August 9, 2010

Tending and Eating

The rainbow peppers are starting to make an appearance. I can't wait to cook with these for the first time. I'm pretty sure we'll hear "cha-ching" every time we pull one of these off the plant.  That'd be the sound of money in our pockets. Up to $3 a pop for these guys in the grocery store.


Banana peppers are coming in full force as well.  They've been a good substitute for bell peppers in recipes that call for a half a bell pepper.  Two to four of these equal about a half a bell pepper.


The mariachi peppers are turning beautiful colors. Tom found out that the longer these stay on the vine and the darker in color they get, the hotter they are. This coming weekend we'll harvest just about all of these, roast them in the oven, and do our first canning! We'll be sure to post lots of pictures of that process next week.


About three more cantaloupes have appeared! We heard the "cha-ching" sound when we harvested the three of these guys too. You can hear that sound very faintly when you walk by this new batch.

We began working our succession planting method and pulled out the last of the swiss chard and beets and planted fall carrot seeds.


We also thinned out the marigolds and put big bunches of them in pots for our front porch.

The okra is... well... lets just say this: They are producing, Tom is a happy camper, we've eaten a good bit, we've frozen a good bit, and there seems to be no end in sight. The plants are just about over our heads and will soon be at the point where we won't be able to reach the tops. We have seven plants in one bed and about six in another.  After a bit of "lively discussion" I convinced Tom to take out one of the plants that was starting to look more like a tree. In addition to choking out the rosemary, it was blocking the path between the beds. He pulled it out, but was none to happy about the thought of reducing the okra production. Can you believe we grew this tree-trunk of a plant from seed?

He looks pretty grouchy, doesn't he? I think he's gotten over it now and realizes it was a good thing.

We finally had a few cucumbers come in and we also had some fellow gardeners give us some of their bounty.  I found this cute recipe for something else to do with cucumbers in the Observer. Cut them into 3/4" rounds, scoop out the middle, make tuna salad with curry and a little sour cream, green onions, and peppers, load the tuna mixture into the scooped out part of the cucumber, top with a half an olive and cracked pepper. Yummy and fun! We had them for lunch yesterday.


 ~Y

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