Tennessee 2023 Garden

[Gary350]

I have been picking Roma Flat Pod beans every few days. Many beans are very large 6" long and need to be picked now before it is too late. I picked 2 more gallons of beans yesterday evening. A women came to the house for tomatoes and saw the beans she called them English beans. Another women that came to the house called them Italian flat beans. Husband & Wife that came for free landscape rock took 6 free tomatoes but were not interested in free beans. Flat pod beans are exceptionally good, much better than other green beans. Wife has been cooking 1/2 gallon of beans about once a week each time in the large slow cooker with, meat, potatoes, carrots, dinner for 6 to 8 is so easy. I picked 1/2 of the beans yesterday and got 2 gallons. I need to pick another 2 gallons today. I am only picking 6" long beans. There appears be more than a 1000 smaller beans this will be good picking for another 2 months. 1 mans trash is another mans treasure, advertise things you don't want on market place someone will haul it away free. I have been giving away all the tomatoes, fire wood, rocks, lawn furniture, glass jars, chain link fence, 3 used push lawn mowers, bicycle parts.

[Gary350]

We picked all the green beans we wanted then a lady came and picked a bushel basket full of beans for herself. I threw bean plants in the grass to dry. Wife has 20 bags of beans in freezer. I think that was Mom or Tue 2 weeks ago.

I picked 43 tomatoes. We made 1 gallon of goulash the 2 boys ate it all. We made spaghetti sauce and pizza sauces too with Thai Basel. I think that was Thur.

I dehydrated 3 trays of peppers every day last week, 98°, 99°, 100°, 101°, 99°, plenty of heat to dehydrate peppers. The row of Anaheim peppers I planted from seeds is making a lot of peppers now. Once peppers start to look red color with a little green color they are red inside and ready to dehydrate. Now we have 2 days of clouds & rain, I will get behind dehydrating.

Dehydrated whole peppers works good but stems and seeds inside are 2 times slower to remove. I can slice up 20 peppers in 20 minutes & remove stem & seeds. I have made almost 1 quart of chili powder so far.

We have a lot of sweet carman peppers, it's time to make chicken stir fry for dinner again.

I have been letting strawberry runners go where every they want this is zero work. 1 bed will be 8 ft wide 32 ft long. The other bed will be 6 ft wide 25 ft long. This year 2023 harvest was 7 gallons of strawberries. June 2024 crop will be 7 times large than this year, that should be about 7x7 = 49 gallons of strawberries. This will be a lot of strawberry short cake and ice cream plus a lot of blackberry strawberry wine.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/4pOZuNCOHTE

[imafan26]

Do you reconstitute the dried peppers or do you grind some up to make pepper flakes or chili powder?

[Gary350]

Do you reconstitute the dried peppers or do you grind some up to make pepper flakes or chili powder?

I make dry chili powder it keeps a long time and we can't tell it looses any flavor in 1 year. Peppers dehydrate on the dash of my truck in 5 hours in full sun with no clouds. If sky has too many clouds it might take 8 hours. Last week was perfect 5 days in a row no clouds 98° to 101°. I can grind about 1/2 cup of dry powder each time in 60 seconds. When we make Enchilada sauce mix about 1/3 cup of chili power with, 1 qt of water + cumin + Mexicans oregano + garlic + onion + salt.

I just finished watching a YouTube video about gourmet chili powder it is a blend of several good flavor peppers plus good flavor paprika peppers plus very best flavor hot spicy peppers. Video said, the hotter pepper are, the less flavor they have.

Video says, Anaheim peppers are also California peppers they have the best cooking flavor for their spicy hot rating 500 - 2000.

Guajillo peppers have a better flavor than Anaheim and slightly more spicy 500 - 2500.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0iUAItLTcg

[Gary350]

Today was sunny and 84° I had 21 Carmen peppers and 10 Anaheim peppers to slice and dehydrate in my truck. Temperature inside truck 160°. 6 hours later Carman is crispy so I made powder in the blender. I baked ground up pepper 2 more hours.

Chili powder that I already made is 35 Anaheim peppers, 5 Carman pepper, 4 Jalapeno peppers. Chili powder tastes very good but too spicy hotter.

Paprika today was made with 21 Carmen peppers. Wow, this is the best flavor Paprika I have ever tasted. I mixed all the Paprika with Chili powder this has very good flavor, spiciness is perfect.

Tomorrow I will grind 10 Anaheim peppers to powder than add it to chili powder.

This morning I pulled up the melon vines. Now its time to water strawberry plants and peas. I forgot to mention I have 40 tomato cages with 7 pea seeds planted under each cage.

[imafan26]

The flat beans are the favorite here. People don't really like round beans. Most of the flat beans are listed as an Italian beans. I grew Italian beans once, they were delicious but broader and shorter than the Roma.

[applestar]

I really enjoy reading about your garden and harvest to pantry progress, @Gary350.

You grow many of the things I do or want to grow well and try different methods for growing and processing the harvest.

While I enjoy the comparison and contrast where conditions are different, I have to chuckle because everything I do is probably 1/8 or even 1/10 … maybe even less.

So when I make spices, I use a coffee grinder and am happy if I make enough to fill a recycled little spice bottle

Looking really good! Now I’m inspired to improve my pepper growing skills.

[Gary350]

7 days of sunny nice weather has changed to, rain tomorrow for 2 days. I am dehydrating all the Jalapeno peppers before they go bad.

Carrot seeds germinate very quick 5 days in warm weather. I need to be more careful when I water seeds I have washed a lot off seeds to 1 side of the containers. Oh well.

[Gary350]

After 3 days of clouds ripe red peppers have piled up in the kitchen. I forgot to take pics and forget to count. I think there were about 20 Anaheim peppers, 7 or 8 Carman, 7 or 8 Jalapeno peppers. I have decided to keep Carman Paprika in its own jar and Jalapeno hot chili powder in its own jar. Nov when plants are dead and the last peppers are dehydrated chili powder jar will have a lot more Anaheim peppers, if chili powder needs to be spicy hotter I can add 1/4 tsp Jalapeno each time to test it and finally get the mild hotness we want. Yesterday I decided to put a very thin slice of Red Jalapeno on my sandwich to see how hot they are, wow that was a mistake. I don't remember Jalapeno being that spicy hot.

Not much happening in the garden except peppers. 15 tomato plants still make 1 ripe tomato every day but we have lost interest and not eating them. Strawberry runners are still growing runners in all directions all I do is point the runners in the correct direction and water them. Pea plants & potato plants are coming up.

I started to toss broccoli seeds and cauliflower seeds in the weeds but changed my mind and planted 2 rows, 32 seeds each row. Wait and see what happens. We don't have correct weather for this plants but we have the correct bugs. Wife said, broccoli & cauliflower are dirt cheep at the store why grow it.

[applestar]

Are you going to pickle any of the jalapeños?

We also like cowboy candy (basically jalapeño jam).

…Broccoli and cauliflower are impossible without protecting from bugs. This time of year, harlequin stinkbugs and the various moths (3 species here; maybe more where you are), as well as the ubiquitous white cabbage butterflies.

(Mine are doing well so far inside the insect mesh covered hoophouse. I would know right away if white butterflies tried to get in. Not so easy to spot the tiny moths. Not seeing many stinkbugs of any species here this year (knock on wood), but Harlequins are flashy and do are their eggs. Crickets and grasshoppers are being a problem but are being kept under some control with sticky traps.)

[Gary350]

Are you going to pickle any of the jalapeños?

We also like cowboy candy (basically jalapeño jam).

Last year I made 1 pint of thin sliced Jalapeno peppers in vinegar. We used them for a topping on pizza and Enchiladas. I only have 1 Jalapeno plant this year it is making too many peppers for us. If I do Jalapeno slices again I will only fill a 1 pint jar 1/3 full of slices then fill it up with vinegar. I have heard of cowboy candy but did not know what it is. Jalapeno chili powder is good for making, Mexican potato chips, Mexican popcorn, Mexican peanuts, Mexican chocolate.

[pepperhead212]

I always make some escabeche with jalapeños - pickled peppers, onions, and carrots, with seasonings. The original recipe had more carrots than peppers, but I switched them, plus added more onions - something I really like in it. And something strange - after sitting for a few weeks, the carrots are as hot as the peppers! They must absorb the oil, or something.

[imafan26]

I dry peppers the same way. Only I put a paper towel under the peppers, sometimes they are juicy. It only takes about 6 hours in the sun to dry super chilies. I don't make powder, I make chili flakes and store them in the freezer.

[Gary350]

Today I got 120 lbs of free crushed grapes at the Farmers Market Ag center. About 100 people come to pick 1 acre of free grapes. They have a machine that removes stems, another machine that crushes grapes and squeezed out the juice. People only want the free juice then they throw away the skins. I got 4 buckets of free skins with pulp. I divided skins among 6 buckets, 4 of the buckets hold 5 gallons, 1 bucket is 6 gallons, the other bucket is 7 gallons = 20 gallons. I divided 20 gallons of water among 6 buckets, then divided the skins among 6 buckets. I had to add campden tables to each bucket to kill wild yeast and bacteria. Tomorrow I add sugar. I don't think 24 lbs of sugar is enough but we will see. I don't think sugar will fit, I probably need 1 more empty bucket. Then I add yeast. Friday I hope hydrometer reading is low enough to syphon liquid to the secondary fermenter. In 1 month I can syphon wine leaving sediment behind. 6 more months it will be time to bottle 25 gallons of wine. I already have 18 gallons of wine in the house. I hope I have enough empty bottles for 43 gallons of wine. Free grapes will make wine, but it might not be good wine. If this wine sucks I will be giving it away free in empty 1 gallon milk jugs. 6 gallons of wine is about 28 wine bottles. 25 gallons is about 115 bottles. I have about 160 empty bottles.

[Gary350]

35 Red Norland potatoes in the pantry have sprouted so I planted 1 row of potatoes in the desert yesterday evening. Rain every day finally stopped more than a week ago. Our soil dries out very fast in our hot sun. I pulled up all the dead Zinnia flowers. No rain, no grass, I am tried of cutting 1¼ acres of grass every 3 days. Wine is fermenting very fast outside it was 88° yesterday. I am cleaning out things I don't need 8 years of out dated seeds went to the trash. Lots of other things gone to the trash also. I need to stop being a pack rat. I planted all the saved onion seeds yesterday. I need to plant 98 garlic Monday. Not much to do in the garden. Now that I have cleaned up and moved things around I can't find anything. Several friends told us how much $$$ they save at Sam's Club and Costco so we visited both places. Sam's has slightly lower prices than Costco and we both like Costco better so we joined Sam's Club. We compared prices to Walmart we can save $50 Sam's Club fee in 1 month, then we might join Costco too. It seems silly to drive an extra 10 miles to Costco but it will be fun. We went to Sam's yesterday about 10:30 am it was so crowded 100s of people going in all directions if you move or stand still either way there is no way to avoid almost getting run over. I don't want to be there again at 10:30 am it is standing room only and everyone is in a big hurry. I almost forgot to mention I picked a small bundle of Thai Basil seeds on a paper plate.

[imafan26]

Looks good. I have never planted potatoes, but I don't eat that many either. In fact the potato harvest probably has come in. I finally saw 10 lb bags of Russet and Yukon Gold potatoes at Costco. For the 2-3 months they only had fingerling potatoes. 10 lbs of potatoes are still too much for me to eat before they rot, so I got a 5 lb bag of potatoes from Walmart. It is still a lot for me to eat, but I made scalloped potatoes last week and I made roasted vegetables to go with baked chicken a couple of days ago, so I am working through the potatoes faster than normal. I usually only buy 2-4 potatoes at a time. Even then, I keep them so long that they get soft and sprout or rot in the frig. Potatoes, onions, garlic, won't store well in this hot and humid climate, so getting larger quantities is impractical.

I have more sweet potatoes than I can use as well, but they will keep in the containers and the leaves are also edible. I don't plant it in the ground. It takes too much space. When it was planted in the herb garden, we spent all of our time cutting back the vines out of the pathways, so I keep it in pots, but I still have to cut back the vines.

[Gary350]

Chickweed and nut grass grow faster that peas. I needed to wait until nut grass is the correct size to pull it up by the roots over wise it breaks off and grows back. Hoe scrapes away 90% of the chickweed.

Compose pile has 20 gallons of used grape skins & seeds. I am going to plant some of the grape seeds to see if they grow.

I watered the 1 row of potatoes yesterday evening. I decided to grow this row the traditional way, cover seed potatoes with 1" of soil, when plants are 6" tall hoe soil up on both sides 4" tall. As plants grow taller keep hoeing up the soil higher and higher. Now that weather is cooler an will soon be wetter maybe fall potatoes will grow better than spring potatoes?

Strawberry beds are slowly getting wider and have reached the border where I want plants to stop but runners want to grow longer. I am putting runners in pots when pots are full of roots they get transplanted. Pots are empty sour cream container, chip dip container, cottage cheese containers. I have 30 plants to transplant Monday then use the pots to move more plants.

I have 17 gallons of grape wine. Including Blackberry wine and Elderberry wine I have 36 gallons of wine. Wine needs to age 3 years. The only way wine can ages 3 years is to have more than anyone can drink. Wine is a long way from being finished, liquid needs to be syphoned off leaving sediment behind several times to get clear wine. Probably syphon in 1 month then 6 months then 12 months.

[Gary350]

After 3 days of camping wife came home motived to get lots of work done but not me. It rained while we were gone I'm not motivated to crawl in the mud, I have crawled in much worse mud. I removed 10 garlic bulbs from refrigerator and broke them apart, I have 75 cloves, was hoping for 98 cloves. Oh well, so what, I don't care. 98 is a good number if we loose 15 or 20 during winter we still have 70. I learned a lesson last winter -2°f will kill garlic. Garlic is ok down to 0°f below that it needs a lot of mulch. I planted 75 garlic cloves and only planted 1 upside down. I fix it, pushed cloves deeper into the soil then mulched with leaves. My planting gig makes very quick work planting garlic & onions perfect 4" spacing. 2 potato plants are in the way so I planted garlic around them.

Several strawberries need to be trans planted. Maybe later. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe I cut grass. I need to work on the camper. Maybe later everything is wet. 55°f here this morning.

[abhaykale]

how many carrots in 1 5 gallon pot? I don't have a 10 gallon and want to see the results in 5 gallon. sowing carrots in ground have got me lots of green and pencil thin carrots. what should I change?

[Gary350]

how many carrots in 1 5 gallon pot? I don't have a 10 gallon and want to see the results in 5 gallon. sowing carrots in ground have got me lots of green and pencil thin carrots. what should I change?

About 150 seeds in a 5 gallon bucket or pot.

[imafan26]

Its still too much. you still would need to thin to 1-2 inches apart. That is my downfall too. I am bad about thinning.

[Gary350]

Its still too much. you still would need to thin to 1-2 inches apart. That is my downfall too. I am bad about thinning.

Seeds never all germinate on the same day and carrots never grow at the same speed in cold weather. A 5 gallon bucket is 11.25" diameter. 11 x 11 = 121 ÷ 2 = 60. The bucket has room for about 60 carrots that are all 1" diameter. Once carrots start crowding and pushing each other the bucket might hold 70 carrots 1" diameter carrots the exact same diameter. Soon as a few 1" diameter carrots are pulled out the rest of the carrots have room to grow larger. Every time you remove a few more carrots other carrots have room to grow larger. It is good all the carrots do not grow at the exact same speed other wise this would never work. In cold weather it often takes 2 month for 50% of the seeds to germinate so 150 seeds is almost the perfect number of seeds. In warm weather there appears to be near 100% germination in 5 days. Plant # of seeds according to your weather and germination rate.

[imafan26]

I don't have cold weather and carrots are supposed to be a 70 day crop, but for me it is more like 100 days. I need to add more potassium and calcium to my soil mix and lower the nitrogen. I get a lot of tops but not much carrot. The worms did enjoy the carrots though.

[applestar]

I mostly only grow the 55 day hybrid carrot varieties like Yaya, Mokum, and Minicore. This year, I’ve been trying Kyoto Red (Japanese) and Koral (European), but they do take longer.

[Gary350]

I mostly only grow the 55 day hybrid carrot varieties like Yaya, Mokum, and Minicore. This year, I’ve been trying Kyoto Red (Japanese) and Koral (European), but they do take longer.

Carrot seed I buy says 65 day crop but it is usually 3 months or longer. I grew carrots all summer in 98°f weather and carrots were not woody but flavor gets better when weather is 80° or less.

No rain for a week garden is dry as desert. Desert is good, no water, no weeds, no grass, no work. AZ style irrigation plants get lots of water, very easy, very low work. I am only watering peppers, celery and strawberry plants. We sure did enjoy celery this year, next year I will have 8 plants instead of 4.

I pulled up the tomato plants & stakes then raked it smooth 20 minutes work.

I have a lot of strawberry running looking for a location to grow roots so I put a pot of soil under them and 1 week later pots are full of roots and ready to be transplanted. 2 more weeks transplants need to be finished by Oct 1.

[imafan26]

I have grown Mokum, yaya, and I got Kyoto Red carrots from the carrot field day. It was a long skinny carrot. It probably would not be good for me. Johnny seeds replaced Nelson with yaya. I like Nelson better, but yaya is o.k. Mokum was o.k. too. When I do grow carrots, I am growing Kuroda Red carrots. Baker carried them and they are carried by the local seed company, so they are the type that does better in my climate. I grew Danvers half long. They grow the easiest, but not the tastiest. The Nantes type carrots taste sweeter but take longer to grow than stated on the package. I have to decide soon if I want to plant a container of carrots since this is the time of year for me to plant them. Carrots don't like heavy clay soil, so I do grow them in tubs like the muck buckets or totes that are at least 12 inches deep. I just can't bring myself to load the totes up with heavy sand since they like a sandy loam.

[Gary350]

I have grown Mokum, yaya, and I got Kyoto Red carrots from the carrot field day. It was a long skinny carrot. It probably would not be good for me. Johnny seeds replaced Nelson with yaya. I like Nelson better, but yaya is o.k. Mokum was o.k. too. When I do grow carrots, I am growing Kuroda Red carrots. Baker carried them and they are carried by the local seed company, so they are the type that does better in my climate. I grew Danvers half long. They grow the easiest, but not the tastiest. The Nantes type carrots taste sweeter but take longer to grow than stated on the package. I have to decide soon if I want to plant a container of carrots since this is the time of year for me to plant them. Carrots don't like heavy clay soil, so I do grow them in tubs like the muck buckets or totes that are at least 12 inches deep. I just can't bring myself to load the totes up with heavy sand since they like a sandy loam.

I need to try Nantes type carrots I can buy then in 1 oz seed packs that is probably 10,000. seeds. I grow in potting soil so long carrot will be fine. I bought Danvers 1 oz seed pack and have planted carrots several times and seed pack still looks full. Seed pack says 85% germination. This seed pack is 1 year, I bought it at Farmers Co-op. If I plant Danvers & Nantes at the same time that will give me a long harvest about 4 months. I think carrots seeds were $5.

[Gary350]

Our weather has changed from low 70s to upper 80s and less clouds, several green peppers have turned red color. I only picked Anaheim pepper = California peppers, not Carman & not Jalapeno peppers. 8 sliced peppers are too many slices for 1 tray the tray need to get enough in direct sun to get hot to dehydrate peppers. It is getting dark at 7 pm now, sun it not high enough in the sky until 10 am to 4 pm to dehydrate. It might take 2 days to dehydrate these peppers. I am ready for garden to be over, it is hard to say no to 8 ripe red peppers.

[imafan26]

To dehydrate the peppers faster, put the trays on the dash of your car. Roll up the windows and park the car out in the sun for 6-8 hours. The inside of the car will get over 100 degrees on a sunny day. This is my preferred method to dehydrate peppers. It is faster than sun drying especially in my humid climate. It helps if the windows are not fully tinted.

[Gary350]

A week ago I decided Oct 1st I will transplant strawberries then be finished with the whole garden this year. Runners are growing very slow in pots, slower than a month ago. Shorter days might be why, we are still having 89° and 91° temperatures. Garden has been desert for 3 weeks, I water every day. One strawberry patch is 9' wide, 32' long. The other patch is 6' wide, 25 ft long. I'm not finished with the garden and won't be for a while. I allowed strawberry runners to grow in both directions to make a wide bed & now I see the old plants have mostly died on there own and runners are filling in there dead plants are but not totally filled in yet. It was zero work to watch runners grow as wide as they wanted. The only work was placing small pots under about 100 runners to make transplants to fill in places with no new runner plants. Next year maybe I can allow runner to migrate from both sides back to the center of the bed almost zero work again. This will probably be a nightmare of work picking ripe strawberries next summer. I picked 7 gallons of strawberries this summer and we were tired of berries after 5 gallons, next summer there will probably be about 40 gallons of berries maybe more.

Peas are 2' tall 65 day crop. Garlic plants are coming up with a potato plant, I gave garlic nitrogen fertilizer. 100s of carrots growing in pots. Peppers are still growing I made another 1/2 cup of chili powder.

[Gary350]

Cooler weather is causing all the pepper plants to load up with about 70 peppers on each plant. Sweet peppers need calcium they have BER again. There are too many Jalapeno peppers, about 90 green peppers and about 40 red peppers on the 1 plant I grew. Anaheim pepper plants and Carman peppers have lots of green peppers slowly turning red. I have made almost 2 lbs of red chili powder so far. We are suppose to have full sun about 10 am and 80° by 3 pm so I can dehydrate more peppers today.

Pea plants are getting taller I found 1 pea pod yesterday.

Strawberry plants have gone crazy making 100s of runners. I give up I can't keep up with this.

[imafan26]

Interesting. Your peppers put out more in cooler weather, mine put out less with shorter days and cooler weather. Those are nice peppers.

[Gary350]

I think cloudy weather is here to stay so I had to learn a new way to dehydrate peppers. I also learned a new way to cut peppers. Start at the tip end of the pepper make 1/8" slices all the way to the stem. Slicing through the seeds make them fall to the bottom of the pile. Pick up pepper slices & put them in a crock pot leaving most of the seeds behind. Turn crockpot on low about 160°f leave off the lid so all the moisture can escape. 6 hours later peppers are dehydrated. Pick up dry peppers with my fingers leave more seeds behind and put peppers into the kitchen blender. About 80% of the seeds were left behind. Blender needs to run 10 seconds to make pepper flakes & run 2 min 30 sec. to make fine powder.

[Gary350]

I am glad I decided to grow peas this year so far they have only been about 45 minutes work. Plants have blossoms and several peas. Seed package says, super sugar snap peas. I though these will be pods for stir fly but I don't think so. Pods start out 1/2" long they grow fatter at the same rate they grow longer and 3 peas form inside the pods at the same time. By the time pods are large enough to pick 2" long they have full size peas inside. Soon as I can pick about 1 quart of pods with peas we will have stir fry chicken for dinner.

I have only been in the garden 2 times in a week, once to pick peppers & once to transplant a few strawberry transplants. The perfect size pots are empty 1 serving yogurt cups.

[Gary350]

Why are plants on the south side of the garden, taller, filled out better, more productive than plants in the north side of the garden. Plants are very noticeable more health on the south side of the garden look at the pictures? Right side of pictures is south. All plants, corn, strawberries, potatoes, beans, tomatoes, peppers, zinnias, melons, all grow better on the south side, garden is only 32 ft wide. Maybe the big trees next to the north side blocks sunlight. Tree is gone now we had it cut down 3 days ago it was getting dangerous dropping limbs and making loud wood cracking sounds.

Pepper explosion Oct every year, each plant still has 60 green peppers. Today I need to slice Anaheim peppers to make more chili powder. I have learned a much faster way to slice peppers, don't cut around the seeds, cut right through the seeds then dump away the seeds. Seeds that don't dump off get ground up into the chili powder same as factory chili pepper is done.

[Gary350]

A few days ago I found online information that says, trim off leaves that block sunlight from getting on your green peppers and peppers will turn red much quicker. I decided to try this and it seems to work. I have 4 Anaheim pepper plants, 2 plants are 6' tall with about 90 green peppers on each plant so I cut off about 150 leaves. 2 days later peppers are turning red color even with cloudy over cast sky. Once peppers start to turn red I cut them off, they usually become totally red after 2 days inside the house.

I have been experimenting with different ways to grind peppers for chili powder. It is interesting to slice a green pepper to learn it is about 95% red inside. The outside surface of a pepper can be green while 95% of the inside is red. Sometimes there are peppers that turn yellow or orange before they become red. I can make, yellow color chili powder, orange chili powder, red chili powder, bright red chili power, dark red chili powder. Green chili powder is hotter than red but red has the best flavor.

Garden is dry as desert only 2 tiny sprinkles of rain in a month. Carman sweet peppers make very good paprika.

We are having a lot of clouds blocking the sun so I have been dehydrating sliced peppers in my 2 tiny green houses temperature gets 160°f inside. Peppers plants have been loaded best estimate is about 50 to 90 green peppers on each of the pepper plants. This is a race to process as many peppers as possible before 1st frost = about Nov 5. Forecast is 80°f every day for 5 days, then a cold front.

So far I have picked 7 pea pots. Peas are slow to get ripe. 1 potato plant died then I dug up 2 potatoes. I picked 10 celery stalks yesterday for stove top stuffing. Wife cooked fried potatoes with onions & a baked chicken.

[Gary350]

This morning I decided to pick peas, pods are extremely hard to see among the plant leaves. Peas are very hard to pull off of the plants, give them a pull it pulls the whole plant out of the soil. I see 2 pods have split open maybe I should wait for all the pods to split open before I pick them?

[Gary350]

After only 1 night in the kitchen Anaheim peppers have termed mostly red. It was 170°f in the 2 solar dehydrators today. Another 3/4 cup of chili powder. I have enough pepper seeds to plant 10 acres of pepper plants.

I planted 16 Allstar strawberry transplants in garden row 20. Plants will grow about 700 runners next summer and make a 6' wide by 25' long bed. Summer 2025 strawberry bed will produce about 20 gallons of strawberries.

[Gary350]

TV claims frost & freeze next week so I decided to investigate to see what is growing below the potato plants. I dug down along 1 side of several plants and found enough Red Norland potatoes for dinner. I tried not to disturb the plants very much, I pulled a few new potatoes out of 1 side then push soil back into the holes. After plants freeze off potatoes will be hard to find plastic spoons will be good markers.

[abhaykale]

In one of your posts, you say Beans get 48-0-0. My understanding is that Beans don't need nitrogen. In fact they are nitrogen fixers.

I deliberately hold nitrogen from Beans and cut out the stalk, leaving the root nodules to provide nitrogen to the soil.

Which is right?