peppers Archives : Cast Iron Forest to Skillet

2023-01-242023-01-24

01/24/2023 unauthorized entry

I was putting some books on my desk shelf this evening when in my peripheral vision I noticed more purple plant growing light visible than should be. I keep a towel over it to protect our eyes.

I examined the gap in the cover more closely and realized Shackleton was curled up contentedly on the heating pad, which is set to a cozy 85 degrees F. There’s even a bit of dust (spilled potting soil).

Shackleton napping peacefully with the last unsprouted pepper pot, bathed in a purple glow.

Busted, buddy. The nice thing about this tray is that I can slide it out to check on seedlings AND clever cats.

He did a big back arching stretch of casual innocence.

Shackleton emerges from his vacation tray, complete with unnecessary UV exposure. 🙄

Paula moved Shacks back to his actual cat heating pad on the couch. I put a bunch of empty pots in the tray with the one seedling pot and put more up in front of the towel-curtain, as well as a series of inconvenient containers. Hopefully this will persuade Shacks to stick to his heated bed or at least clogging up our amplifier with his hair.

2023-01-172023-01-17

01/17/2023 first peppers up!

Shackleton and Tuqu are eager to assist in examination of seedlings.

Tuqu the tortie cat sticks her whole head in a recycled yogurt container used as a pot, while Shackleton the gray and white very puffy but still short haired cat looks on. — Three varieties of peppers have sprouted! This kind of help is why they (the plants, not the cats) are going immediately to the cat free guest room.

The Chimayó seedling has extremely fuzzy roots! Maybe because there was humidity trapped by the yogurt container lids? I have removed the lids now so they can get air flow to prevent damping off.

2023-01-082023-01-08

01/08/2023 pepper seeds

Experimenting with deep pots and shallow soil. These are yogurt containers. Since peppers and ground cherries can grow roots from the stem, as the plants grow I plant to add more soil. This hopefully reducing the number of repotting events that need to occur.

2022-11-242022-11-24

11/24/2022 plenty of thanks

We thought it was supposed to rain today, so yesterday we picked up all the tomato cages and put all the vegetable debris in the city compost pile. (I don’t know that ours gets hot enough to kill any diseases.). We piled the dead marigolds on the bed where we’ll put peppers next year. We put some sugar pea seeds there to see if the debris will shelter them. We took the plastic off the greens so they could get rain. We put cilantro seeds everywhere and carrot seeds among the greens.

For Thanksgiving, Paula started our Corrientes cowpeas soaking.

The Turkey is from Paula’s aunt and uncle in Texas where they raise some. All the veggies in the beans are from the farm share except garden poblanos. Wes used some store apples and store ham as flavors. But otherwise the veggies are all our garden or the farm share!

2022-11-012022-11-01

11/01/2022 saffron season!

2022-10-172022-10-17

10/17/2022 it might get in 30s tonight??

Shackleton inspected sweet peppers as I brought them in on a red tray.

The long skinny red peppers are Corbaci sweet peppers. The round dark purple peppers are Purple Beauty sweet peppers.

2022-10-112022-10-11

10/11/2022 and other recent foods

Tonight contains garden onions.

The Brussels sprouts in the left side are topped with sweet Corbaci peppers from the garden.

Paula made a bean and potato chunky soup. The giant beans are Royal Corona beans, a type of runner bean, which came in our first Bean Club shipment.

2022-10-032022-10-03

10/03/2022 Bean Club dinner and other excitement

My colleague gave me these delicious tiny tomatoes from her sister’s garden east of here. She said it’s a hybrid between tommy toe and another variety and has bred true for two ish years! I’m saving some!

A yellow iris by the rock garden.

Polenta with cranberry beans from Bean Club and fancy sausage from California. Salad includes farm share peppers and the main mean also included summer squash from the farm share.

A cooked cranberry bean. They were very creamy in texture!

The cranberry bean broth was very savory. The Chef laughed at us taking a picture.

Here’s some of the remaining cranberry beans. They have a tan base but occasionally the red speckles and stripes turn the bean almost completely red!

You can see they are nice chunky big beans. Larger than the average pinto.

2022-10-022022-10-02

10/02/2022 complex dinner

Tomato basil soup (basil, onion, and garlic from garden; celery from farm share), fried farm share potatoes, chicken with garden onions, and farm share peppers on the salad.

2022-09-302022-09-30

9/29/2022 farm share and Bean Club dinner

Jalapeño poppers with farm share peppers, grilled cheese sandwiches with farm share tomatoes, and farm share purple hulled pinkeye cowpeas, French green lentils from Bean Club, and summer squash from the farm share. Thank you Paula!