2019 Garden

Hey hey hey! I spy a little nub of broccoli starting to form!

I’ve been picking Hot Salsa Peppers for a couple weeks now. I’ve cut some up for tacos and what not but I have more than I can use. What is the best way to preserve them till my tomatoes are ready? Freeze them?

Pick up an old ice cube tray and clean it well. Chop your peppers as you would for your salsa recipe and fill the cube pockets and freeze. When froze hard, pop them out and put in a ziplock and then back to the freezer. When you need hot peppers take out what will fill your need and add them to your recipe.

The warmer weather made the lettuce want to bolt so I harvested all of the good and yanked the rest out of the ground. The tomatoes are out of control again and heavy with future good eating. The cukes and beans are flowering hard now so they shouldn’t be to far in the future. Dill has volunteered in several areas of different flower beds and is blooming and seeding heads so along with Ma’s flower smells certain areas smell like pickles. lol

Last year some kind of crap weed got its feelers well set in my garden soil and I have had to either till or hoe every week to keep the young sprouts from getting any traction again. Persistent crap. Normally I can give the garden a weed sweep after everything has emerged from seed and then hit it with Preen, but this weed will grow right thru the Preen layer. I’, going to have to get up early one day when the wind hasn’t started up already and hit these things with some round-up. I’ll tent everything nearby with plastic painter’s sheeting. Once round-up hits the soil it inerts itself so a day under wraps should keep the good stuff safe. Getting really tired of hoeing.

That’s a great idea! Thanks Tom!

IceNEyes1986 wrote:

That’s a great idea! Thanks Tom!

Ice…..when I use this method of prepping hot peppers ahead of time I chop them and put them in a bowl. Once I have chopped them all I stir a small amount of sugar into them until the sugar has dissolved. The sugar will make the chopped peppers sticky and makes them hold together better when popping the frozen cubes of them from the tray. The small amount of sugar involved will not change tastes in a recipe. Peppers, when chopped, excude a small amount of natural oils [which is why its so hard to get hot pepper juice washed off hands completely] that will sometimes make freezing good cubes a challenge and the sugar helps bind the chopped pieces making this a bit less of a chore.

My peas are finally producing. Raspberries are ripening and looking good. We have some blueberries that are ripening now. Broccoli is looking good. Beans are flowering and looking great. Carrots are doing well. My tomatoes all have fruit, but the plants just look OK. Not sure why, but they just don’t look as robust as normal. My pepper plants look awful. Not sure if it’s been too wet and not hot enough or what, but I would be surprised to get any this year.

I was weeding yesterday and got absolutely swarmed by these little, biting ants! All over my legs and arms. My skin was burning for an hour or two.

Sorry, Repeated Post.

Getting ready to pick a couple of my salad maders! Woo Who!

Tom do you know what the weed is or what it looks like. Im having the same issue with a weed that just showed up last year also. You have to burn it or put in in garbage cause if you pull it and throw it out of the garden it just grows where it lands. My neighbor eats it think its called purslane.

JEREMY wrote:

My neighbor eats it think its called purslane.

I’ve got some of that.

That’s the most common and abundant weed in my garden. And yes you need to pull it, get the root and get it out of the garden or it will come back to life.

Our snow and sugar snap peas are all done now. We pulled them out Saturday. I’m thinking of trying a second batch. Cukes are starting and will have some by the weekend. We had our first taste of yellow beans on Tuesday. There will be a big batch to pick come Saturday of yellow and green. The taters have flowered but I haven’t checked for little ones yet. I may peek this weekend. Onions are doing great, as are the carrots. I’m a little disappointed with our bell peppers though. We only have 2 red and one orange so far and they are about the size of golf balls. The yellow plant hasn’t fruited but there are a number of flowers.

Doesn’t anyone plant garlic? Almost half my garden is garlic – 100 plants. We’ll start digging and drying them in about a 10 days I’m guessing. Salsa time is getting close

IceNEyes1986 wrote:

but I have more than I can use. What is the best way to preserve them till my tomatoes are ready? Freeze them?

If you want to tang up your salsa a bit, you might try fermenting some of the extra peppers, then add those to your tomatoes when available.

I’ve only had purslane at fancy restaurants, never picked or cooked it myself, but it’s pretty good, tart and peppery like arugula. If you do cook with it, I’ve read that it gets slimy like cooked okra so you want young, tender shoots either raw/barely cooked (which is how I’ve had mine) or cooked long and slow in stews.

It is tough stuff to get out of the garden, really stubborn.

Ralph Wiggum wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>JEREMY wrote:</div>
My neighbor eats it think its called purslane.

I’ve got some of that.

Wait… I had to Google this. So this Purslane plant is edible? I keep pulling these out of the garden and tossing them in the weed bucket! Is it any good??

dirk-w. wrote:

Doesn’t anyone plant garlic? Almost half my garden is garlic – 100 plants. We’ll start digging and drying them in about a 10 days I’m guessing. Salsa time is getting close

I used to but kinda gave it up after a bad crop one year.

dirk-w. wrote:

Doesn’t anyone plant garlic?

I tried one year and failed miserably, so I quit trying.

Im pretty sure just the little green parts are edible. I aint eating something that pisses me off so much. I think my neighbor brought it to town with her when they moved. I never seen it before and she eats it seem kinda coincidental. Last year it was only in the garden now its everywhere I killed the grass. I thinks its worse then creeping Charlie if anyone wants to eat that ill deliver ya a truckload.

JEREMY wrote:

Tom do you know what the weed is or what it looks like. Im having the same issue with a weed that just showed up last year also. You have to burn it or put in in garbage cause if you pull it and throw it out of the garden it just grows where it lands. My neighbor eats it think its called purslane.

This is what I am doing war with Jeremy….

This plant is about 12″ right now and I had to wade into one of Carole’s thickets to find this one. If left for a while longer small clusters of yellow flowers will emerge from the very center of the top of the main stem between the leaves. It takes about three days to go from flower to seed so its best to not let these suckers get very large and they will grow to a couple feet in height and as they get taller the leaf clusters split off the main stem after it’s flowered and will create more flower heads. The schnit is insidious. Ma’s been appraised of the fact that she needs to weed again. lol

I don’t have that in my garden yet but have seen it in the backyard by my fire pit and the kids sand box.

______________ wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>IceNEyes1986 wrote:</div>
but I have more than I can use. What is the best way to preserve them till my tomatoes are ready? Freeze them?

If you want to tang up your salsa a bit, you might try fermenting some of the extra peppers, then add those to your tomatoes when available.

That’s a good idea! I’ll have to try that as well!

Picked a few more peppers last night a whole bowl full of green bean! the beans really took off in the last few days. Num-Num!!

Tom Sawvell wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>JEREMY wrote:</div>
Tom do you know what the weed is or what it looks like. Im having the same issue with a weed that just showed up last year also. You have to burn it or put in in garbage cause if you pull it and throw it out of the garden it just grows where it lands. My neighbor eats it think its called purslane.

This is what I am doing war with Jeremy….

This plant is about 12″ right now and I had to wade into one of Carole’s thickets to find this one. If left for a while longer small clusters of yellow flowers will emerge from the very center of the top of the main stem between the leaves. It takes about three days to go from flower to seed so its best to not let these suckers get very large and they will grow to a couple feet in height and as they get taller the leaf clusters split off the main stem after it’s flowered and will create more flower heads. The schnit is insidious. Ma’s been appraised of the fact that she needs to weed again. lol

It may be what we called pigweed on the farm. Believe it’s part of the amaranth family. Some have developed resistance to roundup. May want to spot treat a few before going through the work of spraying the whole garden. You can even tie and cloth on the end of a stick,dip it in the Roundup and touch the plant you want to kill. Even Qtips or cotton balls will work. Careful not to let it drip on good plants.

Purslane is decent, I’ll eat some occasionally but kind of a pain to wash up and pick the little leaves. Amaranth I’m more likely to eat since the leaves are bigger and it grows way better than leafy greens in the heat, same for Lambsquarter (which I prefer). I’ve heard the name pigweed used to refer to both amaranth and lambsquarter at times.

I got enough random hot peppers together today to start my first mash of the season. I’ve got some Fresnos, a single Stocky Red Rooster three different Cayenne, two Aji Rico and two stubbly little Golden Ghost.

Getting bigger and starting to show signs of goodies. I did pluck 2 heads of Dill.

Just curious about what anyone does to help support pepper plants all 36 of mine blew over in the storm last Friday. I carefully stood them back up and they look fine but im sure it will happen again. They are to big to try and put tomato cages over but will next year for sure.

I have L shaped cages from Glamos wire in Hugo for my peppers. I grow them free standing then insert the cages as needed once the plants get too top heavy. You can see the cages on the peppers in the lower right.

Is there anything you guys do to try to get your tomatoes to ripen? Ours are getting big, same as the last couple years. They stay green forever and then start to rot before they get ripe.