Gardening: My Tomatoe and Pepper Progress

[applescrap]

Cheers! Here's a garden Ratatouille my wife made in case you didn't see it. It was so good. The anaheim's have a little heat to them

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[VApatriot]

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.

 

[Oldskewl]

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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WOW! Those tomato plants are huge! Did you prune the bottoms? They look healthy.

 

[passedpawn]

^^ Yes, wow. Pretty impressive.

 

[passedpawn]

I smoked a mess more cayennes and got 3 pints of flakes and about a half pint of cayenne powder. Had some of those flakes on pizza last night. So good!

 

[Staestc]

I smoked a mess more cayennes and got 3 pints of flakes and about a half pint of cayenne powder. Had some of those flakes on pizza last night. So good!

Damn! Your double buckets are out producing my plants by a long shot! Well done!

 

[Oldskewl]

I smoked a mess more cayennes and got 3 pints of flakes and about a half pint of cayenne powder. Had some of those flakes on pizza last night. So good!

That is a lot of spice! Kudos!

 

[VApatriot]

WOW! Those tomato plants are huge! Did you prune the bottoms? They look healthy.

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:

 

[estricklin]

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]

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]

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.

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.

 

[estricklin]

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

 

[passedpawn]

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

 

[BrewinBromanite]

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.

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.

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.

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

Dang! That's nice! No eyes burning also?! I bet the smoke would be like walking through mace.

 

[passedpawn]

Dang! That's nice! No eyes burning also?! I bet the smoke would be like walking through mace.

Smoke from the smoker didn't pick up any of the heat from the peppers. Probably because of the low temps, and I didn't cut the peppers. So the hot oils stayed inside.

 

[jcav]

That's hot Andrew! No pun intended they look awesome!

John

 

[estricklin]

How long did you roast the peppers?

 

[passedpawn]

How long did you roast the peppers?

I think about 8 hrs yesterday. I let it go out. Another several hours today. I keep it really low temp, ~150F.

 

[HarborTownBrewing]

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.

 

[Inkleg]

I like these okra ideas. I have always just fried them, but was thinking about grilling them as well.

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.

 

[passedpawn]

How long did you roast the peppers?

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.

 

[jsguitar]

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.

 

[applescrap]

Some more Anaheim chillis, poblanos, and tomatos. They have chilli reno written all over them. A picture of vail farmers market chilli stand. This time of year they sell roasted chillis everywhere. Pretty cool, I still have yet to water or do anything other than pick stuff.

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[HarborTownBrewing]

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]

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?

I didn't. Soap and water. Everything cleaned up easily.

 

[HarborTownBrewing]

I didn't. Soap and water. Everything cleaned up easily.

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.

 

[WI_Wino]

I made a jalapeño wine, that bucket fermenter is now dedicated to just that...

 

[corkybstewart]

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.

 

[passedpawn]

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.

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

 

[corkybstewart]

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

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.