What did you do in the garden today?

[Sally PB]

First, chickens do not taste the heat - they lack the necessary taste buds.

Yeah, I'd read that. So you can put hot pepper in your wild bird feed to discourage the squirrels. I don't know if our squirrels would be deterred in the least. But maybe a use for the ghost peppers a friend gave us?

 

[gtaus]

I finally pulled my Buttercup squash vines. At the beginning of the year, I was thinking that I would have 30, 60 or maybe even 90 buttercup squash at the end of the year based on how well the plants have grown and produced in the past. But, we had a terrible drought this year and my buttercup squash did not get the water they needed. My "harvest" was only 2 small grapefruit sized buttercup squash. Very disappointing.

I have other gardening successes to get me through this disappointment, such as my new hügelkultur raised beds I put in the backyard by the chicken coop, where I can run a water hose out to the beds and gave them water as needed. Those raised beds exploded this year with adequate watering.

So I am seriously thinking about relocating my main garden closer to the house where I can run out a water hose - just in case next year is another drought year. In any case, I will be expanding my backyard raised beds and changing what I plant in my gardens. I garden for the enjoyment of the process, but it was no fun seeing my plants in the main garden all die this drought year.

 

[Sueby]

Back in the beginning of chicken keeping I did an experiment with cayenne & paprika & yolk color. The Dumor feed I was feeding left the yolks super pale & I read that you could darken them up with cayenne & paprika so I tried it - it worked. I no longer feed Dumor.

I'm saving up all my peppers in the freezer & will make a simple hot sauce when the plants give up for winter. Basic sriracha recipe of cooking them all up with some garlic, vinegar, & some seasoning & then have DH taste it. If it's good I'll run it thru the mill, check the PH & water bath can it. I'm not going to bother fermenting this year, DH couldn't tell the difference. (I may dry & grind the mill leftovers for a pepper powder)

I really like this guy's ideas, here's his sriracha if anyone's interested, his other stuff is great too: https://www.chilipeppermadness.com/...ot-sauces/homemade-sriracha-hot-sauce-recipe/

 

[jerryse]

Went and bought a half bushel of tomatoes . Processed into juice and 7 quarts and in the water bath canner . Another 7 quarts to go after those finish . Took less than an hour to turn them into juice .

 

[BReeder!]

During my break today I picked a 1/2 bushel (nearly 5 gallons) of habaneros. There's still a bunch of green ones on the plants too. I still need to pick jalapenos, bell peppers and sweet banana peppers. I also need to dig up the last row of potatoes. The ground is dry so should be fine, but I want to get them out before Fall rains come. I need to thin the kale heavily because it's just going wild. I want to make kale chips with my new dehydrator. I need to thin the leaves on the brussel sprouts too, which I think I'll blanch and freeze for cooking greens over the winter. No actual brussel sprouts just yet. Hoping they produce now that the weather is cooling a bit. I'm also waiting for our few celery plants to get big enough for harvest - they really do take forever. Parsnips and Jerusalem artichokes are still in the ground until we get a frost. Since I picked the butternut, more have started to grow. A watermelon the size of a 16" softball appeared out of nowhere too - not sure it will grow fully before the cool weather wipes the plant out. An then there's tomatoes STILL producing. DW just peeled about 3 quarts of tomatoes that I intend to cook down to about 2 quarts of sauce and there's a bushel or maybe two bushels even of green tomatoes out there. 40 plants really produced well for us this year.

Anyway, here's a pic of the habaneros I picked and you can see one of our celery plants in the top left of the pic too - scrawny little thing!

 

[pennyJo1960]

Making a green tomato salsa today

 

[Sally PB]

Nice habaneros, @BReeder!

My "harvest" was only 2 small grapefruit sized buttercup squash. Very disappointing.

I feel your pain. Butternut squash has always been my "no fail" crop. I might get ONE if it ripens. I didn't get female blossoms until mid-late August! Plenty of male flowers, but 0 females.

A few years ago, I got 90 b-nuts. Last year it was over 50. Sigh.

 

[Elyrian1]

My grapevine may have bit the dust. Couldn't find any bugs, just the destruction they left behind. We'll see what happens as the weather cools, whether or not it has the strength to come back.

 

[Acre4Me]

Back in the beginning of chicken keeping I did an experiment with cayenne & paprika & yolk color. The Dumor feed I was feeding left the yolks super pale & I read that you could darken them up with cayenne & paprika so I tried it - it worked. I no longer feed Dumor.

I'm saving up all my peppers in the freezer & will make a simple hot sauce when the plants give up for winter. Basic sriracha recipe of cooking them all up with some garlic, vinegar, & some seasoning & then have DH taste it. If it's good I'll run it thru the mill, check the PH & water bath can it. I'm not going to bother fermenting this year, DH couldn't tell the difference. (I may dry & grind the mill leftovers for a pepper powder)

I really like this guy's ideas, here's his sriracha if anyone's interested, his other stuff is great too: https://www.chilipeppermadness.com/...ot-sauces/homemade-sriracha-hot-sauce-recipe/

We make a red pepper sauce. Simple recipe: mixed with Salt and vinegar. Blend. Pour into plastic containers, freeze. We use mostly sweet Italian peppers for it. We harvest our peppers fully red, clean, seed, chop then freeze the pepper pieces until after all peppers are done. Then we make all the sauce in one day.

 

[chickengr]

I've seen this a few times. Do you know the reason why hot peppers help? All those peppers in the freezer from last year... Maybe I do have a use for them?

hot peppers are natural antibiotics and they are packed with vitamins and minerals. they also warm their bodies so they can lay eggs as if the weather was warm.