Near the End

Hello, again.

My garden is winding down the production, sad to say.  Some plants did great (cucumbers, green beans, spinach, Thai Sun Chilies).  Some plants are just now producing (Scotch Bonnet, Pakistani, and long red slim peppers).  Some plants produced, but not very much (watermelons, tomatoes, bell peppers).  And some failed miserably (peas, roma tomato, bell peppers). 

I think this picture is hilarious.

The cucumbers are still producing, but I think they are done.  Now, I've said that three times before and they kept pumping out cucumbers!  I've eaten a lot of cucumbers this year.  It's been great!

The peppers are coming around and giving me something to work with finally.  The Thai Sun Chilies and the Long Red Slim Chilies I'm dehydrating, deseeding, and mincing into flakes.  I've combined them into a dried pepper flake mix that is damn hot.  I have more dehydrating right now.  Hot!  The Pakistan Chunky Chilies are doing fine.  They are hotter than I thought they would be, which is good.  Speaking of hot, the Scotch Bonnet finally gave me four peppers.  The look awesome!  I used one tonight in a Jamaican Curried Chicken dish I made.  Holy crap, that pepper made me go into a coughing fit!  I could smell the burn when I minced it.  Then, when I washed the cutting board, the capsaicin fumes came rushing at me and took my breath away!  Wow!  Hands are still burning a bit (I couldn't find the rubber gloves.  Don't ask).  The dish was great, and Miss 38th Street and I were sweating.

The tomatoes are just disappointing.  I have only got, maybe, 10 tomatoes from the 5 tomato plants that aren't cherry tomatoes.  The cherries are doing fine.  I had a lot of tomatoes that had severely cracked skin.  So much so, that I couldn't eat over half of them because they molded over before they were ripe.  Sucks.  I'll do better next year.

I did get two Sugar Baby Watermelons!  I didn't know if I would get any, so I'll take the two.  I had two plants which each gave me one.  They tasted great.  I ate one, and I gave the other to my parents.  They said it was good, but had a lot of seeds. 

I'm still waiting on the carrots.  I pulled one and it was still pretty small.  I'm not sure when to pull them, but I hope in the next couple weeks.  We'll see!

I hope to have some more produce to show you here soon.  I hope everyone's garden is doing great!

Today's Harvest

I haven't written in a bit, so I'll do a little catch-up.  The cucumbers are the MVP of the garden thus far.  We have had to come up with several cucumber dishes.  Most have been pretty good.  The jalapenos we let ripen but they were still solid.  I had to grill them and remove the skin.  The heat varied.  Today, we got our first slim chili and Pakistani chili.  Here is what we got today:

Do you know which chili is which?

 

This all we got today.  Some Super 100 cherry tomatoes, Beef Steak tomato, Black Krim tomato, the only Green Pepper, Slim Chili, Pakistani Chili, Jalapeno, Thai Sun Chiles, and another Cucumber.

 

That's a lot of Thai Sun Chiles.  

 

 I'm attempting to dry out the Thai's in the oven right now.  I hope it works!  If so, then I'll make a Thai Sun Chili powder.  Mmmm!

State of the Garden August 1st

As of August 1st, the garden is good.  Not great, but good.  The three cucumbers are doing the best, especially the one I snuck into the landscape.  I trained it up the southwest corner gutter, right by the stairs.  We are making all kinds of cucumber dishes and giving them away. 

The Thai Sun Chili plants, two in pots and one in the southside landscape.  The two in the pots are doing better.  We are getting chilis now.  Damn, they're Hot!  We've made a Thai dish, and I'm making curry tomorrow!  The Jalapeno Pepper plant I picked up late and plopped just west of the garden box is doing well.  I prepped this soil with store bought compost, Espoma Garden Tone fertilizer and some peat moss.  we have five peppers on it.  The are hard.  We ate one tonight in the strawberry salsa on our halibut fish tacos.  Good flavor.  The two bell pepper plants are doing fair.  There is one in the garden box and one west of the box.  Each has one pepper on it and they are not big.  Lame.  The  two Anaheims,  two Pakistani,  Scotch Bonnet and the Red Slim Chilis are doing well.  All have peppers, but are not ripe.  

We've got a few tomatoes of the Stupice tomato plant.  They were alright.  The two Super100 cherry tomato plants are exploding and are starting to ripen.  The Big Beef, Better Boy, Big Boy, Black Krim have tomatoes, but not a lot.  None have started to ripen. 

The carrots are doing well.  We pulled one a couple week ago, just to see how they were developing.  Looked good! 

The red and white onion have all pretty much have been destroyed. 

The Green Beans were rockin early.  We had about eight serving of them till now.  The beans are being eaten by...

The Bean Leaf Beetle.  Stupid beetles.  The Green Bean leaves look like Swiss Cheese! 

The Radicchio is doing alright.  It's not turning red, though, so we haven't eaten any of it yet. 

The peas all wilted from the bottom up.  Turned yellow, dried up and died. 

The Sugar Baby Watermelons are disappointing.  They were doing so well and then they hit a wall.  All the small melons that were forming all stopped growing, turned yellow and black, so I cut them all off.  All the flowers dried up and went away.  The vines are still growing, but that's it.  There are two larger melons still there, but they have not grown in weeks. 

Alright.  That's enough.  I am just rambling on!  Good night, and good gardening.

Ha! No, seriously, I'm going to bed.