Growing Your Own Food

Post by **stonemaybe** » Fri Sep 16, 2011 11:40 pm

oooh that's interesting - I'm trying to decide what to do with all my chillies at the moment. I want to harvest them all (probably got about 80 too) and string up to dry, but gf is insisting that I should only do that with ones that have turned red (about 10). I didn't think they'd keep long in freezer.

got one decent harvest from courgettes after manually fertilising them (not a virus after all) but remaining plant was dead after returning from a long weekend away.

Post by **Ananda** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 12:34 am

Stonemaybe wrote:oooh that's interesting - I'm trying to decide what to do with all my chillies at the moment. I want to harvest them all (probably got about 80 too) and string up to dry, but gf is insisting that I should only do that with ones that have turned red (about 10). I didn't think they'd keep long in freezer.

got one decent harvest from courgettes after manually fertilising them (not a virus after all) but remaining plant was dead after returning from a long weekend away.

Our peppers all finally turned red, thankfully, though green is fine too. They only need to be red for viable seeds for next year. Green ones have almost as nice a flavour.

I seal mine in small plastic bags and quick freeze them and they last quite nicely. But, I aslo dry some as well since they will obviously last longer. The oven drying I do also add some smokey flavour to them.

I should say that the ones I save for seeds, i string and let air dry as opposed to using the oven. This was a pretty pathetic year for yeild, though.

Post by **Ananda** » Sun Sep 18, 2011 3:28 pm

Here are some photos of our rather sad harvest from this year.

We also get fresh eggs, since you ask about growing your own food. We know someone who raises hens as a hobby and he provides us with eggs from those strictly free roaming, healthy chickens. You can really tell the difference.

Post by **stonemaybe** » Sun Sep 18, 2011 8:54 pm

Lovely pics! Still haven't got round to harvesting all mine yet.

Post by **stonemaybe** » Tue Sep 20, 2011 7:43 pm

Harvested the 'runt' tonight before rain came on too hard...think they've nearly dried out on the plant

Post by **Ananda** » Wed Sep 21, 2011 12:39 am

Nice. What type of chilis are they?

Post by **stonemaybe** » Wed Sep 21, 2011 10:27 pm

I have no idea! They came in a £1 grow-your-own-chillis box in a poundshop. They're good though! Though they're far skinnier than the ones I buy at supermarket, one of these is equivalent to the spiciness of 2 bought ones. A different, more flavorsome spiciness, too.

I've bought some jalapeno seeds for next year, but I'm definitely gonna keep some seeds from these ones too.

Can you explain your oven-drying technique, Ananda? (in detail I'm new to all this

)

Post by **stonemaybe** » Fri Sep 23, 2011 4:26 pm

Sneaking up on the chillis for a night-time harvest

and the final harvest

Post by **Ananda** » Fri Sep 23, 2011 7:47 pm

Very nice harvest and very sneaky to get them while they slept! They look similar to cayene or spanish peppers, but who knows- they all look so much alike.

For drying, I remove the stems, cut them in half and either leave the seeds and core or remove them depending on what I will use the for. Make sure to wear some gloves when you do this unless you want to feel the burn in your fingers and everywhere they touched on your body for a day (think rubbing an eye or worse!) since the oil will remain on your skin even after a wash. I leave the core and seeds in for the ones I will use in a pepper mill (more heat on the seeds and core). I remove them from the ones I will use for sauces and so.

Your peppers look to have very thin walls, so maybe you don't need to cut them in halves.

I'm no expert, but my technique works for the last few years. I set the oven on very low and place the halved peppers on a flat sheet and let them be there for several hours. I have jalapenos, so they take a long time to dry out in there and you have to be careful that they dry out rather well. You may need to turn them a few times so they dry evenly.

I am sure you can get better advice with google, though. I also read two different websites about these that you might find interesting. Well, one is in swedish, but I can post a link to the other later when I am near my computer. I found it very helpful. Some of those people are very, very serious about their chilis and know a lot!

Post by **Ananda** » Fri Sep 23, 2011 8:01 pm

Here is that pepper site forums.gardenweb.com/forums/pepper/
I don' post there, but there are many very helpful people who are very pepper smart and I steal all of their wisdom that I can.

Post by **stonemaybe** » Sat Sep 24, 2011 1:29 pm

Nice site - thanks!

Post by **Ananda** » Wed Oct 19, 2011 6:48 pm

I had really terrible allergies this year the persisted all summer. I had to go to the doctor finally since they weren't going away and it was really bad. So... I got the blood test results back today and I am allergic to *drum roll* my pepper plants' pollen AND our cats (I've always lived with cats and never had allergies from them before!).

Looks like I will not grow peppers again next year and see if that helps things. I think I started them too early this year and they bloomed too much indoors before the weather was fine for putting them outdoors and that pollen must have gotten all over the rooms I had them in and lingered.

So, no peppers next year probably.

Though, we are thinking of buying a house outside the city next year if we can. If that happens, maybe I will get a back garden shed with windows and so and can grow them indoors outside of the house. But, that would have to happen by end of march, so I doubt it will happen in time.

Post by **stonemaybe** » Sun Oct 23, 2011 6:26 pm

my pepper plants' pollen AND our cats

NO!!!!!!!

That's terrible!

Post by **DoctorGamgee** » Sun Oct 23, 2011 6:39 pm

We'll hope you get the new house in tme...

Post by **Cameraman Jenn** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 4:00 am

We planted too late this year so the only thing that really took off was the massive cherry tomato plant that grew from a tiny seedling to take up half the garden in a month. The tomatos are orange and very sweet in flavor and we have been sharing them with our neighbors since the plant is incredibly loaded with tomatos at all times. Antonio next door has been sharing his apples and lemons with us in return for lots of tomatos and says his wife has been eating them like mad on her salads.

Post by **Shaun das Schaf** » Fri Nov 04, 2011 1:58 pm

Cherry tomatoes are great to grow aren't they? I've had a similar 'enthusiastic' plant. I was lazy with the tying up of it in the beginning and just hung it over the ladder in the courtyard. What was always going to be a short-term measure became a long-term solution and I lost my ladder. (You should have seen my neighbour's face when he came to borrow it and I said, "Sorry, the tomato plant's using it."

)

Anyway I never did untangle it and when it hit its Jack-and-the-beanstalk straps, I laid the vines over the chairs and tables in my courtyard and lost those too!

Couple of days ago, I finally hung a huge wooden lattice up against the fence and spent two days painstakingly unraveling vines full of fruit. It's now nicely tamed with over 100 cherry T's on it and the seeds of earlier droppings have already produced offspring.

If only other things were as easy to grow.

Post by **stonemaybe** » Fri Nov 04, 2011 11:56 pm

Shaun das Schaf wrote:Cherry tomatoes are great to grow aren't they? I've had a similar 'enthusiastic' plant. I was lazy with the tying up of it in the beginning and just hung it over the ladder in the courtyard. What was always going to be a short-term measure became a long-term solution and I lost my ladder. (You should have seen my neighbour's face when he came to borrow it and I said, "Sorry, the tomato plant's using it." )

Anyway I never did untangle it and when it hit its Jack-and-the-beanstalk straps, I laid the vines over the chairs and tables in my courtyard and lost those too!

Couple of days ago, I finally hung a huge wooden lattice up against the fence and spent two days painstakingly unraveling vines full of fruit. It's now nicely tamed with over 100 cherry T's on it and the seeds of earlier droppings have already produced offspring.

If only other things were as easy to grow.

Nice! Wish we had the climate for tomato plants to grow wild!

And on that subject, does anyone know of any tasty foodstuffs that
grow (and are fun to grow) in a climate like the UK, that prefer shade
rather than direct sunlight?

Post by **Vader** » Sat Nov 05, 2011 12:49 am

Water cress.

Post by **Ananda** » Sat Nov 05, 2011 3:36 am

Those tomatoes sounds really nice, ShaunDS. I tried to grow them here one year, but they didn't do very well. Maybe it was the place I put them.

Post by **Shaun das Schaf** » Sat Nov 05, 2011 5:31 am

Ananda wrote:Those tomatoes sounds really nice, ShaunDS. I tried to grow them here one year, but they didn't do very well. Maybe it was the place I put them.

I'd love to be able to give good perfect places to put tomato plants advice, but I think we're just spoilt for conditions in this part of the globe. I'm fairly sure we can wave a picture of the sun at our plants and they start growing.

But seriously, were your tomatoes in a pot or in the ground? I've done both and the ground's given me more prolific growth, but then I bury my own kitchen compost a couple of weeks prior to planting so the soil is VERY nutrient rich. I also use a watered-down solution of the compost bin juice for intermittent fertilization during growth: www.bokashi.com.au/

Hi Stonemaybe,

Broccoli, cauliflower, beats, radishes and most 'leafy eats' as opposed to 'fruity eats' can do well without a lot of sun, although they still need a bit of course.

Kevin's Watch

Kevin's Watch

Growing Your Own Food