand at a homemade hot sauce. This one used 12 of the Caribbean Red Habeñeros, with carrot, onion, roasted garlic, and a honeycrisp apple. The apple left a lot of pulp after i blended it, so I strained it... and now it's on the watery side. It tastes delicious, but I'll skip the apple next time.

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