Just some garden talk

[T]

Hi All,

Well, since doing this for eight years or so, this is the first time I have feral tomato plants growing in my garden. I noticed after it got hot in August, they popped up. I presume they are sweet 100's, but I only have one small green tomato so far. I am dying of curiosity.

Hmmmm. Hot and August for them to pop up. This would be why purchasing them from a green house is so popular.

On the California (Anaheim) pepper front, last year a got about ten. Max was about three inches. This year, I have a bumper crop. And big ones too!

The tiles are six inch squares.

I made chili and crispy Ratatouille out of them.

Chili:

1 bottle of organic tomatoes (Italy). (Canned tomatoes are an abomination) 2 large California chili peppers diced (mine) 2 lb grass fed hamburger (down the street) a bunch of onions pulled green, stems and all (mine). diced t about a cup and a half garlic diced, about five small cloves (mine) Oregano flakes (grocery store)

You simmer down the tomatoes and peppers by themselves before adding the rest of the ingredients.,

Yum!!!!

And I found I like raw zucchini with my home made blue cheese dressing (let me know if anyone wants the recipe).

And it looks like I am starting to get some roots on my Choke Berry clipping. And right where I cut off the leaves, as Songbird predicted.

And I have a jungle of Sweet 100's that taste like candy. Tried growing other cherries, but they take to long to harvest (zone 6c is really short), have low yields, and to be quite frank, they don't taste all that nice either. This year only sweet 100's. I RESISTED TEMPTATION !!!

Life is good!

:-)

-T

[T]

last year a got

es.  This year, I have

You should taste the scrambled eggs I make with these peppers too!

[Terry Coombs]

  Try those Anaheims stuffed with either cheese or meat/rice , battered and fried . Look up "chili rellenos" for some ideas - the beaten egg white coatings suck IMO , I prefer a cornmeal/flour/egg batter .

[T]

?last year a got

ches.  This year, I have

OH MAN !!!! I gotta try this!!

I will have to use coconut flour due to the diabetes.

[Pavel314]

?last year a got

hes.  This year, I have

We're going to try meat/barley instead of the usual meat/rice. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Paul

[songbird]

yay! :) i'm glad things finally worked out for those. good peppers are heaven on earth.

if you have more than you can eat, they are good if you roast them on a pan in the oven and then you can pack them in pint jars and freeze (i don't like plastic so i don't like freezer bags or other plastic containers). make sure to leave about an inch and a half of head space so there is room to expand during freezing.

roasting will reduce the volume by about half but it makes them so sweet and i like the bit of char on them. i don't bother peeling them after they are roasted, but some people do. i just chew 'em... a bit of extra fiber doesn't hurt.

roasting them on the grill would be good, but we don't have a grill here...

songbird

[songbird]

yeah, unless you have a near semi-tropical season it can be hard to get much off feral tomatoes. around here it happens once in a while, but i normally just turn them into worm food as i don't want yet more plants to weed around or interfering with the neighboring plants.

:) look great!

i have never put oregano into chili. :)

i have eaten it plain like cucumbers before but we don't grow it here as we have way too many cucumbers to contend with as it is.

i think we've hauled about 800lbs of cucumbers in so far this season. and that is a very conservative guesstimate. we have to pick again today along with the tomatoes.

is it in water or in potting soil?

i've liked the yellow ones we've grown here before but no cherry tomatoes this season. just the beefsteaks.

:)

songbird

[T]

It is a substitute for cumin. The wife has a two step allergy (two steps and you're dead) to members of the coriander family (cumin, cilantro, etc.) It is scary.

In a water bottle. I was wondering if I should add anything to the water other than the original growth hormone I added

I can't grow big tomatoes as I can not afford a back hole to come in and dig me a 6 foot deep and wide and back fill with top soil. Every time I have tried, I wind up with blossom rot. The lady at the university extension explained the matter to me, so I have stuck with cherries, which I am very successful at.

:-)

[Frank]

Thought it was fungus that required basically fresh land to avoid and blossom end rot was just calcium deficiency. I've dealt with both.

[T]

cy.  I've dealt with both.

My understanding was that blossom rot happened when the roots did not have enough room to spread out (6') and could not consistently suck up enough water and I cold not water them five times a day.

Disclaimer: I have a black thumb. My advice is probably pretty bad.

[Pavel314]

My wife makes barrows, long hills of compost and topsoil to grow things in. Instead of digging down, she builds up. I do have a backhoe so I could dig deep trenches, but we don't find that necessary.

Paul

[songbird]

Frank wrote: ...

BER is a calcium deficiency, but why any plant can have that happen can be caused by more than one factor.

some years we have it on some of the early fruits and not many after.

not this year, the slow cloudy month with gobs of rain we had to start the season must have given the plants enough time to get enough root growth done.

we had huge fruits (many over 2lbs each), but i didn't consider them to be very good quality.

i spent a lot of time today, after picking six buckets i would normally expect between 40-50 quarts from that but ended up with 22 and 1/2.

considering a lot of people had a hard time getting any at all we're happy with what we had this season but also glad we're done canning.

songbird

[T]

I go slightly under surface level so I can water with the wand and have the water only go where I want it. If it runs off, the weeds love it

[T]

One of my customers has horses and a backhoe. Every spring he empties his stables into his garden and backhoe it under. On my gosh what he can grow!!!

[T]

?last year a got

ches.  This year, I have

Not to ask to stupid a question, but how do you keep the cheese from melting/draining out of the chili?

[Terry Coombs]

  Now that I do not know . I've always stuffed them with a meat mixture since my wife is lactose intolerant .

[T]

I could always try a toothpick.

Both of us are too. We can eat the "old" cheeses as the buggers have already eaten up all the lactose. Sometimes folks that think they are lactose intolerant are not digesting the long chain fats in cows cheese causing a profound antisocial response. They can eat goat cheese without a problem. Your mileage may vary.

I would be bereft without my cheese.