June 22, 2009 - 5:31am
Hot weather is good for many things...
What is the weather where you are? Here is what is going on in the south. We can't seem to get ripe tomatoes because we enjoy them green . Early in the morning it is already 84 with high humidity. I start my bread and sit it out to rise. Then we pick and prepare for canning. Go knead. Start canning before it gets any hotter. Go shape for final rise. Take hot jars out and sit aside to be undisturbed. Bake and cook. The days are busy, long, and hot but I wouldn't trade it for anything. I wish you all good food and happy baking. Anybody else have that first ripe tomato yet? Luckily my friend has a greenhouse and we have really had them all winter.
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Wow, Audra. Look at those terrific pictures! Fried green tomatoes are one of my favorite foods.
--Pamela
I saw where you ask someone else about their tomatoes, and complained about the slow weather at your house. I hoped you might check in. With me it helps to see the "light at the end of the tunnel" sometimes. Hot as it is I still love summer and all it holds. Fresh tomatoes and corn esp. Grocery Store corn just isn't the same.
Hi Audra. Would you believe that we just got the last of our tomatoes planted this weekend!
We've got 10 different tomato plants, a variety of peppers (banana, Fresno, serrano, habenero, jalapeno), some basil (still not in the ground yet) and herbs (perennials).
Our neighbor, who is a real gardener, plants a lot of stuff so I keep our to a minimum. Plus we only live a mile from Imwale's. They grow a lot of stuff including corn that they fresh pick for you when you come in.
--Pamela
What are the chili peppers in the can? I ordered chili peppers from New Mexico ( seed that is) and the are growing, but so far they are only blooming. I want the ones in the can but have no idea the variety and they don't tell you on the back. You are more in pepper country where you are.
And the bread, well no good deed goes unpunished.....Yesterdays dough in all the heat got a little out of hand. I let the time get away and when I went to check it it had grown over the bowl and collapsed down the side of the freezer. Yum. I will remember today to shorten my time WAY down before I check in ! :-)
Audra
Usually they are jalapenos, which can be mild, medium or hot (though usually they are either mild or medium). The brand I usually buy is Ortega.
I've had a number of mishaps while surfing TFL although it is usually proofing or baking errors.
--Pamela
Are you talking about the kind that come chopped or whole, in the short cans? Aren't those Anaheim chilies?
It is a small can. The ones I have in the pantry are by Old El Paso and are VERY mild. Pamela said they might be jalapeno but to me jalapeno kind of have a distinguishing flavor. These taste like pepper but without the bite. I am an addict. I should go to meetings! The obsession first hit in Popeye's Chicken. You know how they put chili's in the mashed potatoes and gravy. OMG! It might as well of been crack cocaine. I started out at home putting them in the potatoes and gravy like they did, then I started sneaking them into everything. I have gone off the deep end for sure!Casseroles, scrambled eggs, Mexican cornbread, mac and cheese, nothing is sacred. I tell myself all the time that it's OK, they are a green vegetable after all!
Have you discovered them yet? If not, your addiction is in for a new horizon. You can find them in the "ethnic" aisle of any good supermarket, or online.
David G.
The diced green Anaheim chiles are great, they are so mild but with so much flavor. Can make Chiles rellenos casseroles with them, definitely in eggs for breakfast, but one of my favorites is put them in when cooking rice with chicken broth and garlic powder. Yum!
My Mexican cookbooks say that Anaheim peppers also go by 'California Chilies' if that helps.
No ripe tomatoes, but how about the first bambi? ...Or three. This is what I saw out my kitchen window one day last week.
Amazing photo, Debbie!
Guess it would be pretty hard for YOU to grow a garden with deer popping up all over the place.
After three tries, it looks like Jim finally carbon monoxized our gopher.
--Pamela
That is but a fantasy. I can't even grow a landscape. I used to be a hosta and daylily collector, but it's probably been at least 3 years since I've seen any blooms (daylily buds are quite tasty, especially 1-2 days before they open). The deer have even munched my barberry bushes... which have thorns. The groundhog seems to like cilantro and parsley, so I'll have to keep buying mine at the grocery store. And there's a turtle that thinks my sedum is his personal salad garden.
And still... I like the wildlife :-)
Well at least you are getting some good photos :) .
--Pamela
didn't see how it fit in with the garden stuff. I took three of daylillies also. I know you miss your flowers even though you enjoy the animals. I would too. So far mine stay at bay, but as people move closer and land is cleared......
Audra, you're turning into quite the photagrapher---nice shot!
Pamela sent me a online manual for my camera so that I could enlarge it and actually read it, and Eric has worked tirelessly with me and I'm sure he probably felt like giving up many times! We have all met lots of good friends here at TFL haven't we? I sure am glad I found this site . Good bread, good friends what else is there?
My kids had a fit over them. Thank you for sharing them with us. We see signs of them but they come mostly at night. If it showed up in the corn picture, our scare crow is out there guarding, complete with Hannah Montana bucket hat and a plastic bottle of "organic deer repellent " ;-) hanging from his neck. We love to feed and watch them, just not in the garden. We plant a green field in hopes every year that they will enjoy it and leave the veg.'s alone, but you don't always get what you wished for!
There were actually four babies romping around the yard, but I could never get them all in one shot. Just the three was quite an accomplishment. At first I only saw one doe, and I couldn't believe she had quadruplets. but then a second came out of the woods, and three little ones ran toward her. Twins aren't so uncommon, but triplets...
We used to have a German Shepherd that kept them at a distance, but since she's been gone and land is being developed more and more, the wildlife has moved in with us. A groundhog lives under the back porch, and one year four babies popped out. We've had a momma raccoon raise two families under the sidewalk outside our front door. At any given moment, I might look out a window and see a fox passing through, wild turkey, a hawk, owl, 'possum, skunk... the list goes on. We've had a bat, lots of baby birds, and once I even caught a glimpse of a young bobcat, while walking down our street.
The hard drive on my desktop crashed a couple weeks ago and so the computer is in the shop. If they can recover all my photos, I will post some more when I get it back. I backed up photos a few weeks ago, when things started going south, but somehow, I must have missed the wildlife shots. I will have to be more careful next time...
Debra, Lovely, photo! 3 bambi's yet! We had to put a deer crossing sign on our street this year because the babies were jumping out in front of the cars. We don't have a lot of deer but they are around with a variety of other wildlife.
Lovely photo, Debra! 3 Bambi's yet! We do have a few deer around our neighborhood with a variety of other critters. I love seeing them!
Some days it feels like I'm in that movie, Enchanted :-) And the wildlife do some funny things---Mother Nature has a sense of humor.
Oh My, Audra! Beautiful photos, I especially love the berries...reminds me of when I was a kid in Texas. They grew wild all around us and I would pick them and my mom would just put them in a bowl with milk for me! I know what you mean about corn being good! I can get corn here that is so sweet and tender...I never new corn could be so good! Your garden is gorgeous!
Sylvia
Thank you and my husband said your meatball sandwiches were awesome looking as well, and he put them on my to - do list! Thanks for that post, rolls and meatballs as well!
The lack of rain is really getting to the blackberries, but as you know that makes them not only ugly but VERY sweet. They stay small and are a pain to harvest but boy are they better. It's funny, I grew up on home grown veggies and swore when I had my own house I'd just get all my stuff from the store , none of that hard work and sweat for me! I soon found out it was not good from the store and here I am hoe in hand. We have canned up cabbage and green beans so far and the peas are bloomin'. The purple beans were a first for us thisyear . They were good but I really couldn't tell any diff. Thought the kids might get a kick out of them. Also planted the purple, red with yellow inside, and yellow carrots that were on the back of Cook's Ill. Boy the lengths I go thru to get veggies in the kids!
Audra, Thank you and you can always sneak those carrots in on the kids...they really pick up a marinara sauce...I think you said that once before too! Your garden sounds and looks wonderful..I think I was always a farm girl at heart..to bad I did most of my growing up in the desert playing with horny toads and desert turtles, we called them! I can't grow much in my suburban yard..but I have at least 5 very large fresh fruit and veggies stands and a fresh farmers market all very close. So at least I can cook like a farm girl! 'lol'
Sylvia
From my front porch:
And the white Concord grapes on my loggia:
Thanks, Audra, for the trip down memory lane: Picking wild blackberries in the heat of summer in NC. The stillness and the heat were overpowering. But the blackberry preserves--worth every chigger bite!
Susan from San Diego
The grapes are fantastic, and as Emily pointed out to me your columns are the same (shape) as ours, only ours are about 100 years old and have been painted over. Kids notice things we don't.
N. C. is a beautiful state also. I visited Lexington, and Asheville and went on up to Jamestown Va. in the years before children. The mountains are so wonderful. Did you live in the mountains or sunny beaches? N.C. seems to have it all. I'm sure it can't compare to you California sunny winters. When Emily saw your palms, she thought you lived at the beach since that's the only place she's ever seen any. Thanks for sharing your view of summer with us!
Audra,
I'm with you; southern gardening is bountiful, but so is every fungus, bug, and critter--winged or walking--that likes veggies as much as we humans. Nonetheless, here's one days reaping from three, 4' x 4' raised beds. We're also already enjoying musk melon, and abundant herbs.
...and here's the herb garden.
David G.
in bugs and the like. We harvested 2 eggplant last week, but I have no photo's as they were inhaled by our children. I love your raised beds. I agree with you that you can raise more in a small watered, well tended spot with great soil than what I am doing now.
I can't wait to try the chipotle in adobo. My husband may not be so happy! I'm practically eating them on ice cream now! Lucky talking to you, I was about to run to the store, I'll pick up some. Thanks!
David,
How do you get your aubergines and green peppers so healthy-looking? I never ever have luck with green peppers; the most I get from a plant is one puny pepper; not worth the $1.50 plant but still, my husband buys them every year. My aubergines are about 3 inches long now; can't wait to make spicy Chinese eggplant in garlic sauce with them! I'm in Cincinnati and it gets hot and humid here too, like today, but nowhere as bad as you Southern folks get them. I salute you; me- I'd rather be buried in snow than put up with the heat and humidity. I guess I'll always be a Chicago girl at heart.
Diva,
Here's a couple of pictures. As you see, the three beds take up very little room.
I built the boxes in March, and filled them with compost bought from a local thuroughbred breeder. It takes no imagination to know what the base material for the compost is. The top four inches is top soil mixed with an inch of peat moss. I also use Miracle Gro fertilizer sparingly. I tried to find organic fertilizer in the local shop's, but failed. Shipping is too expensive for me to buy online.
You see there is a large number of marigolds in two of the beds. I've gardened in past years in Virginia and Connecticut. I started planting marigolds with my vegetables thirty years ago, and am convinced they help keep the destructive insect population in check. My only major problem here in Florida has been powdery mildew, due mostly to the high humidity. It nearly destroyed my yellow squash. Fortunately, I found a "green" fungacide that controls it, and alledgedly doesn't harm the environment.
I guess the shorter answer to your question is: horse manure.
The above picture was taken in April.
Here's what it looks like now.
David G
We too use " poo". Rabbit poo as a matter of fact. Caved in to the " Oh, we'll take care of them, I promise" scam and now every day when I clean out the pens, it goes into a bucket and is wheelbarrowed to the garden. Works nicely.
Beautiful photography, Audra.
If the canned chiles are from New Mexico, and, especially if the can spells them "chiles," they are not Aneheims. New Mexico chiles have the same flavor but tend to be much spicier. I don't know all the variety names. You can order them fresh during the month of August, direct from the farmers. There are also places in NM from which you can order seeds. The people from whom I've ordered are Hatch Chile Express.
David
I googled Hatch Chile Pepper seed early in the spring and could find places to buy the peppers but not seed. Thanks for the hook up. I was going to get Poblano seed also this spring and somehow forgot till it was late. I love chili rellenos and they are so overpriced in the Mexican Restaurant. Last summer I got my brother to get me a case of the peppers, roasted, skinned and stuffed them and froze them individually for the freezer. They are not that hot, but just the fumes of that many peppers in my oven on broil at one time and for so long was hard on the eyes! The people who do those at the "real" Mexican Restaurants have my blessing.
David, I tried to write chiles, and my spell-checker insisted on "chilies", or "Chile's". I'm not a good speller, so I wasn't in a position to argue with spell-check :-)
I had to look it up; the dictionary gives three proper spellings:
Singular - chili, chile or chilli (Brit.)
Plural - chilies, chiles or chillies
Who knew? I learned something new :-)
Here in the Willamette Valley, (OR) we are just picking pea pods, rhubarb, strawberries and raspberries in our garden. We'll have to wait until close to August for tomatoes, DRAT!
Betty
Audra,
Those purple beans look flat compared to the green beans in the market. Do you eat them whole like green beans, or are they grown for their peas? Sorry for sounding like an ignoramus, but where I am is not exactly in step with the food scene.
The are not flat though, I guess the darkness made them show up in the picture that way. We have so far only gotten enough of the for the first meal and we did cook them to eat just as a side dish. I had heard that they change to green as they cook, but the kids were watching as if it was magic. Sure enough they turned green. They would be beautiful in a salad. We have PLENTY of regular green beans that we use for canning, so this was just for fun. But as they say, you eat first with your eyes and they are real eye candy. I got them from The Gourmet Seed Co. I will try to put in the Linc http://www.gourmetseed.com/product/DB08/DB08__Bush_Snap_Bean_Royal_Burgundy.html
We also did these carrots / purple, red, and the yellow from this page.
http://www.gourmetseed.com/category/gourmet_seed.vegetable_seed.carrot/
We planted them in a clear tub not just because our HARD Alabama dirt is not the best for carrots, but to watch them grow down into the dirt. Here is Emily planting them earlier in spring as her project. Now the tops are up and about 4-5 inches tall. We drilled holes in the bottom for drainage and sit it in the sun. I can't get the picture to load , I'll try to edit in .
You're braver than me, Audra. I commend you for letting your kids *inside* the house with a tub of dirt!
--Pamela
I definately see a resemblance here!