Tennessee 2018 Garden

[Gary350]

I don't have many grapes but it is enough to make 1 gallon of red wine. I squeezed the grapes by hand then put, juice, pulp, skins all together to ferment slow. Skins contain the red grape color & flavor this has been fermenting very slow at 68 degrees for about 3 weeks. Yesterday I drained off the juice and put it in a 1 gallon jug to finish fermenting. Soon fermentation will stop and a few weeks later wine can be separated from the sediment & a few months later 3 bottles will be ready to drink.

[SQWIB]

Now your talking!!

[Gary350]

Sweet 100 tomatoes are so sensitive to being touched when they are ripe they fall off. Keep your hand under the tomato when you pick it so when you touch the tomato it falls into your hand. It has been raining every day rain drops have knocked a lot of tomatoes on the ground. I was very careful to pick about 20 good tomatoes when I dripped them into my basket the tomatoes split open. I guess tomatoes are full of rain water and stressed to the limit when they fall only a few inches they split open. Being split open is not a problem as long as we eat them now they probably will not keep well in the refrigerator. Too much mud I just have to wait to pick other things.

[Gary350]

These 7 rows have turned into a mess. This was a place to throw kitchen scraps all summer grass grew waste high we finally cut the grass a month ago then I tilled it. After it rained 3 weeks ago volunteer potatoes started coming up. I created a hill row to transplant all the potato plants which is now row 6. Then I created row 5 to plant soft neck garlic and row 7 to plant carrot seeds. Then I created row 3 & 4 for hard neck garlic. After that I made rows 1 & 2 for beet seeds. 1000s of baby 1/2 carrots are coming up in row 7 so are volunteer potatoes. Hard neck garlic is coming up in rows 3 & 4 so it volunteer potatoes. Volunteer potatoes are coming up in rows 3 to 7. There was no soil for row 1 & 2 it got pushed over to create rows 3 to 7. I shoveled soil from another location to make rows 1 & 2 that is why there are no volunteer potatoes there and no beats there yet either. Potato plants will be a shade problem for other plants but in about 6 weeks frost will kill potato plants they will not be a problem anymore garlic & carrots will have sunlight. I have 80 gallons of compose I can put over row 6 to protect potatoes under the soil from freezing I will dig them up about Dec 30 to see if there are any potatoes. A month ago I bought a bag of organic potatoes at the grocery store today I notice eyes are growing sprouts so wife pealed 3 potatoes to make vegetable stew now I have about 25 potato eyes to plant in row 8. No more rain until Monday so maybe I can create row 8 this weekend. If I had not made hills none of this would have grown in this water. Row 1 needs more soil it is not tall enough.

[Gary350]

Garden vegetable stew for dinner, corn, peas, onions, garlic, carrots, potatoes, green beans, with stew meat and corn bread. Wow this is good I had to have seconds.

[Taiji]

Looks like a nice quick wine recipe! I wanted some grapes so bought a vine on sale at a big box store when arriving here. But forgot that those stores seem to always have so many plants that aren't meant for one's particular area. So, it turns out Muscadine grapes aren't anywhere near right for this Ag zone here in the U.P. of 3b to 4a!

So, now the plan is to dig it up, put in a 5 gal bucket and take back to AZ in a few weeks. I won't be there summers to water it, so will probably give it away.
Have been researching some zone 3 grapes for next year of course!

[Gary350]

Looks like a nice quick wine recipe! I wanted some grapes so bought a vine on sale at a big box store when arriving here. But forgot that those stores seem to always have so many plants that aren't meant for one's particular area. So, it turns out Muscadine grapes aren't anywhere near right for this Ag zone here in the U.P. of 3b to 4a!

So, now the plan is to dig it up, put in a 5 gal bucket and take back to AZ in a few weeks. I won't be there summers to water it, so will probably give it away.
Have been researching some zone 3 grapes for next year of course!

Muscadine grapes are native to TN, AL & GA they grow wild here. We have hot summers and mild winters. Summer weather is 95 to 107 but year after year average about 98 to 100. Winter is below freezing at night several months warning up to 45 to 60 during the day. We have 3 months of none stop spring rain here in TN but very dry June to Sept small rains once a month about like Phoenix. I use to live in Phoenix AZ area it might be too hot for Muscadine grapes but Tucson AZ is probably better suited for Muscadine grapes and north of Phoenix elevation about 2500 ft is probably good for Muscadine grapes. I had grapes in AZ they grew very fast 2nd summer plants were loaded with grapes I kept watching them waiting for them to be ripe. One morning at sun rise grapes were ready, I had breakfast then put on my clothes went out to pick grapes they were gone, birds got them all in 1 hour. I cut vines down that was the end of growing grapes. LOL. I saw Muscadine grapes at farmers market 2 weeks ago $8 for 1 pint that is crazy expensive grapes are $1 a lb at the grocery store.

[Gary350]

I picked all the peppers that look completely red and some that were 90% red. I have learned peppers picked green will go bad before they turn red but if the peppers are more than 50% red they will turn completely red in 1 or 2 weeks inside the house. These large peppers are labeled sweet chili peppers but they have a very mild spicy hot flavor they will make a good mild chili powder. Largest pepper is 2.5" diameter and 7" long. Plants still have a lot of green peppers.

[Gary350]

These chili peppers are very spicy hot I may pull up all the plants I have no use for anything this hot and both my Sons don't want any more. I pickled some of the jalapeno last year but I never ate them so I guess I won't have a use for them this year. I won't be planting these again

[Gary350]

Flat pod beans should have been picked several days ago. I picked a few beans but beans inside the pod are large enough to eat. I like these large white beans from the pods I wish I have a large crock pot full of them. I am going to let the rest of these beans make seeds I need about 380 seeds to plant next year. If I have extra beans they will make good soup.

[Gary350]

After a week of rain I see volunteer potato plants coming up everywhere. I had 1 potato patch that I planted also 3 volunteer potato patches from potato peals. I think the potato peal volunteers made better potatoes than the potatoes that I planted. More than a week ago I started transplanting all the volunteer potato plants to 1 row but now I probably have enough volunteers to make another row of potato plants. If I don't transplant the volunteers to a hill fall rain will rot them and hard freeze in Feb will kill the potatoes too close to the surface. Should I transplant them or not? It will be nice to have a larger crop of winter potatoes if they actually make potatoes they only have 5 weeks before first frost.

[Gary350]

We had 18" of rain. TV weather Lady says Nashville had 21" and about 60 miles west they got 26".

Okra needs to be picked every day but we had a whole week of pretty much none stop rain okra never got picked. Today I cut off all the large 8" long okra pods and let them fall. I saved 2 more large pods for seeds. This will give me about 100 seeds for next year about 80 more seeds than I need.

[Gary350]

My purple hull beans and yard longs beans are growing slow in this weather sun is low in the sky now 61 degree angle the plants are not getting very much full sun. The Mexican potatoes are looking good now the weather has cooled and we got so much rain. It makes no difference if they grow I have already decided not to grow purple hull beans or yard long beans next year. I wish these 40 trees around my yard were 25 ft shorter.

[Gary350]

Today I made hill row #8 and planted 25 potato peals with eye in them. In the past it has taken a month for eyes to grow a plant weather then was in the 30s at night and 50 during the day. Weather was 75 today and will continue to be warmer than 50 for several weeks so potato eyes may grow plants sooner than a month. I am guessing there could be plants in 3 weeks. Spring potatoes are a 4 month crop but once plants are 3" tall it is a 3 month crop. If plants are up by Nov 1st harvest will be about Feb 1st but being cold I probably can not harvest until April. There are several volunteer potatoes in several places I have decided if I transplant them it will probably stunt their growth it will be best to leave then where they are with a marker so I know where to dig. I am having fun but do not intend to put any work into this potato crop. I am not going to cover hills with straw after frost kills plants. In the past I have noticed plants do not need to grow large and live long to produce potatoes. I will keep an eye on this we don't usually get a hard freeze until mid to late Jan when weather report says we will have a hard freeze I will check to see if there are potatoes in the soil, if so I will dig them all up.

[Gary350]

Okra plants are making more okra than we want. When plants first started making okra we were enjoying eating it about every other day for several weeks. Now we are not so excited anymore and not cooking if very often. I cut off all the over size okra pods yesterday and today there is enough okra for dinner. Today's pods will be too large tomorrow. Oh well we will eat okra several more times before Nov 1 when frost kills it.

Okra is terrible stuff if not cooked right. No one up north knew how to cook it. When I moved to TN 1977 I refused to eat okra everyone said it is good. It was nasty horrible stuff up north. About a year later I saw some golden brown crispy looking stuff that looked so good I had to check it out WOW that is so good. I ask, WHAT is that stuff? It is fried okra. NO WAY okra is terrible stuff. Where are you from? I am from up north. No wonder you don't like okra southern fried okra is the only way to cook it that is good. I learned how to cook okra now I love it.

Relatives in Michigan said it snowed there night before last. I like snow for only 1 day per year. LOL

[Gary350]

We decided to take a vacation it was good to get away from the garden all week. There was a lot of ripe tomatoes on the plants when we returned home, lots of red peppers too. Okra is too large again pods need to be cut off. Red pepper have a milder less spicy hot flavor than green peppers. I think jalapeno peppers will make good salsa with the rest of the ripe tomatoes the garden makes. Weather lady says, our temperature is 15 degrees above average for this time of the year. We usually need to wear a light jacket this time of the year it has been 85 day & 62 at night. All these red peppers are spicy hot, probably too hot for us. 1 dried red pepper will be enough spice for all winter.

We took the vintage camper to the smoky mountains it was nice we camped next to the stream we could hear the water all night with all 8 windows open. Temperature 75 day, 62 night. We drove about 90 miles of the Blue Ridge Parkway stopped at every pull over, every over look, water fall, stream, river, etc. & took pictures. Visitor center at 6200 ft elevation it was about 70 degrees. Winter camping in 20 degrees and snow is more fun than 100 degrees in the hot humid miserable heat. Sleeping with all the windows open, 62 degrees the breeze blows right through the trailer, sound of the stream is nice all night.

[Gary350]

I have been watching & waiting for several weeks hoping this sweet bell pepper will turn red and it finally is. It is red only on the front side maybe a few more days it will be all red then it can be picked. This plant has only 1 pepper. Another plant next to it has 5 large green sweep bell peppers I hope they turn red before frost in Nov.

There is a different variety of sweet bell pepper 30 ft away 3 plants making no peppers at all. All 3 plants blossomed 3 weeks ago still no peppers.

Lots of unwanted peppers on other plants.

Large okra on other plants need to be cut this evening.

[Gary350]

These Mexican potatoes were planted about 4 or 5 months ago. 30 plants bolted and made seeds in 98 degree heat these 5 plant continued to grow. I tried to eat a piece it is woody like trying eat a summer time carrot. I know woody carrots will turn soft & sweet if left to grow a few months after frost these might do the same thing. Near the top sun turned them green. The row of Mexican potatoes I plants a month ago bolted already it has been in the 90s for a month, 87 today, 90 again tomorrow, 15 degrees hotter than average. TV weather said, we have broken several hot weather records this year. I could plant more seeds tomorrow an grow Mexican potatoes into the winter months to see what happens but I don't think I will. It is probably a waste of time to search for a magic trick to make plants grow in a climate they don't like. Grocery store Mexican potatoes are round and about the same size and shape as a grapefruit, they make good, baked potatoes, french fries, mashed potatoes, fried potatoes, hash brown potatoes, we tested them before growing our own.

[Gary350]

My yard long beans look like they are doing better than purple hull peas. Yard long beans have runners looking for something to climb. I think there are only 5 purple hull peas still alive and they are not growing fast. Mexican potato plants were looking good until plants bolted now they have nice flowers. I think bolting was from 95 degrees for a month. Mexican potatoes should start doing better if weather would get normal our day temperatures should be in the 70s and night time about 55 instead of 90 every day.

[Gary350]

I picked a basket full of green tomatoes & ripe tomatoes then I removed all the dead tomato plants yesterday = Saturday. There is still 1 tomato plant growing next to the okra it was planted from seed over a month ago. There is 1 more tomato plant only 12" tall it will never make ripe tomatoes unless he have no frost until Christmas. .

Flat pod beans are making seeds for next year.

Pepper plants are still there we hope to have several sweet red bell peppers.

I removed the basket weave fences, removed all the wooden stakes, removed all the flowers.

Sweet potatoes vines keep getting larger with more blossoms, potatoes should be ready to dig up but I will wait 1 more month hoping for the largest crop as possible. Satellite potatoes need more time to grow larger.

Soon as potatoes are gone, okra, beans & peppers are gone I can till the soil an garden will be finished this year. Well maybe not I still have winter potatoes growing.

[Gary350]

Yesterday evening I planted my 4 Wild Black Cherry trees here where 2 of my 4 blackberry bushes died. Humidity was so bad yesterday photos were white like heavy fog. New pictures today look better. Clouds look nice today.

[Gary350]

We had unexpected visitors today. Husband & wife from Cuba live 40 miles away they heard I have free hot peppers they came to get jalapeno peppers. I gave them about 30 red jalapeno an a grocery bag of green jalapeno. They also wanted the 7" long mild red chili's my plants had a dozen of those. Wife saw there was a lot of 7" long green chilies she said, I can make stuffed peppers with the green chilies so I gave her all the largest ones that were large enough to stuff. They left with 2 grocery bags of hot peppers. This was like Christmas to them. My plants have escaped early dead I will let them grow maybe the Cuba family will return and want more peppers before frost kills them.

[Gary350]

We have learned something interesting. Grind whole tomatoes with skin & seeds in the food processor, fill jars & put them in the refrigerator about 3 days later pulp floated to the top an juice goes to the bottom. I used a soda straw to suck up some liquid it tastes exactly like tomato juice with no red color. Rather than cook tomatoes in crock pot several hours to remove water siphon water off with a small hose. I think there is a lot of good flavor in that water that will be lost by removing it. The pulp can also be dipped out with a spoon with holes but when you get near the liquid pulp gets all mixed into the water then it needs to set in refrigerator a few days again to separate. If you like tomato juice save it in different mason jars to be canned.

These 5 jars are for soup & chili the water needs to stay.

If you want factory style tomato sauce add cooking oil & corn starch cook in a large pot until it becomes thick 10 minutes then can in mason jars. We are not adding oil or corn starch we don't want to eat any more oil than we already have to its not very healthy.

I am using the pressure cooker for this it is the only pot I have that holds quarts beside a very large pot that fits over 2 stove burners and holds about 15 quarts. I only have 5 jars today so the 6 jar canner works best. I don't need to pressure can tomatoes but I will let it come up to 15 psi then turn it off to cool naturally for several house. Quarts are suppose to water bath boil about 20 or 25 minutes it will take that long for this to heat up to 15 psi then another 20 minutes to cool down to boiling temperature more than enough time for canning tomato quarts. This is the easier way for me I don't have to stand around and keep checking it soon as I hear steam stove gets turned off.

LOOK at this amazing picture of TN sky with NO clouds wow this is rare it looks like AZ sky. TN usually has 50% clouds but winter we have a lot of over cast gray sky all winter.

[Gary350]

This evening I am making fertilizer & calcium for the garden. We had 3 stacks of cut wood that have been drying all summer from several trees & limbs, pine, oak, black locus, elm, maple. I wish I could do this in spring but after 3 months of spring rain wood will be too wet to burn. After fire is out I usually save wood ash in 5 gallon bucks to use on the garden next April & May.

Pine needles are good to get the fire started. Large logs burn slow the smaller sticks shoot flames 10 ft into the air & help the big longs burn faster. The 30 gallon metal barrel keep everything under control wind at the moment is dead calm. .

3 places online says N-P-K value of wood ash is 0-1-3 with 10% to 31% calcium. Hardwood has more calcium than soft wood. If enough urine is added NPK can be 10-1-4.

[SQWIB]

I would look into making some bio-char also.
I have had pretty good luck with it so far.

[Gary350]

I would look into making some bio-char also.
I have had pretty good luck with it so far.

How are you making bio-char?

When I burn small tree limbs they burn up fast they are gone mostly all ash even if I put it out with water.

Large logs are harder to get started they burn slow if I put them out center is still solid wood & charcoal on the outside.

If I let logs burn longer center becomes charcoal most of the outside has become ash.

Charcoal is made industrially by cooking wood in a very large pressure cooker so oxygen can not burn charcoal to ash and gas is given off. The gas that come off wood is about 70% natural gas pipe it to the under side of the pressure cooker then ignite the gas it becomes a self heating cooker. This gets too hot for a kitchen pressure cooker it burns up the rubber gasket. A 55 gallon metal drum with a metal lid works great but you need a wood fire under the metal drum until there is no more gas & smoke then you get a LOT of charcoal even with small sticks. This only works good for me if metal drum is 1/2 full with small wood pieces & lid is held on by gravity so smoke gets out & air can not get in but its more work that I want an my 55 gallon drum finally rusted away.

Some wood does not like to burn it makes charcoal so it works better than other wood. I have been getting mole wood from a furniture factory it makes a big fire like a kerosene about 60% of the charcoal never burns up it makes a very large pile of charcoal. I till large piles of charcoal into the garden few weeks later it is very hard to find any charcoal in the soil. Charcoal must turn to powder easy. Charcoal is about 8ph it continues to be 8ph much longer than calcium or lime products.

I burned lots of tree limbs in the same spot once tilled it into a 6 ft diameter circle nothing grew there for 2 months soil was gray/black color. After it rained several times and I tilled it several times plants started to grow. I can get too much in a small spot but when I scatter it all over my 30'x50' garden I can't tell it is there.

I shovel all the ash & charcoal into 5 gallon buckets save it until spring it works best for me to till it into the rows that need calcium like, tomatoes, peppers, squash, melons. Wood ask makes a large crop of tomatoes plants like the potassium & calcium to prevent BER.

[Gary350]

All that wood I burned several wheel barrel loads only made this much ash. The wood was full of termites & carpenter ants, wood was full of holes an light weight & burned up quick. Soft wood like pine makes almost no ash.

Well it turned out to be more wood ash than it looked like 1/2 a 5 gallon bucket full. Never put wood ash in a plastic bucket this is still red hot down inside. In a few days it will be out then I can save it in different containers, empty milk jugs work it is a bit hard to pour ash down that small milk jug hole. Empty coffee cans work too.

[Gary350]

I made guacamole dip with garden, tomato, onion, garlic, red jalapeno pepper, salt, pepper & a grocery store avocado. Why is Mexican restaurant guacamole so creamy & green mine never looks like that. I added the jalapeno little at a time finally ended up using about 90% of it that gave dip a nice spicy flavor. The plans was to let dip set for a few hours for all the flavors to blend together & make it taste better. While making a pot of chili I was taking a bit of the dip & chips soon the guacamole dip was gone. LOL. OH well next time I think I will puree the tomato with the onion, garlic, jalapeno then add avocado.

[Gary350]

It was 88 degrees yesterday this morning 44 degrees today's high 60 fall has finally arrived .

I have been waiting 3 weeks for this sweet bell pepper to turn completely RED it has been stuck looking like this for a week. I refuse to pick it until it turns RED I hope it does not rot first. Pepper plants are loading up with lots of peppers I have 1 plant held up with a wood board it is heavy with several green bell peppers. I don't think anymore green peppers will turn red unless cold weather has something to do with making them red.

Today I marked my volunteer potato plants so I can find then after frost kills the plants. I have an old fish aquarium I am going to turn it upside down over 1 plants to see what happens. After frost kills plants I am not digging them up until day before the first hard freeze. Markers are all 6" to the north side.

[Gary350]

Today is national farmers day. Are we farmers on a smaller scale?

[Gary350]

I picked 1 sweet Pimento pepper today this was the only pepper on 4 plants. These were planted May 22 the tag says 78 day crop. It has been 139 days & only got 1 pepper. I pulled up all 4 of these plants today.

The 4 Red Beauty bell peppers have made no peppers.

The Carmen peppers & Big chili peppers planted in the same row at same day are making lots of peppers. I harvested all the peppers from these plants several times now each plant looks like it has about 40 peppers that need to be picked.

Go figure???

[applestar]

Red Beauty is a hybrid variety. Pimento was originally an heirloom/Open pollinated (OP) variety, but a popuplar Open pollinated variety will inevitably be sold as “improved” hybridized variety by one or more seed companies... usually with just enough tweaked name to make it confusing — it’s possible that this was not the OP variety that would stay true to type.

So if you (or the grower) purchased seeds for those two from unreliable unregulated sources, then they could have been post F1 generation saved seeds. And the worst (or best designed you might say) hybrids will not produce from saved seeds due to self annihilating gene combinations or simply due to loss of the first generation F1 hybrid vigor.


...I saved seeds from a known anomaly — Aloha Sunset a.k.a. Enjoya, which are large red and yellow striped bell peppers — from the grocery store. When I searched around, the consensus was that saved seeds will only produce solid yellow fruits. The Speculated reason for this was that the Stripe occurs due to a “sport” mutation, and the growers can only propagate this variety by “cloning” — this was variously explained as from traditional cutting or from meristem culture.

While searching, I came across a few website seed sources that were selling Enjoya seeds with cut-and-paste grocery store descriptions, one website who had taken down the seed price and stopped selling them but added to the description that they found out the seeds were not going to grow true, and some wholesalers selling “guaranteed” plants.

Anyway, I tried growing the seeds anyway just to see, and I got beautiful huge yellow, juicy bells. Worth growing, just not Striped. I will save these seeds again and see what I get next year.

[Gary350]

I have always wondered if hybrid seeds & hybrid plants are the problem why plants don't produce well and saved seeds won't grow. I grew a lot more variety in my garden this year that I usually don't grow, now that I am retired I have time for things like that. It is frustrating to spend time growing plants that never produce a crop. Wife likes to have sliced & diced peppers in the freezer to cook with all winter if we could get plants that actually grow a crop of peppers 1 plant would be enough. I have to buy plants that are available local, Farm Supply stopped selling plants too much compilation with low cost plants from Lowe's & Home Depot. The Amish garden store no longer grows plants from seeds they buy plants too. Big Beef tomato plants did great last year but were not so good this year, plants are not reliable these days. When I was younger an full of energy I grew my own plants from seeds but at the new smaller house I have no place for growing seeds and don't want to. I use to start seeds inside temperature 72 degrees late winter & spring. Next year back to basics I'm only planting the big food groups, corn, beans, tomatoes, and potatoes again. We eat a lot of potatoes if I only get 1 potato per plant like this year then I need about 600 plants next year. I will plant potatoes different next year with several variety of potatoes to see what works best.

[Gary350]

The sweet bell pepper we have been waiting has finally turned RED it took 5 months for this plant to make 1 pepper. I removed the seeds & vanes then sliced and dices it for cooking this winter. The pepper tastes good a little bit milder flavor than a green pepper. This is a mail pepper, female peppers are suppose to be sweeter than males. Imagine that..

We may have frost and 32 degree weather Saturday so I pulled up all the pepper plants that are not making peppers. I dug up my okra trees several plants were almost 8 ft tall, they were not easy to pull up the shovel made it easier.

[Gary350]

I made this wine 2 months ago from 1/2 gallon of grapes. I hand squeezed the grapes then fermented pulp & skins together until hydrometer was 1.020. Then I removed skins and put liquid only in the 1 gallon jug with an air lock. Today I got 4 bottles of wine plus 1 glass of wine. Wine tastes good being only 2 months old. This is not a full body wine it contains about 45% water. Damn I broke my hydrometer I cannot test the finished wine. It tastes about 1.000 it does not need to be back sweetened. I will drink this glass of wine with dinner in about 45 minutes. These 4 bottles will be gone in 2 weeks..

[Gary350]

This evening we are testing 1 of our pint jars of garden tomato pizza sauce from the pantry. We made several pizza sauce recipes I'm not sure which jar wife used to make this sauce but wow it sure is good. She started the meat cooking in the crock pot about 12 noon with 1 jar of home made pizza sauce plus chopped onions & chopped garlic. She also started homemade yeast rolls and let them rise in a muffin pan about 4 hours. She chopped about 30 small garlic cloves to put on top of the dinner rolls after pushing dinner roll tops down flat. She mixed chopped garlic with hot butter then spooned it on all the rolls then baked them in the oven. Home made pizza sauce over spaghetti with garlic dinner rolls. Wow this is so good I ate 2 plates of spaghetti and 2 garlic rolls. I ate too much.

[Gary350]

I decide I better pick all the garden peppers today weather man claims Saturday morning will be frost an 32 degrees. We have 18 lbs of peppers, 3 kinds of hot peppers plus sweet bell peppers. I started to count them its a waste of time probably 500 peppers here, could be more, red & green. We are leaving early Thursday morning on a vintage trailer camping trip 4 days in the mountains with 40 other campers. We won't be home to harvest peppers Saturday I don't want to loose the 7 sweet bell peppers, I will slice & dice them later today for the freezer. Camper rally has pot luck dinner every night I will put a few peppers on the table maybe someone will eat some. Saturday night all the peppers go in about 3 unmarked boxes to be given away as door prizes. It might be funnier to give away all the peppers in 1 large box. LOL

[Gary350]

I pulled up all the pepper plants today there were a lot of peppers hiding inside there I did not see. Looks like I have another lb of peppers. I pulled up all the wooden steaks threw them in the burn barrel. Weather forecast is no rain next week sunny and nice that will be the perfect time to dig up sweep potatoes. Beans are growing extremely slow if garden gets dry enough it needs to be tilled instead of waiting for beans to make seeds.

[Gary350]

Wife & I set down at the table an cut up the sweet bell peppers, removed, seeds, stems, vanes. I was prepared to dice them into tiny pieces be she said, they are much easier to cook with in larger pieces I take 1 or 2 or 3 from the bag then cut them up, plus larger pieces don't get freezer burn easy. 2 hour job turned into a 20 minute job.

[applestar]

I had an idea about your hot pepper dilemma. Have you considered making hot pepper lotion/cream with them? I would advise caution and testing for sensitivity before rubbing home made lotion all over the body, but it might be worth a try.

I have to admit, I have been *thinking* about it but haven’t actually tried, so I don’t have a good recipe for you. My very vague recollection is to extract the capsaicin oils by soaking in oil of choice — then straining/filtering and hand blendering/whipping together with melted beeswax. I would probably add vitamin E and maybe rosemary for added stabilizer/preservative, maybe add citrus seeds in soaking process for antifungal.

I did find this article while looking for possible cons —

Advantages and Disadvantages of Homemade Capsaicin Cream
https://www.arthritis-health.com/treatm ... icin-cream