I added a tofu ricotta, cream sauce, and mushrooms. Topped with nutmeg and cinnamon. Chris wasn’t a huge fan, but I thought it was pretty good. Next time though… I think I’ll leave out the eggplant. Hah.

Today’s pick:

Our eggplants are loaded with beautiful white and purple fruits. The white eggplant is a variety from Monticello – apparently one that Jefferson grew, and has been passed down through the generations. They are good sized, long fruits – nearly 12″ long, and each plant has at least 8 fruits on it. What a great find!

Temperatures have been consistently reaching the 90s this month, with a few streaks in the 100s. Pair that with 2″+ of rain each week, and you have the perfect weather for eggplants and peppers.

For some reason, though, our tomatoes are not ripening. We’ve picked a few small cherry tomatoes, and today I picked a couple of nearly-ripe orange tomatoes (Amana Orange). They both have pretty big cracks in them though, and look like they could start to go bad soon. Torrential rain is not great for heirloom tomatoes; it causes them to grow too quickly, and then they crack and are prone to insects and rotting.

In other news, I picked a Hungarian Carrot Pepper and, not thinking, took a bite out of it. The description on the seed packet just said “Great for frying.” No mention of heat. FYI – hungarian carrot peppers are HOT. Right up there with cayenne peppers, but it’s a different kind of heat. I’m sure they are terrific for frying… and I’m curious to see if they are more tolerable when cooked!

We spent much of the day out in the sun, and went for a nice bike ride. Beautiful weather this weekend, and rain possible tonight. I always hope for rain over night.

The daisies are in full bloom! I also picked our first small zucchini, one eggplant and a pepper, a head of broccoli, a bunch of chard, rosemary, sage, thyme, and basil this afternoon. Tonight for dinner, I think we’re going to try making ratatouille in mini bread loaves… on the grill, with garlic bread. Curios to see how that works!

Kallie says, “Happy 4th of July!”

I finally started hardening off tomatoes and peppers this week. Last year I decided to start fewer plants inside, and purchase more at the local greenhouse… but I ended up buying seeds anyway. It is just so hard to resist starting plants inside! I already put in all of the cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, and kohlrabi – and seeded radishes and carrots. The rest of the garden should be seeded within the week, so all that’s left will be tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant.

They look pretty good; if the weather patterns hold most of these should be able to go into the ground next weekend. I do have a row cover and some fabric in case temperatures drop into the 30s later this May.

It’s that time of year again!

10 weeks until Minnesota’s average last frost. We like to put stuff out earlier than that if the weather permits. I have a lot of plans for the garden this year – including growing the flowers for our wedding this September! I’ll have to post more about that later. I also ordered 100 grape vines, and Chris ordered some nut trees so I’m sure this summer we will be busy planting.

There is a nice little nursery just down the road, so to save some time I am planning on just purchasing a lot of transplants from them. There are a few varieties that we just can’t pick up locally though: heirloom tomatoes, fancy peppers, funky-colored cauliflower… so I took out the shelves and grow lights and set everything up in our spare bedroom again.

There seems to be a lot of debate on using coconut fiber vs. peat moss as a seed starting medium. I read a few posts on gardening forums, and people have strong opinions about both – on which is the most environmentally friendly, and which performs better. I haven’t made a decision yet, but I did decide to put both to the test this year with our seedlings.

I picked up some Hoffman Seed Starter from Bachman’s. It is made of peat moss, vermiculite, and limestone. I also picked up some Burpee Eco-Friendly Concentrated Seed Starting Mix from Target, which is made of coconut fiber.

Half of the pots are filled with peat moss (the green pots in the picture above), and the other half with coconut fiber (yellow pots above). I prefer the consistency of the coconut fiber, and it seems to be better at both retaining moisture and draining than peat moss. We’ll just have to wait to see which one the plants prefer!

I am 90% certain that most of the peppers pictured above are Jimmy Nardello’s Sweet Italian Frying Pepper. If I’m wrong, someone please correct me!

I decided not to label my peppers this year because I figured by the looks of them, I’d know which was which when they were ready. Silly me. I know they aren’t Ancho, Czechoslovakian Black, Cayenne, Purira, Szegedi, Banana, or a bell variety. So that leaves the Nardello family heirloom.

Of all the things we grew this year, the chile peppers were definitely the best producing, and the most exciting. Especially the purira peppers – we will be saving seeds from these for next year. The peppers start green, and then turn yellow, then purple, then orange, and then red. I think they get hotter as they mature. This time of year, it’s a real Christmas-light show.

Hopefully the manure will add a lot to the garden for next year! I’m not sure yet where our winter gardening plans sit…

We have a lot of cayenne peppers! We will probably dry most of them, and maybe pickle a few. Our Purira chiles are starting to turn rainbow colors (I would have posted a picture, but we picked all of the orange/red ones before I took pictures, and I’ve already put them in a spaghetti sauce!). Also, we learned that if the Czechoslovokian Black peppers just stay on the plant, they get red and spicier! I added a few of those to the sauce as well.

The chiles seem to have done fairly well this year, even planted so closely together. With our tendancy to eat spicy things (especially Chris), I think that next year we may need to add a couple more plants. Probably not the Czechs, but definitely the cayennes, puriras, and maybe some other neat varieties.

The tomatoes are starting to die off. We had a couple of cold nights, just under 40º F, which the tomatoes definitely did not like. We pulled off a bunch of yellowing leaves today, and some entire plants may need to go soon. I’m actually excited about making some fried green tomatoes with curry and possibly even a green tomato pie! (I’ve heard that my dad likes green tomato pies, so I better start looking for good recipes!)

Chris planted some kale in the front yard today. We have a lot of new little areas with seedlings – I hope they mature before it gets too cold! Chris said today that he is going to start building cold frames for this winter – maybe he will write about them soon!

Front Garden Cayenne Peppers

As you can see… we’re going to have some ripe tomatoes very, very soon! There are three fat amana orange tomatoes in the front, and lots of misshapen oxacan pink tomatoes. The romas are starting to ripen, so maybe we’ll be making tomato sauce soon!

The chile peppers are still doing well… the purira peppers are getting fairly large, though they are still yellow. They turn purple, then orange, then red! I think they get spicier the longer they stay on the plant – hopefully in a week or two I will have a rainbow photo to post. The cayenne plants are loaded, though none have turned red yet. Again, a few more weeks to wait.

The pumpkins continue to look very pretty, producing more and more male flowers every day. Unfortunately, there aren’t any fruits on the vines, which is why we planted them. Oh well… at least they add a bit of color to the garden in the back. One yellow crookneck squash finally decided to enter the garden. I still have no idea what that yellow and green squash is… the skin seems like it’s toughening up a bit, so it’s probably a randomly crossed winter squash after all.