Gardening: My Tomatoe and Pepper Progress

[passedpawn]

https://www.chilipeppermadness.com/...ot-sauces/homemade-sriracha-hot-sauce-recipe/
The recipe is a little loose with liquid suggestions (more or less vinegar, more or less brine). I didn't keep a strict count of how long I fermented the peppers other than it was at least 10 days and as long as about 3 weeks. I ran the peppers through a food processor both before fermenting and after fermenting and the recipe additions. They would not get smooth though. I only had just enough rice vinegar and I ran out of brine. Maybe a blender would have been better. I didn't end up straining it either as suggested, seemed like I might lose a lot of material. I food processed the hell out of too! I had the speed setting turned all the way up for minutes. I'm nowhere near a hot sauce connoisseur though, mainly just Sriracha and low heat sauces. I am fermenting all my habaneros now though. I had pretty good fortune in that a lot of them turned orange off the vine. I am going to make something out of them but I don't know yet for my brothers.
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If you heat the peppers before straining, you'll easily get all of the goodness through the strainer easily. I use a pressure cooker and just get it up to pressure for 5 minutes. I heat the peppers after running them through the food processor, to macerate them.

I've also tried to push them through the strainer without heating, even after puree'ing them as much as possible in the food processor. I left a LOT of meat still in the strainer.

I even cook them this way after fermenting. It makes straining for hot sauce SO much easier. BTW, I use a standard rubber spatula to push through a strainer.

 

[suzeQ]

I put dried bird's eye chillies in our spice grinder once. Thought I'd have a go at making my own chilli powder. Boom! Had to cordon off the kitchen for the rest of the day. I was able to open my eyes the following day, though.

Lol! So sorry but that made my day. Also good to know.

 

[passedpawn]

Chili pepper flakes. Smoked in traeger for 12 hours @ 165°F, then food processor for 15 seconds-ish. Strainer to separate the flakes from the powder.

Delish. Where's the pizza?

 

[bleme]

Do any of you let your jalapenos go red? I just put a dozen of them in a jar. All red!

I pick about 90% of my jalapenos red. I think they have a lot better flavor.

 

[Dog House Brew]

I pick about 90% of my jalapenos red. I think they have a lot better flavor.

Me too, picking my very last ones tomorrow. Heading into the 20’s next week. Bye bye fall, hello winter.

 

[mbg]

Need some help with making tomato sauce.

Been canning whole tomatoes for years. Last year I purchased a strainer and boiled down the tomatoes to can sauce. When I went to use the sauce it has a bitter or acidic taste. Man, I have lots invested in 20 quarts of the sauce. Is there a way to save them? How do I prevent this in the future?

Thanks
Mike

 

[Deadalus]

Need some help with making tomato sauce.

Been canning whole tomatoes for years. Last year I purchased a strainer and boiled down the tomatoes to can sauce. When I went to use the sauce it has a bitter or acidic taste. Man, I have lots invested in 20 quarts of the sauce. Is there a way to save them? How do I prevent this in the future?

Thanks
Mike

In the future, look for a well rated marinara recipe. I have one I use and like. One thing about it that I think makes for a good sauce is the addition of carrots, which lend a sweetness to it.

A little bit of sugar might take the edge off the bitterness.

 

[Hanglow]

Started another hot sauce, 500g of assorted chili's, couple of carrots, half an apple, 4 cloves of garlic, squeeze of lime juice and 3.5%salt

 

[passedpawn]

My peppers are still giving joy, but the white flies have moved in and that is usually the beginning of the end of the plants. I have a new cure for this, will give it a shot in the morning. I've tried all the normal remedies to no avail.

I pulled a bunch of red jalapenos off my plants in the last couple of weeks. Made some sriracha sauce. I meant to ferment it, but because I'm the dumbest of azzes, I added vinegar and thus there will be no fermentation. My jalepenos are VERY hot, so I attempted to tame it a bit with some red peppers (also from my plants). It's still damned hot. Too hot really.

After straining, I added enough xantham gum to give it the proper thickness. Definitely sticks to the chip.

 

[passedpawn]

Germinated the new plants: habeneros and jalapenos. Not sure I'll need these if I can save the plants I have growing now. But those white flies usually win the battle.

 

[Hanglow]

Still getting the occasional pepper from the unheated greenhouse. Had two frosts so far but they've been protected by the glass I guess. Also went down the coast and got a car full of seaweed for the allotment. Half in the compost pile, half spread around my winter leeks and purple sprouting broccoli for some slow release feed.

 

[bleme]

4 more plants left to pull out and I’ll be ready to plant for next year. I’m thinking I’ll ferment all the red peppers together, then use all the green and yellow peppers in a cooked sauce.

 

[Deadalus]

4 more plants left to pull out and I’ll be ready to plant for next year. I’m thinking I’ll ferment all the red peppers together, then use all the green and yellow peppers in a cooked sauce.

Hmmmm Visalia, my grandmother lived in Visalia. Nope, nothing growing here in WV. I eased off the selective pressure on the slugs and they chewed up the brassicas I had planted under the low tunnel. The cold snap last week put us down to -8F but a couple of 60° days just recently now have me thinking about next season!

 

[GreenEnvy22]

My plants have all been pulled since early November. But my greenhouse plants are still producing. I keep it at 15C so far. It's built against the house and has a basement window open to it with a fan to pull in warm house air. It also has an electric space heater on an inkbird. I probably won't try to keep it at 15C all winter due to heating costs, but it's been a mild winter here in Niagara so far.
Battling aphids again though, so everything is covered in diamataceous earth, and i set off a fogger inside last week (house window closed for the day). Those seem to be helping. In the summer I had some praying mantis I hatched and they did well, but disappeared in fall.
In addition to peppers in buckets, we have our fig trees, a couple tomatoes, then some leafy plants in a hydroponic setup.

 

[z-bob]

I found a bag of frozen fresh red peppers in the bottom of my freezer from at least 10 years ago. They were from an accidental cross between a common jalapeno and an unknown Chinense pepper -- probably a mild one like Trinidad Perfume because I think that's all my brother grew that year. These peppers volunteered the next year. They look like small misshapen jalapenos and are fiery hot. Any chance the seeds would still be viable? It's a frostfree freezer, which does not bode well, but the peppers were frozen whole and in a ziplock freezer bag; they look to still be in pretty good shape. I'll plant a bunch of the seeds in February to see if anything happens. Since they would be F2 hybrids it could yield a lot of different interesting variations.

 

[bleme]

The green and yellow peppers sure made a pretty mash!

 

[NeilMac]

Mine are on the way.

Yellow Cayenne
Bulgarian Carrot
Kung Pao

\

 

[Hanglow]

I started most of my seeds on this day a year ago. Will probably start this weekend I think

 

[passedpawn]

Still getting lots of produce off my cayennes and jalapenos, but I'm thinking about cutting them down and restarting. They got hammered by the white flies this fall, and some cool weather, and the leaves on some of the plants have a yellow color that isn't good.

Thoughts? I'm debating between

1. cutting them down low and letting them grow back strong
2. pull them completely and get some new plants in there.

I have started a bunch of new plants from seed and they are ready to go in the ground.

 

[Hanglow]

Two of five plants I overwintered kicking off and seedlings under light. Broad beans have just germinated, rhubarb is just starting and chives and garlic are growing. I'm itching to sow more, but will wait for another couple of weeks when we have 10 hours of light and increasing fast.

 

[Abrayton]

These seeds are on their way.

Kraken Scorpion Red
Orange Torpedo
Death Spiral
CPR x
C3PO Chocolate
Purple Peach Snake.

 

[passedpawn]

Plucked some stuff off the existing plants, cut everything down to about 1 foot, planted some new peppers. In with the new, out with the old.

 

[bleme]

My mystery pepper seems to have made it through the winter! For now, I am calling it a Birds Eye Chili but I will probably never know definitively. It has a nice, fruity taste but is one of the hottest peppers I have ever had. I’d guess it is about twice as hot as my cayenne, so about 100,000 scoville.

So my question is what do I need to do to get it ready for spring? I was planning on adding 2-3 inches of compost to the pot. Do I need to cut it back? If so, how far?

 

[bleme]

Picked up the first batch of plants from the nursery this weekend.
60 bunch onion
6 Burpless Cucumber
4 artichoke
1 grape tomato, (jelly bean)
1 salad tomato (stupice)
1 large tomato (celebrity)
1 zucchini
1 8-ball squash
1 golden starburst squash

No peppers yet. All they had were 6-packs of peppers and I’m not interested in a repeat of last year, though the main culprit was too many cherry tomato plants. Definitely no jalapeños this year. The ones at the grocery store are cheap and better in just about every way.

 

[passedpawn]

Picked up the first batch of plants from the nursery this weekend.
60 bunch onion
6 Burpless Cucumber
4 artichoke
1 grape tomato, (jelly bean)
1 salad tomato (stupice)
1 large tomato (celebrity)
1 zucchini
1 8-ball squash
1 golden starburst squash

No peppers yet. All they had were 6-packs of peppers and I’m not interested in a repeat of last year, though the main culprit was too many cherry tomato plants. Definitely no jalapeños this year. The ones at the grocery store are cheap and better in just about every way.

The japs I grow are better than store. Hotter, and larger. And, I had fun letting them all go red. I made a killer chipotle sauce from them. I agree with the cherry tomatoes: I had so many that I started canning tomatoe sauce from them.

 

[bleme]

The japs I grow are better than store. Hotter, and larger. And, I had fun letting them all go red. I made a killer chipotle sauce from them. I agree with the cherry tomatoes: I had so many that I started canning tomatoe sauce from them.

The japs at my grocery are as long as my hand but for some reason the ones I grow are closer to thumb size and not suitable for poppers at all. Great point about letting them go red though. That’s how I used nearly all of mine last year and really liked the flavor. I still think I’ll go back to Fresno chilis though.

 

[jrgtr42]

I started my seeds a couple weeks ago. Only a limited amount of space, so limited numbers.
Cayenne, Jalapeno and habanero peppers.
Cherry, Beefsteak, Black Krim and Cherokee Purple tomatoes.
Sweet peas, Honeynut squash.
PLus cascade and newport hops.

I'll have to do work in my garden area before planting - pachysandra is taking back over. |PLus it needs compost and such.

 

[passedpawn]

The japs at my grocery are as long as my hand but for some reason the ones I grow are closer to thumb size and not suitable for poppers at all. Great point about letting them go red though. That’s how I used nearly all of mine last year and really liked the flavor. I still think I’ll go back to Fresno chilis though.

man, I have so much. These are for nachos, and I do like them that way. I was hoping the jarred ones would last me throught winter - I've got new japs on the vine now, so I guess I have plenty haha.

 

[z-bob]

So far I have Scotch Bonnet x Yellow Bell pepper (no idea if they will be hot or mild) and Japanese eggplant seeds up, and eggplant-shaped eggplants just starting to germinate. My other peppers aren't doing anything yet. It's too early to start tomatoes.

 

[Hanglow]

Tomatoes will be Pricked out soon, chillis need repotted now. They got off to a bit of a rough start, not the best potting compost I think. Should be fine now though