The forecast was to be a high of 35 degrees F today, so when I woke up, I checked the weather station on our shelf, as I always do in the morning. But I had to look at it twice. I was thinking, maybe 20 degrees. Ha ha! That 5 degrees took me by surprise! We sure would like the snow to melt so we can finish up a few projects that are yet undone, such as picking up the hoses that watered two of our gardens. We’ll see how this plays out.
Meanwhile, yesterday, our friend, Alisha, came back to visit and to help out. While we were taking out seeds from the nicest of the Big Max pumpkins (100 pounds or more) and the Atlantic Giants (a few approached 200 pounds and one was bigger!), she donned gloves and seeded out a big box of Sugar Rush Peach hot peppers. Today I’m going to seed a crate of Ozark Sweet Snack peppers then grind them both in our meat grinder and make spicy relish out of them. Waste not, want not, right? We do love our relish! Our peppers did poorly, but fortunately our friends Jesse and Lynn, who have a big high tunnel, had much better luck, sending us home with a box and crate full of peppers, plus all the seed they had saved. Thank you, guys!
— Jackie
We are on a weather roller coaster here. I had 16 two mornings ago and this morning as I write at 7 am it is 48. Thats just crazy, lol. Those peppers look wonderful. Are the sugar rush peppers a good variety to make pepper poppers out of? I like to freeze them and have them at Christmas when my kids are all home for a fun appetizer. After the hard freeze here I cleaned out all my hanging flower baskets and stored away the summer do -dads like wind chimes and wind spinners. I am close to being ready for winter but I sure dread it. I have been gifted a small box of apples and I am going to use your recipe to make apple butter. I am looking forward to my kitchen smelling of apples this weekend. I sure hope you can get your garden hoses in and your other jobs finished before winter sets in to stay. Prayers for a blessed week.
I wouldn’t make poppers out of Sugar Rush Peach peppers. The meat is a little thin and they are quite hot, even if you remove the seeds. They make a wonderful hot pepper relish, though, served on cream cheese crackers!
Will got nearly all of our hoses coiled up and put away and I’m hoping to get my bulbs planted tomorrow, as it’s supposed to be in the thirties again.
I’m looking forward to a little warmer weather in the next couple of days too Jackie. I also have 2 hoses that didn’t get drained yet. Here’s hoping the sunshine on Saturday will give us just what we need. :^)
Amen, Nancy!!! I’m hoping for a warm Sunday so I can get those dratted bulbs planted.
Here in Copper Basin Alaska we have been clouded over for the last three or four days so the lows have been in the low to mid 20’s and highs in the upper 20’s. Some flurries and my weather station is saying 85 to 95% humidity which is doing a number on my arthritis. At least it isn’t -30 yet. In 2021 we had -30 to -40 the week before Thanksgiving! Glad you guys have help with all those seeds. Also wish I could grow winter squash. I transplanted two plants of golden nugget into the green house in late May along with peppers and tomatoes which did fine. The squash were in the bottom third of a fifty five gal barrel, well watered and fed and nothing bigger than a pullet egg! Oh well!
Oh gee! That’s too bad. We all have crops we can’t grow. I can’t do sweet potatoes, okra (ha ha) or giant watermelons.
Our humidity is up too, so our arthritis is also making working interesting. Hang in there Howard!
It was a chilly 18º last night here in the Green Mountains of southern Vermont. It’s beautifully sunny right now so it feels a lot warmer than the 38º the thermometer says. Enough of the snow – we got almost 3″ yesterday – has melted back so the chickens are willing to venture out of our covered pen and not get snow on their little feet, something they do not like.
I understand the thing with the garden hoses for sure. Many are the times we’ve forgotten one of them until it froze solid and we had to wrestle the darn thing into the cellar to defrost. We didn’t use them much this year because of the tremendous rain we got in July (massive flooding), August, and again in October, all way, way over the average. For winter use in the immediate area around the house I keep one of those expandable hoses on hand because it’s light, easy to drain, and I can hook it up, use it, then disconnect it very easily until the next time I need it.
I’m finally getting to all the apples I picked two weeks ago, I’ve got applesauce bubbling away on the stove. They were pretty gnarly apples, but beauty doesn’t matter with applesauce. Best of all, I got them picked before Bob, the local bear, showed up for them.
I made jam from ground cherries this year, first time I’ve tried that, and it is mighty tasty. Since they’re about 50% seeds, I ran the pulp through the food mill to get rid of a lot. We’re not big jelly eaters here, but it makes fine Christmas cookie filling and even finer Christmas gifts for the neighbors.
Yes, it does! I take the seeds out of my raspberries and blackberries too, as we don’t like so many dratted seeds.
We try to get our hoses drained and hung up so, in case of a fire, we have hoses to reach it. Our volunteer fire department is better than a half hour’s drive away and it takes awhile for firefighters to reach the hall. Only having frozen hoses could be awful if we did have a fire!! Of course, we have extinguishers etc. but know the value of being able to hose down a blaze before it gets awful.
As we were saying here in N. Central TX…… Welcome to Novembrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. We dipped down below freezing 2+ weeks early here!
Yep, winter’s sure coming. But, so is spring!!!
Dear Jackie,
I sure hope this cold weather did not do a number on your knee! It was a toasty 25 here in southern middle Tennessee this morning and my shoulder replacement felt like it needed a lube job. LOL It was a beautiful morning even through the heavy frost looked more like snow. I canned my last jars two days ago. I decided to can some delicious turnips, so I did 10 lbs. and I also made 4 jars of sour kraut, too. But from now on, I plan on going into hibernation. I think Mother Earth and ME need some down time. So, try to wrap it all up and rest for a bit. That is what winter is for!!
Nothing wrong with recharge time – our bodies were not made to go full bore 24 X 7 365 days a year. While the body rests, the brain gets its chance to shine. Conversely at times the brain needs a break (weeding and dusting are a great way for me to give my brain a break). Sad to say while we strive to be prepared, we just can’t prepare for everything. So we do the best we can and figure out how to roll with the punches.
I can all winter; even more then as I don’t have gardening stuff to attend to! Right now I’m looking at two crates of carrots and a crate of beets. Then, there is cabbge to can and turn into Amish coleslaw and kraut. And two hams waiting in the freezer that I got on sale at Easter….and 40 pounds of hamburger we need out of the little freezer so we can unplug it. And….. You get the picture.
Been hungry and didn’t like that a bit. Okay, so I’m obsessive.
I can’t speak for your tigers but I know for sure newbie two would find a tray(s) of seeds and proclaim them kitty toys. Newbie one would eventually notice newbie two’s “toys”. Then good chance he’d spy another tray drying elsewhere. Both cats are very observant and notice things that were not there before. And newbie two is super nosy lol.
We’re not that cold yet. Better half wants assistance moving something tomorrow and I have a couple more things to put away for the season (nothing that would be damaged by cold or snow, just want them out of the way as not needed during the winter).
It is easy enough to share produce but saving/sharing seeds is another thing (hot peppers or not).
I hope you two and your circle have opportunity to get together for a potluck, cookout, meal out at least one time during the year.
Yep, we try to do that. Will got the frozen hoses in and picked up a couple of big items along the driveway that kind of kept it too narrow for snowplowing.
We’re lucky in that our cats don’t use the seed trays for play toys. Every once in a while, one of them does walk across a table with seeds on it and I kind of wonder if one of them might accidently have one tomato seed on their paw that passes on to another labeled plate of a different kind. It gives me nightmares!!
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