Tomato, Pepper & Basil Nursery Order

So here are the pictures of my long-awaited Cross Country Nursery order. I picked them up on Sunday May 9th, but it was too cold to plant them so I had to wait. These pictures were taken a week later right before planting on May 15th. I have to admit I'm a bit disappointed, especially in the tomatoes.
This is the Ramapo, Snowstorm and Matina tomatoes. Granted, the bottom leaves are a bit more yellow than they were on the day I brought them home, but they still looked pretty leggy to me right when I got them. It is definitely not what I expected. I actually showed the Ramapo to the woman working at the nursery, and she told me "we like our tomatoes tall, afterall they are big plants" and that the short, leafy ones you see in other stores are sprayed with growth retardant.

I was as nice as could be about it, b/c I didn't want to cause a stink, but I did say I didn't think that's what they look like when you grow them at home. So then she admitted, "Well, we do grow hundreds of them together in flats so there really is no where for them to grow but up" and told me to pull off the bottom leaves and plant them about 6" deep, so that's what I did. She also assured me, "we're so well known for our tomatoes, really it is not a big deal". I hope that's true! I'm actually not that concerned, because I do think they will grow good roots that way and come back as strong plants. But still, for the price I paid I was just hoping for something a little less leggy!
Here's the Sungold, Grape & Black Cherry. The Black Cherry looks the best - I'm happy with that one, and the Grape is pretty decent too. The Sungold not so much though. I planted that one deep.

I was much happier with the peppers. I guess that's their real specialty though, so it makes sense. Lots of them had blooms and even tiny peppers on them already. As much as I hated to do it, I pinched them all off so the transplants could concentrate on growing roots. Above you see the Orange Sun, Ariane, Bell Boy and Lady Bell peppers.

This is 2 Marconi Golden, 2 Cubanelle & the Nardello.
The Little Dickens and Yummy Orange minis.

The hots: Pepperoncini, Ancho Mulato, Thai Hot Dragon and Jalapeno Tam.

Finally, here are the basils. 2 Genovese, Magic Michael, Summerlong, Osmin Purple & Red Rubin. I was happy overall with these, except the purples do look kind of leggy too. After planting I snipped the tops off of them to encourage more bushy growth. Also, ironically, I picked the Summerlong because I read online it is supposed to be a special variety that takes extra long to go to seed. Well, it is the only one that was already full of flowers! So much for that one.

Green and Yellow Bells + Italian Frying Peppers

I've had this post half done for weeks, and just not gotten around to finishing it. I've also got several more on backlog about hot peppers and dehydrating, plus a couple of other topics. The good news is, there is plenty to keep this blog going through the winter months. Then, before we know it, it will be time to start buying seeds and growing them indoors next winter!

So, today let's finally take a look at this season for sweet peppers like Bells & Italian Fryers.

It was actually a pretty terrible year for peppers. Without a doubt, my Italian frying peppers and hot peppers did better last year. The bell peppers didn't do so hot last year either, b/c I'm pretty sure there is something lacking in my soil that they need. But, that said, despite the cold and rainy weather in the beginning of the summer, and bouts with blossom end rot (or something), I still got to eat some sweet peppers.

I bought three flats full from the nursery, which only came in packs of 6 so I had 6 green bells, 6 yellow bells, and 6 Italian Frying peppers. They barely fit in the garden. What you see on the above left is two rows of the Italian Fryers immediately behind the basil on the left side of my garden, and then a row that was half green and yellow bell behind it.

Here on the right is a close up of the Italian Fryers on Oct. 4th, which are tiny. The big difference from last year was that I kept picking all through August and Sept last year, but this year not so much. I wasn't really able to pick them until right before frost, since they weren't exactly ripe.

Then, on the other side of the garden I had the rest of the green and yellow bells (along with all the hots). Here they are on August 1st, still pretty small:

Then, a not so great picture of them (best I have), again on Oct. 4th:
They're definitely bigger, but still struggling. They were a bit better looking than this a few weeks earlier, but after a few bad rain/wind storms, most of the branches fell off. It seemed as if the peppers were too heavy and pulled the branches down, even though they had some bamboo supports. I'm guessing this is because the plants had such a slow start, the foliage was small, so it just wasn't enough to support the weight of the peppers when they finally grew.

The biggest problem was with the Yellow Bells. The green ones were fine, but until early October I couldn't get a yellow bell to ripen without a blemish. You can see the problem below. On the left is the yellow color the peppers should be, but it has those weird brown spots. On the right is the unripe version of the yellow bell, which looks fine. I had to compost so many b/c of brown spots that I ended up just eating them while they were still light green. Which wasn't that bad - they still tasted fine. I just really need to get a soil test to figure out why this is happening.
But, as I said, I was able to harvest at least enough to use in various recipes over the summer. In fact, the brown spot problem seemed to decline over the season - which is exactly what happened to my peppers last year, so that's why I think it has to do with the soil, and not just the bad weather.

You can see here finally, on Oct. 10th, a yellow bell actually ripened fully without a single brown spot! WUHOO!


And really, who uses that many bell peppers anyway, right? They're usually either roasted or diced up in the trinity, not really a stand alone ingredient. Even with a crappy harvest I had to slice and freeze a whole large baggie full of peppers. I also used them in sauces, and salsa.

Then I even got to make my absolute favorite green pepper recipe, which is another one of these recipes that is so simple yet so good. It is just:

2 tsp olive oil

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 green pepper, minced

1 bay leaf

2 cups cooked black beans

1 tsp dried sage (or 3 tsp fresh)

hot sauce, to taste

All you do is put a bit of olive oil in a pan, then saute the garlic, green peppers and bay leaf until the peppers have just begun to soften, about 4 minutes. Then add the beans, sage and hot pepper sauce and saute until heated through, about 3 minutes. Serve hot as an appetizer or side dish with garlic bread, corn tortillas or even corn bread. It is even good cold the next day!

I also made stuffed peppers for the first time ever. I used the recipe in Veganomicon for Creole Stuffed Peppers, except instead of 2 cans of black eyed peas, I used half bep & half brown rice. Now, stuffed peppers is something I would have never eaten growing up - just seemed so yucky. But wow, were these delicious!! I've even made them again since then. They are definitely now in my regular rotation. Finally, in the end, I still picked more peppers than I knew what to do with. The harvest before frost was overwhelming, as pictured here and here. I gave a huge bag to my neighbor, dehydrated some, stuffed some more, made a double batch of pepperonata from Nonna's Italian Kitchen - half we ate with polenta and the other half I froze- and still have two bags left in the fridge! Luckily, my Mom gave me some green bags, which do seem to work. I hope to roast them on the grill today, then freeze them. Phew! Here's two pictures of the dehydrated peppers, before and after:

Next year, I don't think I want 18 pepper plants! If this was how much they produced in a bad year, I'd be drowning in them in a good year! I think I might try buying seeds and starting them myself. That way I can have several different types of peppers, but only 2 plants of each type, not 6.

Final Haul on a Frosty November Morning

Turns out it already frosted last night. I went out bright and early this morning to pick as much as I could before work, and discovered a light frost on everything. Above you can see it on the nasturtiums, already starting to melt in the sun around 7:30 AM. And here is even more on the shady side of the garden:
Considering last night was only expected to go down to 42 degrees or so, and tonight is supposed to go down to 35 - I'm pretty sure we'll get a killing frost tonight. So I desperately picked and picked this morning. Here's the haul so far - not pictured is a huge bowl of kung pao peppers, and I still haven't gotten to any of the edible flowers or herbs. I can't wait to make green tomato salsa, relish, and fried green tomatoes. Yum. Clockwise from the top left: (yellow bowl) red grape tomatoes, (tupperware) jalapenos, (counter) bell peppers, (blue bowl) Roma tomatoes, (pink bowl) yellow grape tomatoes and (silver bowl) Rutger's tomatoes:
It was actually quite lovely out there this morning, once I dragged myself out from under the warm fuzzy covers. The sun was beautiful, streaming through the frosty air. It was a very enjoyable way to start the day. Too bad I'm always so sleepy and can't haul myself out of bed earlier to have breakfast out there every morning!

Big Fall Harvest

Wow, I can't believe how much I picked today, and I didn't even get to any flowers.

Here it is: bell peppers, italian frying peppers, lots of hot peppers, mustard greens, a couple radishes, basil, two kinds of mint and shiso leaf:
The peppers and mustard greens I can handle, but the mint and basil are going to be tough. I've got to pick all of the good leaves off individually, then dry them. That's a lot of picking. Uggh. I better get to it. At least I'll have plenty for the winter.

Also, here's a quick pick of my new dehydrator in response to Chris' comment:I'll be using it to dry everything.

Basil Pesto and NYC Style Pasta Brunch

I had this whole epic post about sweet peppers 3/4ths written, and then discovered that the central recipe for the post has disappeared. I have no idea where it is, and it is one of my favorite recipes. Boo!

In the meantime I'll just have to post this quickie leftover from a September Sunday brunch. Which isn't so bad, since this New York style brunch (i.e., it happened in late afternoon) was super delicious.

As you can see above, it was a simple pasta dish. I made the sauce with diced tomatoes and peppers from the garden (bell, italian green fryers and jalapenos), plus shredded carrots, onions and garlic from the store. I slow sauteed these things with my usual herb combination - thyme, oregano, marjoram and bay leaf, then served it over angel hair pasta.

I'd usually put some basil in there too, except this time I made a basil pesto to go with it. That's the dollop on top. It is sort of a funny color since I used purple basil, but wow was this purple basil delicious. I'm not really sure what type it is, since I bought a mixed pack of assorted basil. It was very floral. Even though it had bolted and grown flower heads by that point, it didn't taste bitter at all - just the most wonderful flavor.

Below is the best picture I can find of this mixed basil patch. You can kind of see it behind the Calendula flower bed. From left to right it is green, purple, green, purple. I had no idea what they would end up like when I planted them, or else I would have done it differently. It was basically like a basil grab bag. I think there was definitely some kind of lemon basil in there, which I really didn't like - it tasted medicinal. Also, some kind of really short basil with beautiful flowers. I think there was at least two plants of good old green Genovese - that and the purple (maybe Opal?) definitely tasted the best. Next year I think I'll definitely grow those two.
Below is a picture of the leaves before I pureed them, with a bit of olive oil (not a lot, b/c of the diet again), nutritional yeast, walnuts and garlic. I probably put salt and pepper in there too - I didn't use a recipe, just whizzed it all in the food processor. It's hard to go wrong with these ingredients inmho.Then I also had the italian pepper almond chreeze discussed in a previous post dolloped on top, and on a whole wheat english muffin. See, it involved an English muffin - thus making it brunch. haha

I wish I could have more leisurely sunny Sundays spent in the garden like that September day...

Quick Catch Up

So many pictures, so little time! Once again summer has me outside and not on the computer. But, it has been a good month so I'm not complaining. Here's a quick slideshow of some garden highlights:J.J. taking time to smell the borage flowers.

Somehow both pink and purple flowers grew on the same borage plant.

Fresh picked blackberries went into my morning fruit salad for work.

The nasturtiums are doing fabulous in their new spot by the fence. Much better than the tiny one that grew then died in the hanging pot last year!

Just picked all of these kung pao peppers on Saturday. I can't believe so many grew on just three plants.

My partner the pepper lover pickled them yesterday.

This was all but one of the italian frying and bell peppers that I've picked so far. A bit dissapointing, but, with this crazy weather I'm happy I got any at all. Hopefully things will pick up in the next few weeks.

The tomatoes are doing better - not quite as good as last year, but still decent. Here's the first batch of Roma, plus some grapes which have been producing a few handfuls each day now.

The yellow and red grape tomatoes, plus jalapenos and cilantro from the garden got made into this delicious black bean salsa yesterday. You can't quite tell from the pic but the bowl is huge - a few handfuls a day really adds up nicely. The only things we had to add were a can of black beans, a little white onion and some lime juice.

This was the biggest haul yet from two weekends ago. Who needs the CSA! It is beet greens, rainbow and fordhook giant chard, the peppers, turnips, beets, some blackberries, tomatoes, a cucumber and a lone calendula flower that I accidentally cut off.

The Emerite haricot vert were outstanding. This was the 1st batch from earlier in July, and I picked two more even fuller bowlfuls after that, plus about a half a bowl this weekend. This was the second batch of carrots I picked, and even more peppers. I just planted a new crop of carrots this weekend - now I can hardly wait until November!

Well Sweep Swept Me Away

Even though a Well Sweep is an old-time farming implement that made getting buckets of water out of a well easier, and has nothing to do with a broom, I can definitely still say this herb farm swept me off my feet! They had so many plants, it was completely overwhelming, in a good way of course.

As you can see from the picture, it was herbs as far as the eye could see. They had literally every single kind of herb I had ever heard of, plus many, many more that were completely new to me. I also saw a whole flock of the most adorable lambs, adults and babies - plus lots of pretty chickens in really nice coops. For a New Jersey farm, I have to say they really put the garden in the Garden State!













I spent about 3 hours just looking at all of the plants for sale, but could have easily spent twice that much time, or more. There was so much to learn, especially since their catalog was very well labeled and told a lot about each plant, such as whether or not it was winter hardy in our area, drought tolerant, edible, fragrant, sun needs, etc. It was helpful just to see what plants are supposed to look like too. Now for the seeds I am trying to grow at home, I know what they should look like when they grow. Unfortunately I had to get back home, so I didn't even get to go in their greenhouse with topiaries and rare species, or walk around the formal herb gardens. Guess this means I'll just have to go back soon! It was definitely worth the 1.5 hour drive.

I ended up wanting to buy everything of course, but managed to resist pretty well and only ended up spending a little over budget. I didn't really get anything that exotic, since I'm still new to this and trying to stick with things that are easy to grow. This is what I got, with a * next to the ones I planted last night:
LIST TO BE UPDATED TONIGHT

• *Logee Blue Rosemary
• *D- Rosemary
• *-Lavender
• *Flat leaf Parsely
• *White Borage
• *2 Red Gem Marigold
• *2 Tangerine Gem Marigold
• *- Giant Dill
• *Pink Chives (They had white too! They were a bit expensive since they are so rare, so I didn't buy one. Boy I'm kinda sorry now.)
• 2 Black Hollyhock (since only 6 out of the 15 seeds I planted germinated)
• Jacob Cline Red Bee Balm (since my seeds didn't germinate)
• White Yarrow (since I lost the seeds I ordered somehow!)
• - Shasta Daisy
• Anise Hyssop (since my winter sowing experiment failed miserably)
• Shiso (Perilla) Japanese Mint
• Ostrich Fern
• 2 Astilbe

Unfortunately Well Sweep did not have any compost for sale. We also stopped at a couple places on the way home, but none had anything suitable. I spoke with a knowledgable worker taking care of the plants at a decent nursery - and while they did have bagged organic compost made out of manure and humus, she said it has a tendency to burn plants so she didn't recommend that type. She also said my peppers are probably turning green because we have had so much rain lately. So it may just be too much water. I'm hoping that's it, and they'll recover soon as the weather gets warmer. I also bought some yellow squash from this nursery since I forgot to get them at Brock's when I bought the rest of the summer plants.

Uh oh! Newly Transplanted Pepper Leaves Turning Yellow

Oh no! I noticed last night, the peppers I planted from Brock's last sunday are turning yellowish, definitely not the deep bright green they were when I brought them home. More like light greenish yellow, as you can see from the habanero picture on the right. The soil around them in one bed was looking pretty hard and cracked, too.

I had some problems with peppers last year, so I'm not that surprised. I think it may be nitrogen deficiency in the soil. Although, the one bed I planted the scarlet runner beans in last summer, so it should have nitrogen? I also read it could be from too much chlorine in the water, which I'd say is definitely a possibility around here.

I wish my compost pile had worked out better. That's totally what these peppers need.

Unfortunately I haven't been able to find any vegan compost around here. I was thinking I might have to settle for something non-vegan but as harmless as possible. maybe vericomposted tea, even if the worms were fed non-vegan ingredients.

But they didn't have any compost tea at brock farms. I even asked the staff and they were like "nope, never heard of it - but it sounds cool". If it gets more desperate I might settle for animal poop, like bat guano or chicken manure? I mean, poop happens, and I don't think it would be un-vegan to use it, as long as the animals were not harmed in the process.

I have resisted buying it though, because i assume the stuff they sell at home depot probably is collected from harmed animals, since it most likely comes from factory farms.

Maybe I will find something tomorrow. I'm going to Well Sweep. I've never been there before but, according to the 80+ page catalog they have over 50 kinds of lavender and rosemary, and like every other herb known to humankind!! It looks awesome, and you can walk around their gardens, so we are making a day trip of it. I'm so excited!

I'm sure we'll pass many farm markets and gardening centers on the way too, since it is in west-central jersey. So there is hope we could find a good farm with compost.

Here's the main pepper bed. Three habaneros in the front, and three jalapenos in the back. Behind it on the trellis I planted zuchinni rampinato, or climbing squash. The four plants in the front are 2 red and 2 tangerine gem edible marigolds.

Actually, all this just made me remember I bought kelp at the end of last fall from a place on the west coast over the internet! But I just went and looked for it, and can't find it! Darn. Well, I better get off this computer. I gotta go look for it and put on the epsom salts.

edit: I just found this post about how to grow great peppers: http://theherbgardener.blogspot.com/2009/06/pepper-tips-and-tricks.html
It says
Pepper Growing Tips

Give peppers at least eight hours of light a day.

Peppers like rich soil that is high in phosphorous.

Make sure your peppers have good drainage.

Provide them with a soil pH between 6 and 8.
I need to follow up and make sure my peppers have enough phosphorous and a good pH.

Scary Belated Halloween Post

Boo! Its an army of ugly angry tomatoes coming to get us a little after Halloween! Scaaaary. Actually, these were some of the last red tomatoes I picked back on October 4th. But I'm posting them now because I just learned something new about ugly tomatoes- something called "catfacing" and "growth cracks". I think the tomatoes above are afflicted by growth cracks, though I had a couple with catfaces too. I just want to post the links I found here so I don't forget next summer.

http://www.organicgardening.com/featureprint/1,7759,s-2-28-1121,00.html
http://wihort.uwex.edu/fruitveggies/TomatoDisorders.htm

Here's something positive for this post: I still picked 6 italian frying peppers like the ones above from my garden tonight, Nov. 9th! Amazing. They were delicious in this soyrizo polenta bake with some garden fresh oregano and a garden cayenne: http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=13183.0

Green Tomato Preserves: TAH DAH!

You might remember these tomatoes from the pre-frost harvest last weekend. There were actually at least twice as many green grape tomatoes but I didn't get all of them in a picture together.

Well it took a few days, but my partner and I finally got it together and turned them all into preserves. This is the first time either of us had ever attempted real home canning. Athough my husband's father has, and hubz had watched him do it. So at least that was something.

We followed the Bell Blue Book as well as we could, but not as well as it said we should. I noticed on like every other page it admonished the reader to follow the recipes exactly and use absolutely no substitutions. We couldn't really do that though, as we don't have a scale. So we had to approximate measures as best we could. That was the toughest part. The other thing it said was to use the fruits and veggies immediately after picking them, which we didn't manage either. I'm hoping we did ok though, and won't get botulism. It seems to me as long as their is plenty of vinegar and lemon in there, and they were boiled long enough, we're probably ok. I hope.

The first thing we did was separate out the red tomatoes, and place them in boiling water for 30 - 60 seconds. Let them cool, then proceeded to peel, chop and deseed. Finally they were placed in a Ziploc freezer bag, and as much air was squeezed out as possible. Here they are after freezing for two days, looks pretty good. I think they'll make a good sauce in November.

Next we took care of the green grape tomatoes. Well, hubz actually did this one while I tried to work on my paper. As described in the last post about this, we used the dilled green tomato recipe from the blue book. The biggest problem I anticipate here is that my partner, bless his little heart, didn't realize a head of fresh dill equals more than a single sprig. When he was already done I looked in the refrigerator and noticed half the bunch of fresh dill we bought was still there. If it had been me I would have just split the whole bunch up between each jar, but what are you going to do. I guess they'll just be more tart than dill. Hopefully they'll be edible! Here are pics of them boiling and the finished product.










Last but not least we tackled farmgirl's green tomato relish. Once again hubz mostly took care of it, but this time I hovered a bit to help when he needed it. It was a lot of chopping, that's for sure! But in the end we used up everything but a few cayennes and habaneros, so it was totally worth it. We didn't want to use quart jars, because it would be hard to eat all of that just between two of us in a week or two once it was opened. So we had to use half pint jars because that is all they had left in the store. I think this will probably work out better since the "relish" really came out like a thick, intensely flavorful sauce.

There was so much of it, we couldn't fit it all in one boiling water bath so put the leftover in a quart jar and ate that for dinner on a Mexican pizza. Thank goodness, after all that work, it really was super delicious! Somehow a couple slightly pink tomatoes got leftover, and a half-ripe orange bell pepper. So I also chopped those and cooked them with a box of Spanish Rice a Roni instead of a can of tomatoes, which again I am happy to report tasted extremely yummy . We had that on top of toasted hard corn tortillas, with black beans, corn, black olives, the relish and fresh cilantro. The thickness of the relish was slightly applesauce-y, and with just the right amount of sweetness from the apples too. I really enjoyed the texture since usually store-bought green tomato salsas are too watery. But it still had that great green tartness. MMM it was good. Those 3 MMMs are for the three pizzas I ate!

Green Tomato Tonight

I took the next two days off from work. HOORAY! I wish it was to hang out with my dog in the backyard and cook, but unfortunately I've got a lot of writing to do for school. However, tonight is time to let loose and play a bit so I'm going to do something with all of those tomatoes and peppers we harvested over the weekend. Still trying to decide exactly what recipe to use, but it will be some kind of green tomato salsa or relish. This looks like an interesting recipe, made with green apples:

http://foodiefarmgirl.blogspot.com/2005/09/saving-harvest-green-tomato-relish.html
Pros: we have all the ingredients and it sounds yummy. Cons: We'll have to buy small jars.

Or, there are these options from the Bell Blue Book:
Red Tomatoes Packed in Their Own Juice:
Pros: uses up our red tomatoes and we have all the ingredients and jars. Cons: None. p. 22

Piccalillli or Green Tomato Relish:
Pros: We have all the ingredients, if you include a gianourmous head of cabbage we got a couple weeks ago in Lancaster, except celery seed. Cons: We only have ground celery seed, not whole like the recipe calls for and the Blue Book says not to substitute. The cabbage is old, though it still looks good. p.52

Dilled Green Tomatoes:
Pros: We can use the green grape tomatoes for this one. Cons: It calls for canning salt and fresh dill or dill seeds, but we only have kosher salt and dried dill leaves. p. 54

OR
Pickled Green Tomato-Hot Pepper Mix
Pros: Uses all our hot peppers, and we have all the ingredients. Cons: Calls for 4 pounds of peppers, but does not say how many peppers that would be, or how many cups, etc. and we have no scale. p. 84

So my little analysis here tells me that we probably need to make at least three of these to use everything up. The red tomatoes in their own juices for sure. The Dilled Green tomatoes is my second choice, if we can find the right spices, or just take our chances with the substitutions. The final choice would be between Pickled Mix or Picallili. Maybe the thing to do is to go to the store and see if we can get whole spices, if not try to get small jars, and if neither of those work then try with the substitutions. Sounds like a plan to me, I better get on it!

Will update the blog with the results as soon as they're done!

UPDATE: Well, after the store last night I was too tired to do all of this. I'm procrastinating my schoolwork and trying again tonight. Instead of canning the red tomatoes I've decided to freeze them. It will be easier and maybe even tastier. I got these instructions once again thanks to a thread on theppk. com- http://www.pickyourown.org/freezingtomatoes.htm The hardest part is going to be skinning the grape tomatoes but there are only a few red ones so that should be fine.

We did manage to buy the very last pack of small ball jars at Target so I'm going to make a double of farmgirl's relish recipe. It will have to be that one instead of the Picallili b/c it turns out the cabbage had grey moldy-looking spots on it. :-( Oh, how I hate wasting food, but I just didn't have the time to cook more than 1/4 of that great big cabbage.

We're definitely also going to try the dilled green tomatoes recipe for all of the green grape tomatoes. I have no idea what they'll taste like, but I'm hoping they'll be kind of like tart dill olives that I can put in salad this winter. We couldn't find whole dill seeds but were able to get fresh dill instead so, that's the new plan. Once again, I better get on it.

Update 2: Oh My Garden. Farmgirl's green tomato relish recipe is DELICIOUS! We finished that, dilled green grape tomatoes and froze the red tomatoes. Will post details and pictures soon.

Do I love my garden or what?!?

Here it is, all covered up for protection from the possible frost. We worked on it all day. I hope this helps. Of course, knowing Murphy's law, we probably did all of this for nothing. But better safe than sorry I figure.

We really need to get a thermometer for the backyard so I can tell the difference between the local forecast and what's going on in the microclimate of my garden. The Master Gardener's hotline told me it can vary widely, depending on fencing, whether or not you are on a hill, etc. At this point I really don't know how it is here. Although I can tell you I am sitting outside right now next to a blazing chiminea and it is cooooold! (Yeah, my husband is a computer geek and he set us up with super high speed wireless internet out back. Pretty cool huh!)

We also harvested everything we could. Well not quite everything, we purposely left some green tomatoes, basil, peppers, etc. to see if they would survive as an experiment. I didn't harvest any thyme or oregano either, I figured they'd weather the frost and give me a little more time to do it next weekend. There still sure was a lot to process though! We froze the parsley, will puree the basil with a little oil and freeze (hubby is working on that right now), diced the chives and tarragon for butter (earth balance vegan butter of course), put the rosemary in red vinegar, set the lavender, sage, calendula and marigolds on screens to dry, and saved the peppers/green tomatoes for salsa and roasting tomorrow. PHEW!

As for the habaneros, we picked the plant that had the most pods closest to being ripe and pulled the whole thing out of the ground. Then put it in a bucket filled with water and placed that in the basement. As mentioned in the last post, from what I read this should make them turn ripe quickly. I hope it works! We left several other plants in the ground and covered them so hopefully they will survive too. Here's the habanero in the bucket, and my dog JJ. Don't worry, we didn't let him eat any. :-)