The Year of the pepper

Had a lot of success this year with pepper plants. Seen at the very top was a Dancing spirit pepper mild in spicyness but tasty to add to meals. Below that is a Jamaican Scotch Bonnet pepper. Spicy and sweet. A friend wanted to grow these and was intrigued by their color.

And finally in the last shot it's a menagerie of peppers I picked from the deck garden. The little tiny bell looking peppers are Hungarian Cheese peppers. Another tasty and mild easy to grow pepper. In fact it's almost December and they are still producing.

I took a different approach this to pepper and tomato growing. All my plants were in pots. This was for a couple of reasons. One to keep them from pests. I had a heck of a bout with gophers in my garden earlier this year and wanted my stuff to survive. The pots offered the roots protection needed. Also the portability of them helped when the light was questionable.

I also was able to expand to my elevated deck in my backyard that gets much better sun with no shadows and a glass pane window blocking the west winds. It has been a hot spot for growing this year.

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Pest Control. My methods of extermination.(Gophers mainly)

So if you've seen some of my past posts you know that I've had encounters with possums and raccoons in my backyard garden. I've trapped 3 raccoons and eliminated 2 possums but gophers had been a problem in the past I wasn't really willing to tackle. At least until recently. The gophers in my backyard alley were ruining plants and soil everywhere. I'd had enough. So after some serious research I chose my weapon. A Victor Black Box Gopher trap. The amazon reviews were great and it was under $15. Now as you see the trap here it's set and ready to go. You would just point that end (the open end) towards an open tunnel. It works like a reverse mouse trap, instead of pinning a rodent down it pulls them up and pins them to the roof of the trap. The trigger is that coat hanger looking metal piece in the middle. It packs quite a punch when triggered. Now you can't just look for an open hole and stick it in front of it. I watched YouTube for about an ho...

Tomatillo stages

Just a few shots of my juvenile tomatillo plants. Above is what the tiny tomatillo starts out like. It will quickly grow and expand out. It's good to have some kind of netting, fencing or string because the stalks of the tomatillos tend to weaken with the rising weight of ripening tomatillos. I used some clothesline to help guide my young plant towards my fence in hopes that I can weave branches for structure. I think the smaller plant may be a purple tomatillo plant. It would be a welcomed color change from all the greens and yellows.

Quinoa, I still don't know what I am doing...

So after seeing some cool photos of Quinoa looked like when grown I bought some seeds and decided to give it a shot. Know I don't think I have ever eaten any Quinoa (knowingly) nor have I seen it grown. Looks pretty cool by the way. And supposedly you can eat the leaves as well. I've grown a few plants and a few got to the point where I could harvest the tiny pasty like grains. I have since dried them in my kitchen and I am in the midst of learning about how to further harvest them from the plant itself. What I found so far was quite labor intensive and seemed to involve water soaking the quinoa to remove chaff and other debris. I watched a few youtube videos and I don't know if I really want to put that much effort into that little of a harvest. They are said to be delicious but just seems to be a lot of work. If you doubt me google harvesting Quinoa.

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