The Year Of Peppers

Every year there are some things that don't do so well (apple blossoms felled by frost,  squash that didn't produce female blossoms because it was too hot) and other things that do gang-busters.  Like peppers...

I am growing four jalapeno and four red hot pepper plants and they are loaded with peppers.

On Thursday I got a bushel of red shephard peppers -- some years these are skinny in flesh and circumference and length, but not this year!  Almost as fleshy as regular sweet peppers and nearly twice as long.  Wonderful to roast on the barbeque for Roasted Red Pepper Spread -- a dozen of these beauties was enough for a double batch of the stuff.

On Saturday at the Farmers Market, one vendor was offering a bushel of orange and yellow sweet peppers for $10.  How could I resist -- especially in light of my dearth of squash and a winter need for vitamin A.

Oh, I picked up a half-dozen green peppers to go with them at the No Frills at 77 cents a pound....

I dried and canned my way through all but two green and two red peppers 5 days.  I have 5 jars of dried sweet peppers (from 2 to 3 cup in size),  6 quarts of pickled sweet peppers,  4 jars of  sweet and sour yellow pepper soup, and they made substantial contributions to the content of jardiniere and a 6-pepper Hellish Relish.

Jungle Time

We've had a few days of rain,  like we often do in the first week or so of August,  so the grass is greening up again,  the rhubarb is robust, and the pole beans continue to outgrow whatever I put them on!

A neighbor was taking down her wooden porch railings.  One was 8 feet long, the other was 14.  We cut the longer to match the shorter and installed them with braces.   The trimmed piece was put to use as a snap pea trellis further back in the garden.

You can see the watering jug for a cucumber planted under this trellis.  The bean didn't grow over the horizontal spindles until I cover them with chicken wire.

I never pick more than a third of the stalks from a rhubarb plant at a time.  This year I mulched them. When it was brutally hot and dry (no rain in several weeks), I did water them twice.  No longer now in August!  But I'll have rhubarb to combine with elderberries for wine and preserves.

Audrey the Audacious

She's a volunteer from the the compost, growing out of the compost bin.  This is not a small bin.  This is not a small sunflower.  Before she bloomed, I was wondering if I was growing my own exterior "Little Shop of Horrors"!

I might even get sunflower seeds this fall...

How 7 Bales of Straw Saved My Sanity (and Garden)

Last year we had a dry July -- simply no rain.  And the hot weather came in June.  We finally returned to a better rainfall cycle in August. 

I watered every odd day on the calender for six weeks!  I use rain water for my "kitchen" garden -- greens, herbs, peppers, and cherry tomatoes in a space on the east side of house -- so I could water every day there if I needed to (with peppers and tomatoes in pots I sometimes needed to!).  The fenced-in main garden and the perennial foods area (rhubarb, elderberries, grapes, asparagus, some berry bushes, and Jerusalem artichokes) are too extensive to be served by rain water alone.  Our city limits watering to every other day.   I used little mulch and my watering system was overly complicated.

We had a dry winter.  We got some spring rain.  The forecast was for a hot summer with lots of dry days.  Things had to change or I would grow to hate my garden.  We got a trailer; it was big enough to haul 10 bales of straw home. 

I moved my blueberries so I wouldn't have to water their old location; they weren't getting enough sun anyway.  (In their new spot, they don't get enough acid -- I think next year they go into big pots.)
I pulled up the soaker hose that had fed them and re-routed it through the asparagus bed with bean patches on either side of it.

Grapes don't require a lot of watering since they have deep root systems.  A bale of straw went on them so I could get by watering them only every ten days or so.  A bale and a half of straw went around the berry bushes,  the plum tree,  the elderberries, and the rhubarb.     I didn't water anything in that area until mid-July or so.

A half-bale went around the apple tree.  I mulched the black raspberries (but not soon enough or deep enough -- another change for next year).  More straw on the potato beds, but they simply did not do as well as last year.  It might have been the seed or that this was a second year in that place. 

A half-bale went around my kale plants in my kitchen beds and around the kohlrabi.  Dried grass clippings mulched all my herbs and pots.  My peppers were withering  quickly until I did that.  A 37 degree C  day will still send them into a droop, but they perk right up with an evening water.

In the main garden I mulched as I planted.  I didn't even think about watering until the end of June.  Then I got out my hoses,  simplified the joins, and came up with a system that involved no Ys,  only two hoses,  the ability to turn off flow at the last end, and my rain sweeper attachment. With it I could water everything in about an hour.  I still used my 2 gallon jugs for watering the grapes, zucchini, squash, and cucumbers (filling them with the free hose end), but the attachment can gently feed a 30 inch  long section of trellis planting.  I'd often get weeding done while jugs were filling or the attachment was watering a section of bean or pea trellis.

I had snap peas and greens aplenty.  The pole beans are producing the dried beans I like.  If I get rain, I don't water.  I've eaten, dried, and canned kale.  My jalapenos are super happy and my other hot peppers are pretty chirpy.  I've got a late crop of snap peas coming up in one of the potato beds.  It's not perfect, but I don't dread odd-numbered days on the calender as much.

The Re-Use Earwig Trap

Earwigs love to nest in -- and ruin -- my ripening grapes.  I don't  have as many this year because they bloomed early and frost hit some of the blossom.  I also deeply mulched the grapes this year so I wouldn't have to water them as often. The little earwig traps I bought a couple of years ago would be lost in it.

I've been eating tall tubs of Astro yogurt all summer.  I kept three out of the blue box to make earwig traps.  If they didn't work, I could always toss them back into the blue box.

The trap needs a way for the earwigs to get in,  the impossibility that they can get out again, and a bait to draw them in the first place.  A bait that they drown in keeps them from getting out.  They like beer and liquid detergent with a scent also helps draw them.  The detergent assures a drowning.

I drilled  four or five 1/4" holes in the top inch of yogurt container.  The lids go back on to keep out the rain and bigger vermin. The earwigs will crawl through the holes and drop into the bail solution.  Every few days I can remove lids and empty out dead earwigs and spent bait.

I had some very old near-beer sitting around.  It's the hops and malt that draws the earwigs, not the alcohol, so that was fine to use.  I had picked up a couple of detergent jugs early in the summer with push-spigots on them to replace my older outdoor sink water supplies.  Rinsing them out, I got a fair amount of diluted detergent which I stashed in another tall yogurt container.  I mixed the near-bear, detergent, and water in 64 oz. jug and now have a good month's supply of earwig bait.

I nestled the traps in the mulch under spans of vine that had grapes growing.  I've been removing earwigs every few days since and the grapes still look healthy.

Everything I've used in the traps has been diverted from the waste stream.

Rhubarb After Wine

... when you make rhubarb wine, you have shrunken, lightly sweetened rhubarb pieces left in your strainer.  They could be composted.  I tasted one -- just the right amount of sweetness (most of the sugar used in extracting the juice is in the juice). 

I really like the rhubarb-elderberry flavor combo I'm using in the wine.  I've got some elderberries frozen in the freezer.  The rhubarb chunks and a cup of elderberries went into my 2 quart glass measure (nice deep sides and a handy handle) and into the microwave.  First for three minutes, another three minutes, and then two (microwave wattages vary, so break up cooking times the first time out with something -- you can add more time to cook more, you can't undo overcooking).  The rosy hue of the rhubarb deepened,  a lot of the chunks held their shape with some saucing, and the result tasted divine over sourdough waffles with yogurt on top.  On the weekend away at a potluck breakfast I found it went equally well with yogurt on granola.  People also ate it as a side.  It was universally loved.

On the next batch of wine,  I cooked the sauce on the stove and canned it.

Rhubarb-Elderberry Sauce  (makes 5 half-pints)

6 cups rhubarb chunks (juice extracted via sugar)
1 cup elderberries (frozen is fine)
5 half-pint jars

1. Clean and heat jars as for any canning.
2. Cook the rhubarb and elderberries together.  The sauce is done when remaining juice in the rhubarb and juice from the elderberries combine and make a lightly gelled base for the softened fruit.  It will soften more during processing.
3. Spoon into hot jars, leaving 1/2 inch of headspace.  Use a knife or spatula to get out air pockets.
4. Process in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes.  
5. Remove, cool, check that seals are made, label and store.

If you are making two batches of wine (two gallons) at the same time or a few days apart (store the chunks from the first batch in the refrigerator), you can double the recipe and put it into pint jars.  The water bath processing should then be 20 minutes.

A Rose from Rhubarb?

... wine that is!

Two years I began make a rose (don't know how to do the accent here -- it's pronounced "rose-ay") wine from rhubarb with the addition of black raspberries to colour it that delicate pink and give it a flavour lift as well.  I didn't get to drink any of it the first year because local teenagers explored my basement when we left the back door unlocked and made of with it!  After upping our house security and putting potables under lock and key as a backup, I've got 20 bottles of rose wine to enjoy in coolers, cooking, and straight sipping.

This year I had leftover canned elderberry juice and white grape juice (from my own shrubs and vines), so I've begun using those instead.  The elderberry juice adds the needed colour and both deepen the flavour dimension of the wine.

Equipment you'll need:

• kitchen scale -- you do have to weigh the rhubarb and sugar
• 6 qt stainless steel pot with cover
• a second bowl or pot for the straining step
• 2 quart measure
• fine-mesh strainer
• glass gallon jug  (clean and sterile)
• fermentation lock to fit the jug's mouth

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 - 3 lbs rhubarb
• 2 1/2 lbs white sugar  (this produces a dry wine )
• 1 cup elderberry juice
• 2 cups white grape juice
• 2 quarts filtered water
• 1/2 tsp yeast nutrient (provides elements for the yeast not in the rhubarb)
• 1/2 packet of wine yeast (champagne type is good because it sinks to bottom of your jug)

Steps:

1. Gather rhubarb, wash, slice 1/2" thick.  Put 2 and half pounds of it (or up to three pounds) in the steel pot.
2. Add 2 and half pounds of sugar to the pot.  More sugar will make a sweeter wine, but no more than three pounds is advisable. 
3. Stir the sugar through the rhubarb and cover.
4. Leave for 24 hours,  stirring it every few hours.  The sugar will draw the juice from the rhubarb. 
5. Strain the juice from the rhubarb.
6. Put the rhubarb back into the empty pot,  add two cups of  filteredwater,  stir throroughly and strain again.  Do this twice. You're trying to get all the sugar and juice out.
7. Measure the amount of liquid you now have.  Add the juices.  Top up with more filtered water to make a gallon.  Rhubarb liquid + elderberry juice + white grape juice + filtered water = 1 gallon.
8. Heat to lukewarm.  Add yeast nutrient and yeast.
9. Pour into the gallon jug.  Set up your fermentation lock with some filtered water with a little bit of bleach or sulphite in it -- be careful not to overfill!  Insert the fermentation lock into the jug's mouth.
10. Let ferment 6 weeks in a coolish (less than 72 degrees F. but more than 60) dark place.  If fermentation takes place at more than 75 degrees,  you'll get a "lighter fluid" taste to your wine.
11. Check that fermentation is done:  jiggle the jug and no bubbles should come up through the fermentation lock.
12. Sterlize 5 750 ml bottles  (I use Perrier bottles I collect from household recycle bins in the neighborhood -- the caps are fine for this wine).  Use a tube siphon to tranfer the wine from the jug to the bottles.  You want to leave behind the yeast sediment at the  bottom of the jug. 
13. Cap and label.  Store in a cool, dark place for at least four months.  
14. When using, carefully decant into another bottle to leave behind any yeast that may have settled during the storage period.

Tomorrow:  what to do with the shrunken rhubarb after the juice is extracted