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, July 20, 2009
Harvest, July 19: Tomatoes! and Melrose Peppers!
We have cherry tomatoes!
Nine days later than last year, and the same variety - 'Matt's Wild Cherry'. And just like last year, the 'Fish' peppers are ready too, but I didn't pick any yesterday.
The reason I didn't pick any 'Fish' was because I've been watching 'Melrose' for a few days and yesterday decided the time was right to sample some.
I cut them up and cooked them with onions for topping for bratwurst. I know, completely the wrong way to eat them, but we had already planned to cook the bratwurst...
If you haven't heard of 'Melrose' peppers, they're one of the "Italian Frying Peppers". Throw them in a frying pan with olive oil, sauté to your liking. This particular variety is said to have originated in Melrose Park, Illinois, but prior to that did some Italian family carry the seeds over the Atlantic in their pockets? I like to think so.
Of all the 17 varieties of peppers I planted, 'Melrose' and 'Fish' are doing the best in this unusually cool and rainy summer we're having. All the plants are small and some just starting to flower. We had one and a half days of hot weather last week, and during that time the pepper plants grew about 4-6" taller. Imagine what a week of hot weather would do.
If you'd like to read more about Melrose peppers, click away:
Proud Italian Cook: Melrose Peppers
Mario Quagliata's Peppers. That one is a particularly good story, and I'd love to try growing Mario's hybrid.
The rest of my harvest list is posted at myfolia.com.
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 19, 2008
This 'n' That, Mostly Wildflowers
This started out to be a belated Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day post for Tangled Branches South, but really there are only 2 cultivated plants newly blooming since last month's GBBD. I just don't have many perennials planted here yet and the annuals are looking tired. So the two newly blooming plants are a pale pale yellow Chrysanthemum and a purple Aster. I don't know the names of either one. And I had forgotten all about the Aster - the rabbits ate it down to nothing and I never even noticed that it had resprouted until I saw it blooming this morning.
The wildflowers make up for the lack of cultivated flowers. The meadow is gold and white and blue now with Goldenrod (Solidago spp.), Asters (Symphyotrichum spp. if you insist), Blue Mist Flower (Eupatorium coelestinum, now renamed to something I've forgotten), and Great Blue Lobelia (Lobelia syphilitica).
There's an interesting plant blooming in the woods now. I feel fairly sure that it's Aureolaria flava or Smooth Yellow False Foxglove, but ID is somewhat difficult owing to the fact that it's lost all its lower leaves. See the thin stems with yellow blobs at the end? That's it.
The flowers are quite pretty, but they don't last long and also the deer nibble on them.
There are several Aureolaria species in Virginia, but apparently all have some type of relationship with oak trees. All the online references I find call it parasitism, but this is a plant with green leaves so I'm perplexed by that. It is growing under some tall oak trees.
Something else that's been nibbled on is this mushroom.
I'd love to know whether this is edible, but my mushroom identification skills are nonexistant so I won't be trying it unless some expert shows up here, eats it while I watch, and stops by the next day in good health.
We haven't tried any of the homemade Inner Beauty sauce on mushrooms, but we've had it on pork chops and chicken wings. I wrote up my lab notes for Batch One over on my food blog. I didn't use any of these 'Yatsufusa' peppers in the sauce, but they probably would be a nice addition. This the prettiest pepper plant in the garden today.
Labels: in bloom, mushrooms, peppers, wildflowers
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, September 09, 2008
Flowery Interlude
Are you tired of reading about vegetables here? How about flowers and butterflies for a change?
The meadow below the vegetable garden has turned gold with these exuberant Tickseeds (Bidens sp.). What you can't see from that photo is the huge number of tiny skippers flitting about them.
The flowers have an attractive honey-sweet fragrance too, but you'll just have to trust me or find some and do your own sniff test.
One of my favorite fall wildflowers is Ironweed (Vernonia sp.). I don't have many of these and I wish I did. It takes a lot of them to make an impression.
The one above is past its prime, but the flowers are pretty close up. The photo below shows the individual fringe-y florets, but if you want a good look, click through and magnify the image (button will be above the photo, right corner).
Near the Ironweed, you can clearly see the path the deer made through the meadow between the woods and the vegetable garden. But I'm not going to talk about vegetables today.
My mystery wildflower continues to bloom. I've looked through several wildflower books and websites and I'm still stumped. It's about 8 inches tall with thin opposite leaves. There were 3 plants scattered in various places at the edge of the woods, but 2 of them vanished during the August drought. The survivor was the largest of the 3. I don't remember seeing this flower last summer.
This Cloudless Sulphur butterfly is a big one, much larger than the more common Clouded Sulphur. I've seen them a few times this summer and always on these pale orchid-purple petunias, where their color is complemented perfectly. According to Butterflies through Binoculars, they have the unusual habit of migrating north in the autumn.
And just like caterpillars into butterflies, pepper flowers turn into fruit! More later about my cooking experiments with Ají Dulce and associates.
Labels: butterflies, critters, peppers, petunias, wildflowers
Saturday, August 23, 2008
I Grew Ají Dulce, Now What?
Does anybody have a good recipe using these? And should I wait until they're ripe before I pick them, or is green OK?
I added a green one to something I cooked a week or so ago (now I don't remember what it was) and the flavor surprised me. It tasted like a Habanero would taste if you could taste it without the heat. Not at all like a sweet green pepper of the Bell or New Mexico or Poblano type. I Googled Ají Dulce and Caribbean Seasoning Pepper, but still don't feel as though I understand how to cook with them.
While I'm on this theme, I'm also looking for suggestions for a good Caribbean cookbook. I like the type of cookbook that places the food in context of culture, history, personal stories, that sort of thing - not necessarily just a recipe book.
I understand the Ají Dulce peppers are also used in Peruvian cooking - another cuisine I know very little about, except for one of the many Peruvian rotisserie chicken places we have in the DC area. And we haven't eaten there for a while come to think of it.
Signed,
Clueless
Labels: peppers
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.
Saturday, August 09, 2008
Midpoint of Summer
My annual post about the beginning of autumn is past due. I started writing this on Thursday, the astronomical halfway point between the summer solstice and the autumnal equinox, and traditionally the start of autumn in Europe and northern Asia. Or is it the midpoint of summer? That's what Wednesday's entry in Baer's Almanac said. I suppose it's a half-empty/half-full sort of judgement.
It's not hard to find signs of autumn, if that's what you're looking for. The black gum (Nyssa sylvatica) trees start to take on their fall colors very early (especially if they're drought-stressed?). 
Goldenrod started blooming several weeks ago, but I notice more and more every day.
There are flower buds visible on my 'Purple Dome' asters.
I saw a huge patch of pale pink Lycoris in somebody's yard in central Virginia last weekend.
A gust of wind brought down a shower of green acorns yesterday.
However, since starting vegetable gardening in earnest last year, what's really on my mind at this season is tomatoes and peppers. Especially peppers.
This year the freezer will be well-stocked with enough chile peppers to last until next August.
Labels: astronomy, autumn, peppers, seasons, vegetables
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Ugly Tomatoes
You turn your back on the garden for one minute and everything changes. We spent a good part of the weekend weeding, trimming, deadheading, and generally prettying-up the vegetable garden. I picked a semi-ripe tomato before I left for Illinois. The spouse picked a couple of almost-ripe tomatoes while I was gone, and we picked a few more last weekend. The reason I didn't blog about them was that they weren't very pretty - some cracked, some with green shoulders (some varieties are supposed to be that way, but still), some catfaced - and all delicious I might add. But this morning, I read Carol's post asking us to show off our UGLY tomatoes. Hey - I can do that!
I accidentally picked the greenish-yellow one. I was trying to snip off the yellow one, but couldn't quite see where I had the pruners and ... oops. This variety is 'Kellogg's Breakfast', and it seems especially prone to catfacing. There was a pretty one (but green) I also snipped off by accident. It turned into some very tasty fried green tomatoes - perfect meaty slices, just starting to ripen inside. 'Kellogg's Breakfast' has great flavor, very surprising for a yellow tomato (sort of an orangey-yellow), and it has a strong tendency to cling to the vine. If you don't clip off the fruit with pruners, you'll probably end up bruising it.
Some of the other varieties we've had so far are Striped Roman (slightly cracked, some blossom end rot), Piriform (cracked and green shoulders), Black Prince (green shoulders), Black Russian (cracked), and Matt's Wild Cherry (perfect, but cherry tomatoes don't count).
But if you want to see some pretty fruit, look at the peppers. I like tomatoes, but I love chile peppers. These are just a few of the 16? varieties I'm growing this year (most are hot, some not). Look for more posts about chile peppers in the next few weeks.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Tomatoes and Fish
First tomato!
A little bigger than a marble, but it's still a tomato. The variety is 'Matt's Wild Cherry'. I cut it down the middle and shared it with the spouse, and we both agreed that it was a bit tart. It will be a while until we have enough tomatoes for fresh salsa, but until then we'll eat the peppers. This one would be quite good for salsa, I think. It's hot enough that you know you're eating a hot pepper, but not overwhelming. A bonus here is that the plants are very decorative.
The leaves are variegated and the variegation extends into the fruit. Notice the light-colored stripe on the pepper above (kind of looks like a reflection, but isn't). It's called 'Fish' Pepper and is supposedly a Mid-Atlantic heirloom, popular in Philadelphia and Baltimore and used to season...(guess what?)...fish. So, I used it to spice up some restaurant leftovers - Goan Shrimp Curry. The verdict? It tastes great with seafood.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Pepper Update and Other Stuff
Aren't these pretty? I gathered up all the red peppers I could find, and put them in the oven to dry. I just spread them out on a sheet pan and leave them in the oven with the light on, not the heating element. It works well enough on the thinner ones, but I'm skeptical whether the thick ones will dry before they rot. Time will tell.
I ransacked my kitchen to see what chile-containing products I could discover, and wrote them up over on my food blog. I don't have as many as I thought I did, but it's a fairly diverse collection. Thanks for the idea, Ki.
Did you see today's NY Times article about the giant pumpkin growers, er, I mean growers of giant pumpkins? Buried at the end of the article is a very interesting point. Miracle-Gro is out of fashion with these folks. These behemoths are grown using sea kelp, compost tea, and mycorrhizal inoculant! And another thing - the growers don't mind drought. They prefer the degree of control they get with irrigation.
Drought. How dry is it here? Well we're not in as much trouble yet as, say, Atlanta. But the official records for Washington DC are measured at National Airport, and this is what the National Weather Service had to say this morning:
...RECORD TIED OFFICIALLY AT WASHINGTON FOR CONSECUTIVE DAYS WITHOUT
MEASURABLE RAIN YESTERDAY...
THE RECORD FOR THE LONGEST CONSECUTIVE DAYS WITHOUT MEASURABLE
RAINFALL AT WASHINGTON REAGAN NATIONAL AIRPORT HAS BEEN TIED. THE
PREVIOUS RECORD OF 33 STRAIGHT DAYS WITHOUT MEASURABLE RAIN WAS SET
FROM AUGUST 7TH TO SEPTEMBER 8TH 1995. THE CURRENT STRETCH BEGAN ON
SEPTEMBER 15TH.
THERE IS A CHANCE THE RECORD COULD BE BROKEN TODAY...ALTHOUGH THERE
IS A SLIGHT CHANCE FOR ISOLATED RAIN SHOWERS ACROSS THE MID ATLANTIC
REGION LATER TODAY. RAIN CHANCES WILL INCREASE AS A COLD FRONT
APPROACHES THE AREA ON FRIDAY.
DAILY RAINFALL RECORDS IN WASHINGTON DATE BACK 137 YEARS TO 1871.
RAINFALL STARTS TO MEASURE AT ONE HUNDREDTH OF AN INCH.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Tasting Notes: Chile Peppers
As much as I like tomatoes, I think chile peppers are my true calling. Trying to grow them in northern Virginia was an exercise in frustration. There was never enough sun for them there on our wooded lot, and my impression is that they don't really like clay soil. I planted hot varieties, but was always disappointed in the heat level of the fruit. Ah, but this year, in central Virginia, where the garden is sunny and sandy, I got to fulfill my chile desires. And I only put in 17 plants! What was I thinking?
Now, none of these are the very, very, very hot kinds. I like chile heat, but I want to taste the rest of the ingredients in a dish as well. And oftentimes, there are other interesting flavors lurking in the background of these peppers - the ones that intrigue me have a sort of sweet-fruity taste in addition to the heat.
So, in descending ascending (see? another example of declining brain cell count) order of heat (which is purely my own perception - no Scoville units here) here's the list. By the way, I planted 2 plants of most varieties, and 4 of the Serranos.
Jackpot - These were free seeds, so I planted them. This is a bell pepper and there's no heat to these, but I'm including them (and the next one) on the list anyway. 'Jackpot' is a long, thin-walled bell pepper. I don't love bell peppers and so never planted any before, but after many years of marriage I learned just this summer that my spouse likes them. I swear he never mentioned it before. Anyhow, these peppers are fine, if you like bell peppers, but there are thicker, blockier ones available.
Papri Sweet - This is a long pepper of the type I call "New Mexico" peppers. It has no heat, but is fairly thick walled for its shape. I don't have any strong feelings about this one either way - it's pretty good for what it is.
Aci Sivri - A long cayenne-shaped pepper, which is yellow-green before ripening. This has a bit of that fruity flavor that I admire. The heat was variable on these - some were pretty hot and some had little to no heat.
Czechoslovakian Black - A jalapeno-type pepper, purple-black before ripening, and deep Chinese-lacquer red when ripe. The second-prettiest pepper plants I grew this year - the flowers are purple, the dark fruits are attractive before they ripen and after they ripen they're even better. Unfortunately, I have no photos of a ripe one. The heat is moderate, but there's also a fruity-sweet flavor which intensifies when the peppers are ripe. This is one of my favorites.
Chile Grande - Another New Mexico type. Early in the season I thought these had no heat at all, but they surprised me later on - turning out to be one of the hotter ones I grew. I used them seeded and cut into long strips where I wanted a pepper flavor in a dish.
Serrano Tampiqueno - The Serranos I knew before this year all looked like a smaller slimmed-down version of a Jalapeno, but this one has a somewhat different shape - more blunt. It has the same great Serrano flavor, which I think is superior to Jalapeno. They really don't develop any heat until the fruits are green-mature. This can be tough to discern while the fruits are on the plant, but what I've noticed is that the color turns a deeper green when they're ready. They're also very nice when red-ripe, with a bit of that fruity flavor.
Pinocchio's Nose - Long, long, long thin peppers of the cayenne type. I measured one at 11 inches long. This was best suited for adding heat to a dish, but I didn't detect much other flavor in it. Worth growing just to see the long fruits.
Bellingrath Gardens Purple - I guess this is considered an ornamental pepper, but we eat the fruit. And it is ornamental - dark purple-black leaves with small purple flowers and tiny black fruit ripening to orange-red. I went back to this one again and again when I needed extra heat in a dish. But I think it would make a fabulous Halloween decoration, and I'm writing this down here in hopes of remembering it next year. Imagine planting these in a black container with a ghostly Artemisia or dusty miller, and maybe a salmon-colored Osteospermum, and arranging a pumpkin or two around the container. Must remember this next year, must remember this next year, must...
I'd grow all of these again. There isn't a bad one in the lot. All the plants were nibbled on to some degree by wild critters (deer? rabbits?), but I still had plenty of fruit. I didn't notice if the critters ate the fruit or not, but they definitely pruned the plants for me.
Next year, I'm going to add Poblanos and more New Mexico style chiles. Maybe, possibly, a habanero. We'll see.
I plan to update this post with pictures later, when I take my Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day photos, but I want to post this now before we head out the door to the Virginia Wine and Garlic Festival. And I'm working on a post for my food blog on all the chile condiments in my kitchen, inspired by Ki.
Updated October 14 with photos. Click through for variety names.
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
