On-going Fall Harvest

I've just about gotten everything planted for the fall garden, with the exception of radishes, turnips, mustard greens and spinach.  We're still getting pretty strong bug and worm pressure right now, so we'd like to get some cooler weather that may dissuade them from nightly all-you-can-eat buffets in the garden before we plant.

Speaking of all-you-can-eat buffets, I came back from work the other day to find one of our goats named Popcorn had jumped over a weakened part of the garden fence and that dude was in the garden eating.  Fortunately, he only got to the sweet potato vines when I caught him.  I was still some kind of angry with him.  I had used landscape timbers as fence posts (bad decision) and they rotted.  The goats took advantage of this and pushed the post down and it enabled Popcorn to get in the garden.  Today I picked up 6 treated 8 foot 4x4s at the hardware store.  Mending the garden fence is my next project.  (Thank you, Popcorn.)

One thing that's really coming in strong right now is peppers.  They are in abundance, healthy, and colorful.  We bring baskets and baskets in and have started taking them to church to give away.  They'll continue producing until the first frost kills them.  The average first frost date for our area is November 10th.  That means lots more peppers forthcoming.

The photo below shows Anaheim peppers at top and right, bell peppers at bottom, lilac bell peppers at left and underneath them are sweet banana peppers.  Not pictured are the jalapenos.  We've been picking a bunch of those, halving them and coring/seeding them and freezing for making jalapeno poppers.  With the Anaheim peppers (mild) and bell peppers and banana peppers (sweet), we chop those up and freeze for cooking.

Around here there's something called the trinity of Cajun cooking.  That includes bell pepper, celery and onion.  When we were in the grocery business, one of our more popular selling items was Pictsweet Seasoning blend.  This was pre-cut and frozen Cajun trinity.  No chopping or work.  Cajun Trinity frozen in a bag.  Open the bag and dump in your skillet to cook down.  Easy peezy.  Although we don't freeze them all together.  We cut and freeze peppers, onions, and celery to use in cooking.  It's a great time saver in the kitchen.

The bright orange peppers below are called Datil peppers.  They are HOT!  We core these and put them on the dehydrator for drying.  Once completely dry, we put them in a food processor and make pepper for seasoning.  We learned you've got to be careful.  We've added a little too much to dishes and you had to have a glass of water handy while you ate!  The peppers on the right are Hot Banana Peppers.  Unlike their cousins, sweet banana peppers, these will start a five alarm fire in your mouth.  They look just like the sweet ones, too!  We normally pickle most of the banana peppers - both sweet and hot.

The last photo is okra.  The production of okra is certainly way down since the summer.  We grow several varieties (Louisiana longhorn, Burgundy okra, Beck's Big okra, and Clemson spineless).  We chop them up and cook down with onions and then freeze in quart freezer bags.  We'll freeze a lot of this to use in winter gumbos.  Once you have an inventory of all the garden harvest in the freezer, it makes cooking the meal that much easier and cuts out trips to the grocery store.

In a few weeks, I'll chop all the okra down and plant mustard greens, spinach, radishes and turnips between rows on the fallow ground between where the okra was planted.

A Favorite Idea for Peppers

It seems as if all of our peppers struggle mightily during the long summer days, wilting and not producing much at all.  As the days grow shorter and the temps fall off a bit, the peppers catch a second wind.  Suddenly, we are awash in peppers.  We're pickling (by lacto-fermentation) quart after quart of banana peppers.  We brought several baskets of banana peppers to give away at church as everyone likes pickling them.  We're dehydrating jalapenos and habaneros and grinding them into pepper.  We're making poppers with jalapenos and hot banana peppers.  We're dicing and freezing Anaheim peppers that Tricia uses to cook with.  In fact, the wife told me, "There's no sense in planting bell peppers anymore.  They haven't been producing well and Anaheims are better."

And then I went and checked on the bell peppers and there was a half dozen of them on the little bell pepper plant.  Well, what do you know?  They must have heard that they were fixing to be stricken from the planting rotation and quickly produced to save their spot.

 I brought them inside and we promptly cleaned them up and cored them.  We had an idea for supper tonight - something we hadn't done in a while: Stuffed Bell Peppers!  Tricia has a quick recipe that she puts together.  It's basically dirty rice, with a little tomato sauce added and then topped off with cheese, put in a baking pan and toss in the oven for a spell.  Some people like them topped with tomato paste/sauce, but we like cheese on top.  They turned out so good, we brought a couple to our son, Russ, who lives in a town about 10 miles away.  Russ loves peppers.  He said they are his favorite vegetable in the garden.

As is often the case, we had too much stuffing and not enough bell peppers.  So we did what anybody would do.  We made do with what we had on hand.  We have an abundance of beautiful Anaheim peppers on hand.  Anaheims will not stand up, so I just sliced them in half, making something sort of like a boat.  We spooned the stuffing into the Anaheim boats.  While bell peppers are sweet, Anaheims have a little heat, but not much.  Mild, I would call them.

The last few nights, the temperatures have dipped into the mid-30's.  The peppers will continue to produce until the freeze gets 'em.  For right now, we're still picking and finding delicious things to do with them.

Patricia Picked a Peck of Peppers

When I got in from work I didn't see Tricia and didn't know where she was until I went out and began filling the cow and goat water troughs with water.  Then I saw her.  She was in the garden with her baskets.  She came inside after a little bit with a nice-sized harvest of various peppers.  From October until December or the first freeze is our best time for pepper production.  Although we didn't weigh them, it's a pretty good haul.  We've already picked and eaten and pickled and dehydrated a bunch and there are a bunch more on the way.  This doesn't count the jalapenos.

This basket are our Hot Banana Peppers.  I have these planted in a row far from the others as I didn't want them crossing with the mild banana peppers.  These boogers will surprise you.  You expect them to be a regular banana pepper and bite into it and it's not!

These are the regular banana peppers.  They are mild and crunchy.  We have pickled (lacto-fermented) quarts and quarts of these this year with many more to go.  We like eating them as a side dish at lunch.

Here are the Anaheim Peppers.  We like cooking with these and often use them instead of bell peppers.  They have a little bite to them - not as hot as a jalapeno, but more spice than a sweet bell pepper.  They add some good flavor to the pot.

And here is a mystery pepper.  I think it is some sort of habenero cross.  It sends you scrambling for milk to put out the fire in your mouth!  We've resorted to dehydrating these and then grinding into a fine powder for making a homemade creole seasoning blend.  It's very good.  You just have to be careful that you don't overdo it.

The jalapenos should be producing more and more now.  We eat those as fast as we pull them.  The shishito peppers, a new variety we planted this year, were a big hit, and we enjoyed blistering them and eating with some lime juice and kosher salt with grated cheese on top.  Sadly, all three of the plants all died at the same time.  We'll definitely plant more of those this spring.

What are your favorite peppers?

Made a Few Jars of Pickled Banana Peppers

This year I had the foresight to plant my banana peppers on the opposite side of the garden from the jalapenos.  Last year I planted them too close together and all the banana peppers were hot.  Don't get me wrong, I like hot peppers, but there is a time and place for them.  I also like a mild banana pepper that has been pickled in vinegar to eat alongside rice & gravy and meat. 

The pepper plants have been producing and we eat them mainly raw - most of the time right off the plant.

The other day I picked all the big ones off the plant, but there are many more little ones growing with blooms that promise more peppers.

It was time to do a quick batch of pickled banana peppers.  I put a pot on the stove with 3 cups vinegar, 2 cups water, 2 tablespoons kosher salt and 1 tablespoon sugar.  I brought that to a boil and then let it completely cool.

Meanwhile I crushed a garlic clove and put one in the bottom of each of the four jars of peppers that I was pickling.  Then I packed two of the jars with sliced banana peppers.  I packed them in real tight.

For two of the jars, I cut the banana peppers into rings, just to mix things up.  I packed those in tight, too. 

Then I poured the cooled pickling liquid into each of the jars, bringing the liquid all the way up to the top.

Then I placed them in the fridge where I'll let them 'marinate' for a few days before I eat them.

We may even have these jars polished off by the time the next crop is ready to be picked and pickled!