Tangled Branches: Cultivated
happenings in and around my zone 6b gardens in northern Virginia and in central Virginia
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Ping
I'm still here. Beautiful fall weather has descended and I just don't feel like sitting in front of the computer. I haven't even done much photography lately; I'm content to just enjoy being outdoors before it gets too cold. And the vegetable garden is still producing. I've been drying peppers, freezing peppers, eating peppers, and making hot sauce. I like peppers. Here's a photo I did to accompany some given to my in-laws. 
I asked the spouse if he could ID them for his family and he said no, hence the photo guide. 'Bulgarian Carrot' was new to me this year, but has become a favorite. Thick walls, hot, and early. A real winner.
Here's something I never saw before - a walking stick (insect).
I think the correct ID is Northern Walking Stick (Diapheromera femorata), but let me know if I'm wrong. Ordinarily, they should be in the woods eating oak leaves, so I'm not sure what attracted it to our front door.
Leaves are starting to drop and the deer are munching their way through the woods. You see things that were hidden before. These Euonymus americanus fruits for example. 
E. americanus is apparently a deer favorite because we have many many wild plants of it in the woods and almost all of them get chewed off as soon as they attain any size. They overlooked enough of this one to let it produce a few fruit capsules.
I wish I knew more about mushrooms. We get a progression of them spring through fall. I keep thinking that I'm ignoring free delicious food through my ignorance at identification, but fear of making a mistake has kept me from sampling any. I need an expert to come here and guide me. 
These were huge and obvious and the only ones of their kind I saw as I meadered through the woods yesterday. I have no idea what they are...
Labels: chiles, euonymus, insects, mushrooms, peppers
Sunday, July 26, 2009
First Real Tomato of the Year
...and what became of it...
The variety was 'Bloody Butcher'(the smaller ones on the plate are 'Matt's Wild Cherry'). I should have waited a few more days - the tennis-ball-size tomato was not quite fully ripe, but it was still tasty. We were just over-eager for the first fresh salsa of the year. Lots more to come, I hope.
But while we're talking about salsa, I want to put in a good word for the 'Bulgarian Carrot' pepper. I'm growing it for the first time this year and I'm so impressed with it. The plant is loaded with peppers and they are hot. It's hard to get a good hot pepper this early, even in a normal year, and worse this year when it's been so cold. When we get some really ripe tomatoes, they'll make a great combination.
Labels: chiles, peppers, tomatoes
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...
Friday, September 12, 2008
Who Stole the Hot Sauce?
The hot sauce in question was discontinued by the originator, not stolen, but either way it's gone and I miss it. Details follow.
Who Stole the Hot Sauce has been playing in my head ever since last weekend, when I read a post at OurFriendBen's place about the Chile Festival they attended. It dawned on me that almost everybody who grows a lot of chile peppers eventually ends up thinking of spicy condiments. What else can you do after you've filled the freezer with fresh green peppers and the pantry with dried red peppers and the pepper plants keep on making more peppers?
The spouse and I consume a good many chile peppers, but hardly any hot sauce. We're fairly capsaicin-compatible, so generally when I cook with chile peppers we're both satisfied with the heat level. But I mentioned the Chile Festival post to him and we got talking about hot sauces, salsas, BBQ sauces etc., and the conversation dredged up memories of an old flame we hadn't thought about in years. Inner Beauty. You can't buy it any more because its creator tired of the hot sauce business and sold the license.
We haven't tasted this sauce for at least 10 years, but talking about it made us want to taste it again. There are several recipes floating around the internet, so last Monday I hybridized them and created one of my own. I was intending to write up my version and how I got there over on my food blog, but my notes and I are 100 miles apart. So, look for my version of Inner Beauty on Satiated next week.
Pepper ID for the photos above, top to bottom: Ají Dulce, Prik Ki Nue Rai, Fish, and Lemon Drop. All those photos were taken a week ago before the storm. A couple of the taller plants are now much shorter due to being flattened by the wind and rain. I think they'll be fine - just shorter - we're still going to have plenty of peppers for Indian food, Mexican food, Thai food, Korean food, Caribbean food, and um, hot sauce.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Pick a Peck of Purple Peppers
OK, maybe not quite a peck. Not yet. But they're all purple to some degree.
From left to right, we have:
Royal Black
Bellingrath Gardens Purple
Black Hungarian
Purple Cayenne
Czechoslovakian Black
Missing from the photo are the purple bell peppers from a packet of mixed seed. We ate those last night, stuffed with lamb and rice.
All these are new to me, except the Czechoslovakian Black and the Bellingrath Gardens Purple.
Czech Black has a wonderful fruity sweet medium-hot flavor and they're even better when they ripen to a deep dark red. I wondered what else was available that might be similar, so this year I added Royal Black and Black Hungarian. I haven't tasted these side by side, but my impression is that Royal Black are hotter than Czech Black. Black Hungarian? I haven't made up my mind yet, but I think I still prefer Czech Black. Also, Black Hungarian seems to have produced a number of tiny fruit which are now ripening. Don't know why they're so small - maybe poor pollination? As you can see, the fruit of Royal Black, Black Hungarian, and Czech Black are very similar in appearance. That goes for the plants as well.
Purple Cayenne is failing to impress me so far. The walls of the pods are very thin and seem prone to some kind of rot. I'll probably not grow this one again.
Bellingrath Gardens Purple is hot, hot, hot. I've used these in the past to boost the heat level of a dish when the other available peppers weren't hot enough. The plants are very ornamental with dark purple leaves and some occasional green/purple/white variegation at the tips. I accidentally created a nice-looking bed of purple peppers, and purple-flowered and purple-leaved basil. The basil really should be cut back, but I like the look so much I haven't been able to do it. Anyhow, Bellingrath Gardens Purple is the very dark-leaved pepper in about the middle of the bed on the left. I need to get a better picture of the leaf variegation. Last year's plants were less variegated for some reason.
I mentioned the Fish Pepper in a previous post, but remaining to be discussed are:
Aci Sivri
Yatsufusa
Lemon Drop
Aji Dulce
Lombak
Chile Grande
Serrano Tampiqueno
Prik Ki Nue Rai
Pinocchio's Nose
I think that makes 16 varieties in all, or even more if you count the 5 different plants of bell peppers I got from the packet of mixed seed. More fun to come.
Notes on the writing of this post:
- I was wondering just how many peppers would fit in a peck, so naturally I Googled it. Sometimes you find things that are better than what you were looking for. Don't click here if you're offended by profanity. If you're not offended by profanity, read the first comment on that blog post. Even if it isn't true, it's a funny story.
BTW, A peck is defined in the US as 8 dry quarts and in the UK as 1/4 of a imperial bushel. - I wish I had thought up the title Chill(y)ing Out, so I could use it. Green Thumb is very clever.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Cooking from the Garden
Now that the garden is starting to produce some produce, I'm going to try to post a few things on my poor neglected food blog.
Last weekend I harvested the first chile peppers. I was hoping for more heat from the Chile Grandes and the Aci Sivris. I'm counting on the Serranos for salsa and Indian food, but they're just starting to form fruit. If they're not hot, I'll be very disappointed.
Labels: chiles, potager, vegetables
