Tangled Branches: Cultivated
happenings in and around my zone 6b gardens in northern Virginia and in central Virginia
Monday, October 20, 2008
Green Lemons
Saturday was such a cold, gray, windy day that I was sure we were going to have frost after dark when the skies cleared and the wind died down. The weather service disagreed and didn't issue a frost warning. I didn't believe them, so just before dark the spouse and I furiously picked peppers in case I was right and the weather service was wrong. I was wrong - they were right.
Sunday just didn't feel like the right kind of day for frost that night, but the weather service issued a freeze warning. Who to believe this time - them or my gut? My instincts were wrong on Saturday so maybe they'd be wrong Sunday too. My rational self sided with the weather service and picked most of the rest of the peppers in the garden Sunday afternoon. Was there frost? I don't know because I wasn't there. We'll have to wait until the weekend to see what happened.
Now ordinarily, I'd be happy to have picked that many peppers. But see that big pile right in front, with just a few yellow peppers in it? That breaks my heart. Those are 'Lemon Drop' peppers - nicely hot and when they ripen to yellow they really do have a citrusy tang. But I got very few ripe ones this year in relation to the total number of peppers produced. I only had one plant and there were well over 100, maybe 200, green peppers left on it on Saturday. Just a few more warm sunny days would have ripened many of them...<sigh>...I didn't pick them all, just in case the weather service was wrong.
I didn't get many ripe peppers from the Thai pepper, Prik Ki Nue Rai, either. Those are in the colander at the left.
The majority of those peppers in the photo went into the freezer at Tangled Branches South. Good thing I divided my harvest between the freezers at our southern and northern locations, because we had a refrigerator disaster this morning at Tangled Branches North. I opened the fridge and found things strangely warm in there. Opened the freezer and found a drippy mess, including many bags of thawed chile peppers. I was too disheartened to try to think of something to do with them, and hopefully the other half will be enough for the winter. The repairman has come and gone - the circuit board had failed - damn computers...
5 Comments:
Oh my, I was really tempted to do a pickled peppers rap but I can't get it together! Lucky you! What a bounty of peppers that seems to me, but then a few would be a lot in our household...they are beautiful. My husband would love to try the citrusy Lemon Drop peppers.
I am sorry about the refrigerator disaster...that is a bummer.
Gail
I haven't tried Lemon Drop. Maybe next year. The table looks beautiful with all those varieties piled on.
Gail: Would love to hear a pickled peppers rap! We eat a lot of hot peppers. Lemon Drop was new this year, but I'll definitely plant it again next year. Thanks for the sympathy re the fridge - just one of those things...
Layanee: I went a little bit overboard on peppers this year, and I want even more next year. Maybe the Bhut Jolokia? There are worse habits to have, I suppose ;-)
The freeze wasn't too bad - maybe next year - could you have covered them with a blanket or something to protect them?
Kim: Last year I tried Reemay (really Agribon), but the width I had wasn't big enough to cover the height of the plants. This year I decided I wasn't going to fiddle with it. If I was here full time, it would be easier. We didn't get any frost damage at all in northern Virginia, but the vegetable garden in central Virginia is in a frost-prone spot at the bottom of a hill and all the vulnerable stuff froze sometime between last Sunday and this morning. But...we got a lot of peppers and tomatoes this year...I'm not really complaining (too much).
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