I think we have around 400 bells that I'll be putting away (still need a bit more time for the hot ones).
I know there is a pepper forum but I think they tend to grow more *lively* ones so I'll post mine here.
We dropped down to 34 degrees F last night so I picked a nice amount and covered the rest.......all made it through and now we have warm day and night temps forecasted for awhile so will take away the sheets/blankets/quilts etc. tomorrow and will water my garden again. :)
What you going to do with them?
LOL well LTilton I truly didn't mean to grow this many........early in the season I noticed many here at Dave's were saying that they were getting poor germination with their peppers (so I started extras). Of course since I had so many peppers planted all germinated and I didn't lose any (unlike some of my rarer tomatoes that got fried when my greenhouse hit 100 F in early May....a freak heat wave hit). I gave some away and then I heard I could have some extra gardening patches (total 20 x 180) so I planted all that I had left.
My son is at University and he and his two room mates take turns making meals .... I have a feeling DS will be making Chili and Spaghetti with them. My DD is a huge pepper lover (including those that are almost American hot :S) so she can take some back with her to Alberta (in the car trunk or in the luggage compartment of the bus they'll stay frozen in the depths of winter).
Here we will make a couple (or more) Greek Salads/Salsas/stuffed peppers with some of the fresh and will make stews/chilis with the frozen ones (warm comfort food for our loverly winters :) as well as stewed tomatoes . I'm also pretty sure I'll find one or two canning recipes that they will come handy in (I've got lots of tomatoes ripening/ripened as well).
Lesson learned from this: plant lots of seeds and you will be cursed with more than you can handle (thank goodness for kids that love Mom's garden produce....and want to save money :).
This message was edited Sep 16, 2008 7:38 AM
I make the red pepper spread from the Ball canning book.
They are pretty tasty when roasted too. You could roast a few before bottling them.
Lilypon: I would chop or slice them up, then put them in small freezer bags. When you make spaghetti sauce, chili, or stir fry throw in a bag will be great. My peppers didn't make it this year, horned catepillar got them and I managed to save one only. Next season I have purchased a special basket that hangs and has 30 holes in the side so you can grow 30 veggies at once out of it. That is what my peppers are going in and I have about 100 seeds myself, as I bought 3 or 4 varieties of bell peppers and Italian peppers, as I'm starting all my own seedlings inside in January this year.
joy112854
Thank you so much for the suggestion LTilton and Garden_Mermaid I'll be checking the cookbooks at the library today for recipes re your suggestions.
Joy I'll be following your suggestion as well (including starting them earlier.....I did get a wonderful crop but I'd rather grow less plants and get more peppers per plant).
Indy what's the story behind your picture???
Pam
p.s. sorry to hear about the fate of your peppers to the hornworm Joy! :( I only saw one at the patch this year and the confused fellow was busy nibbling the new growth on one of my pumpkin vines.....I took him for a little ride out to a park where he'd hopefully find something to munch on there. I really don't like killing most caterpillars however the tent caterpillar and the army worms will end up under my foot very quickly (or I'll cut the branch with their tent and get out my lighter). :)~
This message was edited Sep 16, 2008 7:47 AM
Long story short: My lovely healthy peppers were in the middle of fruiting when they came down with a horrible, hard to identify problem. (I introduced some new plants late in the season that infected them.)
In another person's garden, I'd seen the devastation this same thing caused. Mottled, curled up leaves, leaf drop, blossom drop, all to the point where the pepper plant ends up standing there looking like a dead twig. :-(
Luckily, a fellow DGer dmailed me and identified the problem (broadmites and gardener error). He also offered a solution: neem oil twice a week, mulch, more water, TLC. I did all of this, but I had my doubts that they would bounce back before the weather turned cold. But now I'm seeing lots of healthy baby peppers, we're still having nice warm weather, and we're at least a month away from frost.
Garden drama. :o) After all of that, I WILL have peppers. It's inspiring, really. But I'm kind of sentimental, I guess.
You're in zone 3, so you're dealing with a much trickier growing season (I'd imagine) than those of us in 5, so kudos to you!
This message was edited Sep 16, 2008 10:04 AM
yep water is very, very much appreciated by the peppers. I water mine every 2nd day and they are pretty well flooded compared to what I give to the other plants growing in the rest of my patch. I had read years ago that they were almost a rainforest type tropical plant so that gave me a clue).
We can grow a surprising amount of plants here, longer daylight hours help, but you're right our season has definite time constraints so plants here have a narrow time frame to get into the ground, grow and be harvested......I'm actually surrounded by zone 2 (country) but I put zone 3b since I live in town and my house is halfway down a hill, in a protected valley, so I can get away with growing plants in my yard that a person in the surrounding country couldn't. My veggie patch however is exposed to zone 2 conditions so the season there starts later and ends earlier than it would in my yard. We also have the occassional early July/late Aug snowfall/frost to watch out for but lately we've had summers with previously unknown levels of extreme humidity and high temperatures.......last summer we had three weeks of it and the highest temperature we felt was 118F (heat and humidity combined). Without A/C here I truly considered going to our local grocery store and climbing into one of their freezers (we watched a lot of winter movies that summer). My plants loved it though and grew like they were in Florida (the only pollination that occurred that year however was before that stinking heat moved in).
Because of our extremely cold winters however (not that we are getting them all the time now though) we thankfully aren't blessed with many of the bothersome critters that you are (which is a good thing since our government pulled most pesticides....they are no longer available to home gardeners).
This message was edited Sep 16, 2008 10:22 AM
I made the roasted red pepper spread today. Six # of peppers reduced down to 5 little savory jars.
LOL okay tease share your recipe please! :)
Lilypon - do you have the Bell canning book?? It's in there, on pg 80 of the current edition.
I'm not sure about posting it verbatim, given that the recipe may be under copyright. But the general process is to roast the red peppers, also a pound of plum tomatoes, an onion and some garlic. Peel off all the skins and toss into the blender or food processor with 1/2 cup vinegar, a little salt, about a T of sugar and a couple of T of minced herbs like basil.
Reduce till thick and put into jars for canning, supposed to yield 5 cups and that's what I got.
They say that 8 large peppers = 6#, but those must be a lot bigger peppers than mine!
This is a savory spread, not a hot one, but a hot pepper or red pepper flakes can easily be added.
Ltilton I was sure I put in a suggestion to order that book a couple of years ago (and earlier this year again) but it's not to be found in our collection. I have a feeling it's mainly printed for an American audience .... does your copy have an ISBN and what is the exact title of it please?
It's the Ball Blue Book of preserving. ISBN 0-9727537-0-2
They sell it more where you would buy canning supplies than in bookstores.
Here's one place it can be ordered - they have other books as well.
http://www.kitchenkrafts.com/product.asp?pn=BK2140&c2p=hp
Thank you. :) Now I'll have to figure out if your cup, tablespoon etc were any different than ours before we changed to metric (I still have some of my pre-metric measuring equipment around).
Okay I found it in GBIP (Global Books in Print) so it should be available for the library to order and if the suggestion is rejected I'll go to the supplier you listed.
KeywordAuthorKeyword in titleISBN/UPCTitle (exact)
Title: Ball Blue Book(R) of Preserving
Contributor: Judy Harrold (Editor)
Publication Date: January 2003
Publisher: Alltrista Consumer Products Company
Country of Publication: United States
Market: United States
ISBN: 0-9727537-0-2
ISBN13: 978-0-9727537-0-8
EAN: 9780972753708
Item Status: Active Record (Available for Order)
Binding Format: Trade Paper
Edition: illustrated
Pages: 124
Price: $8.95 (USD Retail) (Publisher)
Also Available Through: Alibris ; NACSCORP, Incorporated
Current Language: English
Audience: Family
Bowker Subjects: COOKERY
General Subjects (BISAC): COOKING / General
General Subjects (BIC): COOKERY / FOOD & DRINK ETC
Physical Dimensions (W x L x H): 8.5 x 11 x .25 in.
Synopsis/Annotation: The Ball Blue Book of Preserving is the classic American guide to keeping fresh-tasting food on hand. Here you will find answers to every food preservation question, including vacuum sealing and packing with the Tilia FoodSaver, as well as unique gift-giving ideas.
I checked all the major libraries across Canada and found only one location:
No. 22733968 1 Location(s) Alberta Government Library, Neil Crawford Site
Ball blue book : the guide to home canning and freezing. Edition 31 -- Muncie, Ind. : Ball Corporation, 1985
The information below is provided for interlibrary loans (ILL). To request the item, contact your local library for ILL services available to you.
Library Holdings Summary Available for ILL
AEAG TX 603 B34 1985 Yes
Which makes me wonder even more now if there is a difference between your measuring utensils and ours. I remember we had the imperial gallon which quite a bit different than yours so now I really will have to investigate the others.
This message was edited Sep 16, 2008 8:32 PM
A quick scan tells me that:
one U.S. cup equals 240ml. In Australia and Canada, a cup is 250 mL.
So that's probably why the Ball Blue Book of Preserving isn't readily available here.
Thank you for giving me a rough idea of what was in your recipe LTilton. I'll look for a similar one in one of our cookbooks here.
I don't think it's one of those recipes where exact measurement is very important.
Then I'll ILLO it in and just copy the recipe that you mentioned. I know with some of the canning recipes they make a point of saying everything had to be exact but others have a bit more leeway. :)
