Author Archives: Megan

Anaheim NuMex Joe E. Parker “Hot” Pepper

Posted in 2014, Harvest, Vegetables by

You may have noticed that the title contains the word hot which has quotations surrounding it: “hot”. That’s because although this pepper is classified as a hot pepper, I do not believe it is such (it is rated 800-1000 on the scoville scale). I think I need to come up with a new pepper classification to categorize peppers that are in between sweet and hot peppers. I guess that when I first started eating and growing peppers I was a bit naive because I didn’t realize that the pepper spectrum is so vast. I do enjoy the more mild hot peppers quite a bit, but I sometimes find myself disappointed when I taste them because I’m expecting to burn my face off. From now on I am going to ensure that my expectations are clear when choosing peppers to grow – I need a good variety of sweet, mild hot and face-burning hot peppers. But I can’t be too hard on myself – this is my first year of successfully growing hot peppers from seed!

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For some reason I ended up with three plants of this variety in my greenhouse – I can’t remember why (goldfish brain). All of the plants were fairly compact – about a foot or so tall and each plant produced 2-3 peppers. Not an amazing amount, but enough to flavor a few small dishes (fresh salsa & thrown in with some banana peppers I was canning to add more colors). The peppers themselves were a good size – a couple of inches wide and about 6 inches long (except for a few runts). I know I complained above about feeling disappointment towards the lack of heat in these, but the taste is really good for a mild pepper – slightly sweet but with a peppery taste without the heat (if that makes sense). I think that if I had a better yield of these I would have stuffed them and roasted them because that would have really brought out the flavor.

I have one more hot pepper left for this year and that is the Habanero which are yet to ripen in my greenhouse (these ones have been so slow!), but I’m confident that I will not be disappointed with these ones.

Anaheim NuMex Joe E. Parker pepper seeds from Botanical Interests.

 

 

The Garden October 2014

Posted in 2014 by

I keep hearing myself and others say that they can’t believe it’s October already. September was a really long month, but it flew by in a flash. Work was extremely busy so I was putting in long days and I’ve been trying to keep up with the garden, writing blog posts, ensuring the house is in a livable condition and all of the other life things. I love to cook but I found myself just throwing together easy and quick stand-bys all month. Oh and I also decided somewhere along the line that I could knit a sweater as well as a few holiday gifts. Idiot.

I don’t want the season to end, but I will say that sometimes caring for the garden when the season is coming to a close after a long and stressful day at work can be a bit of a burden. Do I really want to water my garden after working an 11 hour day? Not really. But on the other hand, after I’m outside for even a minute, I can see myself becoming calm and relaxed. I once read an interview with Scott Weiland (former Stone Temple Pilots singer – I just totally dated myself) who talked about how gardening and knitting helped him overcome drug addiction. So needless to say, gardening and knitting are unbelievably therapeutic and both myself and Scott Weiland are living proof.

October is a weird month for me – most of the vegetables have been harvested and preserved and many of the perennials are expiring. This time of year always puts me into a state of mourning – mourning the loss of this year’s garden that I worked so hard on and preparing for the dark and cold season ahead. It sounds so depressing – and it is, to an extent. But I also feel relief because I can just let go, but also feel excitement towards planning for the next season – I believe this is what keeps us gardeners going during those dreadful months.

So how about enough of the depressing talk and instead you look at some photos of the garden right now.

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Most of the raised beds and pots are cleared but a few things remain – I’ve left the carrots in for now because they don’t mind frost, same with the kale and other brassicas (better picture of those below). You may or may not notice that my neighbor’s tree has bent over into my yard quite a bit – this is a result of the heavy snowfall we had a few weeks ago (heavy snow + full leaves + my hops using the tree as a trellis = very heavy branches). It may or may not straighten itself out over time but I don’t mind too much because it isn’t a safety hazard and I tend to refrain from complaining about my neighbors when it comes to property lines because I know that a few of my plants cross the lines quite frequently (I’m looking at you hops!). I try my best to prevent this and not be a terrible neighbor – I would never intentionally plant something that I knew would spread to my neighbor’s yard and I always make a point to talk to my neighbors about my trespassing plants. Luckily my gardening neighbor always has the same response “Oh, I don’t care!”, but I guess I have a fear of angering people.

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The garlic was planted last weekend! I went with old faithful Russian Red again. I planted it in the ground between two raised beds where I planted lettuces this year. When I did some re-arranging of raised beds a couple of years ago, I intentionally left a wider walking path between the beds so that I could have some room to plant in ground – this has turned out to be the perfect solution for perennial herbs and garlic.

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I’m so glad I got too lazy to rip out the brassica bed after the cabbage looper mass murder. I haven’t seen another caterpillar since and the plants have come back fairly strong, growing new healthy leaves with two of the plants producing heads. I know I said that I hadn’t had any success with broccoli and cauliflower in the past and that this was a failed experiment and I wouldn’t try again, but I’m happy to say that I was completely wrong. Sometimes there is light at the end of the tunnel full of caterpillar carcasses.

I have a feeling that the next time you see the full garden, it will be covered in a blanket of white. Sigh. What does your garden look like right now? Are you still harvesting?

One more thing: I know a lot of people follow blogs on Facebook, so I recently created a page for my blog where I will post status updates, links to new blog posts, as well as anything else I feel like subjecting my followers to, so please like Carrots & Raspberries on Facebook!

2014 Tomatoes Part Two

Posted in 2014, Harvest, Vegetables by

As you might remember, a few weeks ago I harvested almost all of my tomatoes and brought them inside due to a summer snow storm in the forecast – the tomatoes that remained outside were in pots that were moved to my unheated greenhouse, where they were just fine. And although the bulk of the tomatoes I brought indoors were green, they have been steadily ripening inside of cardboard boxes in my dining room. Today I wanted to share some of the medium sized tomatoes which are the most colorful of them all and let you know my thoughts on growing and eating them: Taxi, Green Zebra and Indigo Rose.

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Clockwise from top – Taxi, Indigo Rose, Green Zebra

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Taxi

This was my second time growing this determine variety. I originally purchased the seeds because I was looking for a non-cherry yellow determine tomato. I’m going to be honest and say that this tomato was a bit of a flop this year – it only produced one tomato. One. The plant itself also did not do very well – the foliage was unhealthy looking for most of the year. I have no real explanation for this except that perhaps I did not provide it with enough fertilizer throughout the growing season – or it just wasn’t impressed with the location I placed it (although this is not a strong argument as I had other tomatoes growing in the same location that did exceptionally well). As for the taste, that is definitely something worth mentioning: it isn’t anything very exciting. If you like a mild tomato with a very delicate flavor, little-to-no acidity, and a mushy texture, then this is the tomato for you (and maybe that is yellow tomatoes in general). I have to admit that I like a bit more punch with my homegrown tomatoes, although this one balances out strong flavors if I’m making fresh salsa with a few different varieties of tomatoes thrown in together. So would I grow it again? Probably not. Putting aside the fact that I only got one tomato from my plant, it just isn’t a very exciting tomato and I would rather use the space to grow a tomato that wasn’t this boring. Sorry Taxi.

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Green Zebra

Green Zebra is one of my favorite indeterminate varieties ever. I’ve grown it for about 4 years now and it has never failed me, always producing a ton of medium sized tomatoes on very healthy plants. The tomatoes ripen to a yellow/green color and you know they’re ready to eat when the skin has a little give when squeezed. My partner and I have differing opinions when it comes to the taste of this one – he found it too tart and acidity, but I thought it had just the right amount of tartness with a bit of sweetness. And I love the texture of this one. This tomato is going to remain on my “must grow” list.

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Indigo Rose

This was my first time successfully growing this indeterminate variety (I’d attempted last year, but squirrels). I purchased it because who wouldn’t want to try growing a blue tomato? I would describe the coloring as a dark purple (almost black in places) with dark red blushing – extremely beautiful. They were also very easy to grow, produced many tomatoes, and the plants remained very healthy all year – the ideal tomato plant in my opinion. The other thing to point out is that although they are an indeterminate variety, they are quite compact plants – not as compact as a determinate, but somewhere in between an indeterminate and determinate variety, which worked very well in my small space garden. I was skeptical that such a pretty tomato would have a forgettable taste but the taste is wonderful. They are very sweet with low acidity and have somewhat of a plum flavor and texture. Indigo Rose is absolutely in my top 3 tomatoes this year.

I’d love to hear about the tomatoes that you grew this year and I’d also love to hear any of your suggestions for a yellow variety.

Indigo Rose and Green Zebra seeds purchased from Urban Harvest, Taxi purchase from West Coast Seeds.

Casual Fridays Part I

Posted in Casual Fridays by

I decided to end this week with something a bit different. The gardening season is winding down, and although I am a year-round gardener, my focus shifts a bit this time of year and I start to think about the long season I have ahead of me that will be spent mostly indoors. I also start to spend a bit more time puttering around the internet catching up on my favorite blogs, putting together project ideas and checking out my favorite online shops. I’ll continue with the regular gardening posts again next week but I wanted to share some of the things that have attracted my attention lately. My hope is to do similar posts about once a month. Enjoy!

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1. Manhattan Nest bought a new house! I started following this blog about a year ago and it is truly one of my favorites – I’ve loved following along with Max’s chronicles about living in and restoring a 100+ year old home and I’m excited to see what he’ll do with this little house.

2. Winston The Walrus knitting pattern. I have got to make this.

3. Le Parfait jars are my favorite and I just picked up a few more. The last few years I have slowly been transferring all of my dry goods (baking ingredients, spices, nuts, etc) into pretty jars with labels. Overkill? Probably. I don’t care.

4. Schoolhouse Electric just released their Fall line. I’ll have one of everything please!

5. Jamie Oliver just released a new cookbook called Comfort Food and I have resisted purchasing it so far – we’ll see how long that lasts. There are a few recipes from the book on his website which I am looking forward to trying (I have never met a Jamie recipe I didn’t like).

6. I’ve got clocks on the brain. Ever since our microwave met its demise a couple weeks ago, I have felt the absence of a clock on our main floor and I’m exploring options. Wall clock or smaller clock for the counter? I’m leaning towards a classic schoolhouse inspired wall clock.

7. You win some, you lose some. This article from You Grow Girl really hit the nail on the head and I’m sure all gardeners can relate.

8. I have several entomology themed brooches and I’m always on the hunt for vintage ones. I came across this one from Anthropologie and had to settle for just pinning it – unfortunately way out of my price range.

Sweet Cherry Red Pepper

Posted in 2014, Harvest by

I only grew one sweet pepper variety this year because I figured that sweet peppers are easy enough to buy at the store and/or farmer’s market and I assumed there wouldn’t be any real difference in taste. Wrong. As a gardener I should really know better.

So the sweet peppers that I grew, Sweet Cherry Red, were delicious. I let them ripen as long as I could on the plants and picked them when they were a deep bright red. The taste is similar to a miniature sweet pepper that you would buy at the farmer’s market but a little sweeter and more intensely flavored.

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The plant itself was nothing too exciting. It is a somewhat compact plant, growing around a foot tall, with green foliage. The peppers themselves are bite sized, although I would caution against just popping in your mouth – they contain a lot of seeds.

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My only other complaint besides the seeds is that the plants only produce a small handful of peppers. I grew 3 of these plants and got about a dozen peppers altogether. So depending on how you look at it, it probably wasn’t really worth it to grow for only 4 miniature peppers per plant. But I would argue that the taste was worth it. If I were to grow this variety again, I would probably just opt for one plant and use the additional space for growing other varieties. I have my eye on a number of other sweet peppers to try next year, because obviously they do not taste the same as the ones you buy in the store. Sometimes when I sit back and think about my reasoning for things, I realize how much of a crazy person I actually sound like.

Next week I will discuss the NuMex Joe E. Parker hot pepper.

Sweet Cherry Red Peppers, Botanical Interests. No longer available on their own but the link is a mix that includes Sweet Cherry Red.