Tag Archives: pepper

Spring Is Here (Almost), Starting Seeds, Transplanting, and Other Garden Chores

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I feel like I am just awakening from hibernation. The bears have it right, taking a nap in the winter. Although I wouldn’t exactly call it a winter. Very little snow. That makes a lot of people happy but I live HERE for the four seasons. What this does for me, is make me antsy. I hear the birds chirping, I don’t need a coat for the most part and I am chomping at the bit to start our plants.

My table is filled with germination mix, seed trays, and seed packets, a sprayer, garden marking pens, tags, etc. All the paraphernalia you need to plant seeds. and I even have printed spreadsheets. I am trying to be organized.
These are my seeds. I store them in the dining room, which at this time of year is no longer called a “dining room” but a “seed propagation” room. You can see in the background the racks and LED lights we use to germinate them.
Tomato babies, they look really good this year.
Pepper babies, they take a lot longer to germinate than tomatoes do.

I spend a lot of time looking online at seed catalogs, choosing new and old varieties of tomatoes, peppers, veggies, and flowers. It is a veritable buffet out there. So far, I have 357 varieties of tomatoes, 64 kinds of lettuce, and 126 kinds of peppers and the number of flowers is almost incalculable.

Flowers and more flowers. Snapdragons, stock, alyssum, asarina (a beautiful vining plant), begonias, salvia, and alyssum.

Now that I’ve found out I can grow teeny, tiny seeds that look like dust, I am growing all of them I can. Of course, for things like coleus, begonia, and petunias, I am finding the benefits of using pellleted seeds. I am even trying calceolaria. Talk about dust. You want to plant maybe 30 or 40 plants, no, what you have in your hand is more like 5000 seeds, or so it seems.

Petunias, I am trying something different using plug trays for individual flowers. It doesn’t necessarily save space but it should save time in the long run.
Here I am transplanting the first sets that are going to live in gallon pots

So it begins, transplanting. We put a couple of heaters out in the greenhouse for me to work and not freeze, a fine music system (well actually my iPhone and a Bose speaker) and I am happy as a clam. There’s something about playing in the dirt.

Today I have transplanted 600 tomatoes. Only a billion more to go. I am glad I love doing plants although it can be overwhelming at times. They say that if you find something you love, you’ll never work a day in your life!

Beaver Dam Pepper

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Beaver Dam Pepper

A pepper so good, Hungarian immigrants carried it with them when they came to Wisconsin.

It is no wonder that the Beaver Dam pepper was nearly lost to posterity, trampled upon by the market demand for easier-to-grow pepper varieties that don’t require such laborious agricultural techniques as planting individual stakes for each pepper plant.

The eponymous pepper came to Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, in 1912, with Joe Hussli, a Hungarian immigrant who couldn’t conceive of a new American life without a little peppery taste of home. Locals and descendants of friends of the Hussli family like to say that the Husslis planted the seeds, grew the peppers, and shared the seeds with friends and neighbors, thus setting up a little community of Beaver Dam pepper growers who appreciated the delicious plant’s mild bite, enough to pass the seeds down for generations. There are pepper-growing families in Beaver Dam who have saved seeds from at least the 1980s. However, over generations, farming of this pepper has dwindled considerably as hybrids flood the market.

Today, Beaver Dam still celebrates its favorite pepper in the form of an annual Beaver Dam Pepper Festival. Fans can buy the prized crop from local growers, eat pepper sausages, and even participate in an apple pepper pie–eating competition with the town sheriff. Current growers, who descend from a long line of Beaver Dam pepper cultivators, also give presentations on the plant’s history.

For locals, preserving the town’s pepper is crucial. The story of its near-extinction is a story of how our current food culture has prioritized efficiency and shelf-life over flavor. The Beaver Dam, an heirloom variety, requires more care in growing than hybrid peppers that are hardier, more disease-resistant, and thus more dependable in terms of yield. But organizations such as Seed Savers and Slow Food USA are building up a steady base of growers yearning for flavor and willing to return to traditional, sustainable methods of farming. Thanks to their interest, the Beaver Dam pepper has been preserved and there are enough seeds available now to bring the pepper back from the brink of extinction.

The peppers start out lime-green but gradually mature to an orange or blood-red color, over a period of 80 days. Between three and eight peppers grow on each plant. Thick-fleshed, the peppers are mild-to-hot with an appealing crunch that is great in salads and fresh salsas. They also go brilliantly sliced into a sandwich or stuffed with a rice or meat filling. And some fans insist that they’re an absolute must in Hungarian goulash. The peppers are between 500 and 1,000 SHU on the Scoville heat scale.

 

For those not in the Beaver Dam pepper inner circle, the seeds are also available through organizations such as the Seed Savers Exchange, a repository of heirloom seeds meant to preserve endangered varieties of garden and food crops.

New Pepper On My Rotation: Violet Sparkle: The Tomato Lady

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violet sparkleviolet sparkle 2

Isn’t she pretty????? Pointed, wedge-shaped fruit is purple streaked with pale yellow. This heirloom came from a Russian seed trader. It begins with chartreuse, evolving to purple with tan/yellow streaks and then to red. Lovely and delicious, sweet, crisp and thick-walled.

A unique looking pepper with excellent yields, great size for roasting, bbq, fresh eating. Sweet but very firm. Would be good for pickling and sautées very well. Plants are short with many uniform fruits.

The reviews I’ve read all say they love this pepper. I can’t wait to try it.

Growing Note: They had excellent germination and were very healthy.

Some of My Favorite Seed Companies – The Tomato lady

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samson in gardenHere is a list of seed companies that I interact with on a regular basis. Good prices, nice selection of varieties, excellent seed quality, and good customer service! (My cat, Samson, has nothing to do with this subject but he sure is cute and is in the garden! Sam is a Maine Coon)

Seeds n Such
I love that this gentleman used to own Totally Tomatoes and decided to retire, which didn’t suit him so he opened up Seeds n Such. One of the nicest things about him is that their shipping is right in line with what it should be and they have a deal whereby if you buy 20 packets of seeds, they are all $1.99. Believe me, it’s easy to find that many things you want.

Tomatofest
Lots and lots of heirloom tomato seeds, some I have never heard of. The really nice thing is they are “local” –  California based. Most companies are midwest or eastern based companies. (I love them too, I just like buying local if I can)

Totally Tomatoes
Many, many varieties of tomatoes and peppers. Now they have other veggies. so I guess they aren’t “totally” tomatoes anymore! That’s ok, I like the variations.

Swallowtail Garden Seeds
This is for the flower growers. Veggies are good for your bodies, flowers are good for your soul. They have a nice variety, good prices, and quality seed. I love the pictures on the website, and they are fast!

Geo Seed
I recently found this company. I can’t remember how but am sure glad I did. Prices are phenomenal, customer service outstanding (Dora rocks!) varieties are numerous. Stuff you didn’t know you needed! the only drawback is that they don’t have pictures (but that is what the internet is for, right?) and at this time, you can’t order online. Mere nuisances. They have trade packets and bigger bulk sizes. I’d recommend the trade packets for home gardeners.

Fedco Seeds
I found this company in the last couple of years also. I love that they are a Cooperative and represent seed from a lot of small, independent growers. Great website too, lots of pictures. I found they have seeds with great histories; for instance, I found a winter squash called Uncle David’s Dakota Dessert Squash (a mouthful) on their site. it was passed down forever and as far as I can see, it’s not available anywhere else. it is delicious! Lots of fun stuff!

Irish Eyes Seeds – Located in Ellensburg, WA, Huge selection of potatoes and garlic and other cooler climate veggies.

High Mowing – I ordered from them last week and they have great selection and shipping was surprisingly fast. Out of Vermont.

Baker Seeds Great selection, good prices, and reasonable shipping. Unusual heirloom seeds from all over, rare and exotic seeds from around the world. Two examples: Thai Lavender Frog Egg Eggplant and Sichuan Red Beauty Radish. I have to be honest, some of them are so odd I can’t imagine growing them, like the Sakurajima Giant Radish, considered the world’s largest Radish. it’s white and bigger than my head! Definitely, an entertaining place to visit.

Snake River Seeds – They are new, at least to me, and I have yet to order from them but I will. they have bulk seeds too and they are local to me. In their own words:

“Snake River Seed Cooperative is a collective of family farmers in the Intermountain West who work together to produce a wide diversity of locally-adapted seeds. We believe that sharing seed saving knowledge with farmers in our region is vital to growing a robust, regional seedshed.”

While I can’t name everyone I like dealing with, (actually I could AND include all the links but I do have other things to do today!) here are some other companies I recommend, just search for them on the internet: Parks, Johnny’s Selected Seeds, Victory Seeds, Pase Seeds, Harris Seeds to name a few.

Don’t forget Northwest Seed and Pet. It is the best and biggest gardening store that I know of here in Spokane. They have a HUGE selection of seeds, a lot of which you may not have heard of. They carry their own bulk brand, Burpees, High Mowing, Baker Seeds, Snake River Seeds, Botanical Interests, Irish Eyes and many, many more. Don’t miss their cat, give him a scratch.

 

Behind the Scenes: Planting Peppers Seeds,, Petunias, Lobelia, Alyssum, Pansies and Million Bells

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pepper-seeds

Here you are looking about 1000 or so peppers seeds.

planting-peppers-2-2018

Here I am planting pepper seeds and some flowers. I planted 50 different varieties of peppers, superhots, sweet bell, non sweet bells, hot and medium hot peppers. I was scared to death to touch the seeds from the superhots so I used tweezers to place them in the seedling pots. My luck, I would have touched them and then my eye, not thinking! Ouch! This was on January 15. They have almost all come up now. We have a ton of baby jalapenos. For all of my seeds I use a sterile seed starting mix and clean single pots. Damping off is an ugly thing!

planting-petunias-2018

This is how my pelletized petunia seed came. It is put into a gel cap, and looks sort of like Contact cold medicine. Depending on variety, there are 5 to 10 seeds. I love working with it in this form, much easier to not over sow. In it’s “wild” form, it is like brown dust. You might think you used 25 seed but in reality, you just dispensed 349 seeds!

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Such tiny little seeds.

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Petunia and Million Bells seeds don’t like to be covered. They need light to germinate. Peppers on the other hand need a thin scattering of seed starting mix over them. Always read your seed packet to see what the light requirements are for germination.

planting-petunias-5-2018

Million Bells is another one that I like to work with pelletized. They are coated with a clay like substance. the seed lays on top (press into the seed starting mix) and wet with water. This softens the clay coat and they are able to germinate. I use tweezers to distribute as evenly as I can so they can grow after germinating and not crowd each other. They take a long time to obtain a size that I like transplanting. I have found there is no point in rushing them.

planting-petunias-6-2018

Mucho Nacho Jalapeños and Emerald Fire Jalapeños -A Germinators Dream! (at least this year)

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Every once in a while you meet a plant that you really like. This year, mine is the Mucho Nacho Jalapeño and the Emerald Fire Jalapeño, Peppers are notoriously hard to germinate, especially the superhots (Carolina Reapers, Ghost and Trinidad Scorpions) and the hot (Tabasco, Habanero, Serrano, Hungarian Yellow Wax etc.) to mildly hot (Jalapeños, Numex Big Jim, Anaheims, Poblanos etc.) Some of the hot peppers can take up to 4 weeks or more to germinate and then if you get 50% you think you are doing pretty good.

 

mucho-nacho-jalapeno2Mucho Nacho is a new one for me this year. It is supposed to be hotter, fatter, longer, more prolific, well, you get the picture, than a regular Jalapeño. It was the first one to germinate and it was very happy, vibrant and healthy. Lush. I can’t say enough about it.

emerald-fire-jalapeno

The Emerald Fire was a close second. Germination on both of these were close to 90 – 95% which is really good. Nice strong stems, beautiful true leaves, easy to handle when transplanting into 3.5” pots.

For those of you who germinate your own seeds in a greenhouse you can understand how happy I was to handle these guys. Some plants, especially flowers practically require magnifying glassed and tweezers!

jalapeno-green-pepperMucho Nacho Jalapeños – 68-70 Days

An impressive Jalapeño from Mexico, large, 4” fruits are fatter, thicker, heavier, hotter, and up to a full inch longer than regular Jalapeños. They start off green and mature to red. Vigorous and prolific, they set heavy loads about a week earlier than is typical of Jalapeños.

ad8bf754-f0b0-446d-992d-573a80710745_1000Emerald Fire Jalapeño – 90 Days

These hot peppers are good for salsa, pickling, grilling, and stuffing, Extra-large, thick-walled, crack-resistant peppers, plump and delicious. Emerald Fire is very prolific and there will be enough peppers to share with your friends and family!

Winner of a 2015 All-America Selection, Emerald Fire is compact enough for patio containers, but may need some support to hold up all the peppers! Easy to grow, standing up to heat, humidity, and refuses to crack. Long season but worth the wait!

Super Hot and Hot Peppers Planted

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Trinidad-Scorpion-Hot-Pepper

Yesterday, I planted my super hots and hot peppers. The super hots are: Trinidad Scorpion, Chocolate Trinidad Scorpion, Carolina Reaper, Ghost Pepper and Peach Ghost Pepper. The plain old hot peppers, the one that destroy-your-tastebuds-but-don’t-take-your-face-off are: Tabasco, Serrano, Cayenne, Hungarian Yellow Was, Thai and Habanero. The next peppers are still too hot for me; they are Jalapeno, TAM Jalapeno (customer request, supposedly a milder Jalapeno) Padron, Anaheim, Poblano,Chinese Five Color and Golden Greek Pepperoncini.

Super hot peppers are notorious for poor germination and long time coming up. That’s why I start them sooner than the sweets. Hot peppers like Habanara and Cayenne also require longer germination times.

I always use a germination mix which is finer than regular potting mix and supposedly sterile which cuts down on things like damping off, a fungal disease. Nothing is worse than seeing the babies raise their pretty green heads and the next day wondering why they all fell down. And died. Very sad.

They are under lights in our dining room, nice and toasty warm. I bottom watered with hot water to get them started. Once they come up I will use warm water.

As i look out at the white beauty, I marvel that I am able to start seeds so early. We use ordinary space heaters to keep the greenhouse warm.

Be on the look out for more posts describing the peppers. Gives you something to look forward to…warmer temps, green grass, daffodils and crocus….

 

Chinese Five Color – a customer favorite, hot but not too hot, so they say. I am a wimp!

pepper chinese five color

Male And Female Peppers: Fact Or Fiction? – PepperScale

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Great article from PepperScale.This is in response to a post I saw on Facebook this morning.

A plant world sex scandal… Do bell peppers have a gender? Some say they do. The idea has been around for a while but only recently has it caught traction. According to the theory, there are distinct male and female peppers and the gender indicates whether a bell pepper has more seeds or whether it […]

Source: Male And Female Peppers: Fact Or Fiction? – PepperScale

Finally, 6 of 6 Zucchini Recipes: Zucchini Nut Bread Cookies

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zucchini-cookies-from-a-distance.jpg

These cookies, cousins of zucchini bread, are perfect for packing up as picnic fare -even if the picnic table is right in your kitchen. The sweet cream-cheese filling can be sandwiched between two cookies if that is what you choose, kind of like a modified moon pie. I personally loved them with no filling. Very good. And I could tell myself I was getting my vegetables and therefore, it was healthier! Oh the delusions we entertain!

Prep Time 25 minutes • Total Time 2 hours

Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
Coarse salt

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature  (for the cookies AND the filling)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed light-brown sugar
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 cup finely grated zucchini
1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup chopped toasted walnuts

Filling
8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Sift flour, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, and 1/4 teaspoon salt into a bowl.

Beat 1 stick butter and the sugars until pale and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla.

Beat flour mixture into butter mixture. Mix in zucchini, oats, and walnuts. Refrigerate until firm, about 1 hour.

Using a 1 1/2-inch ice cream scoop (about 2 tablespoons), drop dough onto parchment-lined baking sheets, spacing about 2 inches apart. Bake until edges are golden, about 17 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack.

Filling: Beat together remaining 1/2 stick butter, the cream cheese, and confectioners’ sugar until smooth. Spread 1 heaping tablespoon filling onto the flat side of 1 cookie, and sandwich with another cookie. Repeat with remaining filling and cookies.

Shishito Peppers – The Gourmet Pepper From Japan

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shishito-hot-pepperPepper Profiles: Shishito

This gourmet pepper is an exotic delicacy iconic to Izakaya (Japanese tapas/appetizers).The Shishito Pepper is delicious and couldn’t be easier to prepare.

Native to Japan, the slender, green peppers grow 3”- 4” long, have delicate skin and a slightly pleated surface. Most of them have a hist of grassy and peppery flavor, with a faint note of citrus. However, some (approximately one in ten) have a real bite! It’s almost like playing roulette. They mature to a fiery red.

Shishito-Pepper

The plants have a  spreading habit and produce prolifically.

To highlight their bright flavors, simply heat oil  in a heavy skillet over medium-high heat, and cook the peppers, turning occasionally, until they begin to blister on all sides. Sprinkle with a bit of sea salt—they are ready to enjoy! They are also wonderful grilled, deep fried or tossed on top of pizzas and salads.

Shishito-Peppers-Pictures

Recipe: Shishito Peppers

 Courtesy of Author: Julie du Pont
Recipe type: Starter
Prep time:  2 mins
Cook time:  5 mins
Total time:  7 mins
Serves: 6
Sauteed Shishito Peppers guaranteed to get your party started!
Ingredients
  • 4 cups Shishito Peppers
  • 2 tbsp salted butter
  • 2 tbsp good soy sauce
  • Large Sea Salt Flakes
Instructions
  1. Slit the side of each pepper. I like to leave the little stem on the pepper because it allows guests to grab easily, but you can also remove the stems if that is your preference.
  2. Heat a large wok or frying pan on high heat until it is very hot. Add butter. Once butter is sizzling and almost to the point where it browns, add the peppers and toss with a wooden spoon for about 4 minutes until they begin to blister. Add soy sauce and stir with wooden spoon for about a minute until the butter and soy sauce create a glaze over the peppers. Remove from pan and dust with large flaked sea salt. Serve immediately and take your chances that you don’t get one of the spicy ones!