Oh! Grow Up

Beautiful Black Hungarian Pepper

Posted on September 26, 2012 by Patsy Bell | Leave a comment

It is a pleasant surprise to find only a hint of heat in this 4″ tall black peper. Catalogs said it was mildly hot. In a recipe, it would be hard to identify this as the hot pepper. I just mixed it in with the bell peppers in the gazpacho. Chop and add this to the bell peppers when freezing for future stews and chilies.

Stake pepper plants to keep them from snapping off suring thunder storms or heavy winds. photo: PBH

I will grow this pepper again to add another level of flavor in recipes calling for bell peppers. It is thin walled, smaller and not a juicy as most bells.

Who knows? You may think it is spicy. Could it be the soil or the temperature affecting the flavor?

Learn more about how this pepper did in my zone 6, Southeast Missouri Garden. Read my Hub Pages evaluations for tomatoes and peppers :

Black Hungarian Pepper tastes more like a bell pepper than a jalapeno.

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Posted in My Gardens, My kitchen, Oh Grow Up!, vegetable evaluation

Tagged black pepper, Hungarian peppers, low heat, mild

Todays Harvest Basket Sept 18, 2012

Posted on September 18, 2012 by Patsy Bell | Leave a comment

Todays Harvest Basket Sept 18, 2012

End of the garden vegetables. A few green beans that haven’t been eaten up by the bugs. They will be steamed and served with lemon and chives. (RG)

Peppers are beautiful but smaller than usual this year.

The red peppers are Red Cheese, sweet and mild. So called because at one time the red pepper was used to color the wax used to coat cheese. (BC)

The black peppers are just barely hot Black Hungarian. Thinned walled (BC)

I picked a couple dozen TAM jalapeno. These peppers have the flavor of jalapeno but are with less heat. I’ll use some of these to make a bottle of pepper vinegar. (BC)

The yellow pepper is called Ozark Giant. It is big, thick walled, sweet and juicy. (BC)

A couple of beautiful Gold Medal tomatoes, also much smaller than usual. When sliced, these tomatoes are a beautiful gold yellow with red centers. Gold Medal is an heirloom with that rich tomato flavor. (BC)

Riesentraube Tomatoes are the 30 or 40 sweet red 1-oz fruit (BC) An excellent salad tomato and I have dried hundreds of these tomatoes this year. This winter they will go into soups, stew and chili. (BC)

There are some small eggplants that will be become a simple version of ratatouille to serve over pasta. There are three small eggplants in the upper right corner of the basket. The leaves of this plant are lacy with so many flea beetle holes. (RG)

Ozark Giant

Hungarian Black

Red Cheese

(RG) = Renee’s Garden

(BC) = Baker Creek Heirloom Seed

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Posted in Harvest Basket, My Gardens, Oh Grow Up!, preserving the harvest

Tagged Gold Medal, green beans, Hungarian peppers, red cheese peppers, Riesentraube, TAM jalapenos

Todays Harvest Basket

Posted on September 5, 2012 by Patsy Bell | Leave a comment

September 4, 2012.

That big butternut squash weighs over 3 pounds.

Tomatoes, butternut, garlic, peppers, potatoes

I did not count the Riesentraube cherry tomatoes, but just one tomato plant produced all of these. They filled a 2.5 quart bucket. Riesentraube means “Giant Bunches of Grapes.” Plant them once – you will always have these little German heirloom cherry tomatoes in your garden.

Jere Gettle of Baker Creek Heirloom Seed is giving out free Riesentraube with some seed purchases. I suspect Gere is trying to cover the world with little pointy tomatoes. They are prolific.

Drying Cherry Tomatoes

Riesentraube is an early producer. When the big tomatoes start producing, I start drying these little cherries. Here is how I use these hundreds of cherry tomatoes: Tomato triage for too many tomatoes.

While I was cleaning out a raised bed, I found two pounds of these little potatoes. I did not plant potatoes this year. They came up from spuds I missed last fall!

TAM, a very tasty milder Jalapeno, just keeps producing.Kepp watering this pepper and it keeps producing as long as you keep picking peppers.

Quart sun pickles.

I left this jar of sun pickles out on the retaining wall for another day or two. When I made these, it clouded up and rained for three days. Which was good for the garden. But who knows about sun pickles?

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Posted in Harvest Basket, My Gardens

Tagged butternut, jalapenos, peppers, potatoes, Squash, tomatoes

Wordless Wednesday August 29, 2012

Posted on August 29, 2012 by Patsy Bell | Leave a comment

More Wordless Wednesday

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Posted in Gardens (not mine), Traveling, Wordless Wednesday

Tagged Wordless Wednesday

Missouri Coneflower

Posted on August 26, 2012 by Patsy Bell | Leave a comment

A summer roadside wildflower in Missouri

Missouri Coneflower, Rudbeckia missouriensis
Aster family (Asteraceae)

This yellow coneflower is a Missouri native.

Missouri coneflower is a Missouri native perennial. You can find these yellow flowers in limestone glades in the Ozarks. I noticed them along roadsides in late June and early July.

Rudbeckia missouriensis can spread to form wild colonies of yellow flowers growing between 2 and 3 feet tall. Daisy-like flowers have yellow rays and black center cones.

Narrow green leaves and the multiple stems are hairy. Long summer to early fall bloom period.

You may have seen yellow coneflowers outside of Missouri. Their growing region stretches into AR, IL, LA, MO, OK, TX.

the leaves and multi branched stems are hairy.

I saw these yellow conflowers on the road to Laura Ingles Wilder’s home and museum.

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Posted in Gardens (not mine), Traveling

Tagged Coneflower, glades, Missouri, Ozarks, Rudbeckia missouriensis

Peeling Tomatoes

Posted on August 26, 2012 by Patsy Bell | Leave a comment

Dunking tomatoes in boiling water is the easiest way to peel them. photo PBH.

First, set a big pot of water on the stove to rolling boil. Half fill a sink with ice an water.
Next, choose the ripest tomatoes. Cut an ‘X’ into the blossom end of the tomato. Core the tomatoes now or later after they have cooled. If you do it now, the skin is just that much easier to remove.
Then, carefully drop a few tomatoes into the boiling water. I drop 4 to 6tomatoes in at one time. Allow the water to return to a boil. (usually about 1 minute.) Remove tomatoes with a slotted spoon and dunk into the ice water immediately.
Allow the big pot of hot water to return to a boil and drop in more tomatoes. In the mean time, peel the tomatoes after they cool in the ice water. Cut out the core or the green stem end, if you haven’t already. (This is when I do it. It seems like I get more of that tough, tasteless core out.)
If you want to remove the seeds, cut to tomato in half and squeeze it. Use your finger or a spoon to scoop out any remaining seed pockets.

Now your tomatoes are ready for processing, making salsa, spaghetti sauce or simply canning.

Making salsa

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Posted in My Gardens, My kitchen, Recipes

Tagged peeling tomatoes, tomatoes

Never Pass up a car wash

Posted on August 18, 2012 by Patsy Bell | 1 comment

I believe in supporting the people who support our community.

Support local efforts in community betterment. These folks are trying to raise money the best way they know how.

A car wash and bake sale raising money for breast cancer. One of the counselors has breast cancer. Everyone pitched in to help.

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Posted in Go Away, Ozarks Travel Examiner

Tagged bake sale, breast cancer, Car Wash

Todays Harvest Basket

Posted on August 17, 2012 by Patsy Bell | Leave a comment

August 17, 2012

Riesentraube tomato there are about 90 of these little 1 ounce tomatoes, all from the same plant. Riesentraube means “bunch of grapes”. Seed from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds

Indigo Rose tomatoes are the row at the top of the basket. Just over a dozen to these saladette tomatoes are all picked off the same plant. Seed from Nichols Garden Nursery

Outside the basket are a 3 small pink Brandywines. After a long, hot summer, these heirloom Brandywine tomatoes are much smaller than the usual tomatoes. Tomato seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.

3 Italian roma tomatoes are Pompeii. Bigger than most plum tomatoes, these are meaty and rich-flavored. Great for sauce or dried. The seeds are from Renee’s Garden.

Today is really all about the tomato. The Riesentraubes are in the dehydrator now. By tomorrow evening they will be “Sun dried” tomatoes. The majority of tomatoes sold as “sun dried” are dried in a deydrator. It’s faster, safer, cleaner.

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Posted in Harvest Basket, My Gardens, My Homeplace

Tagged basket, harvest, Indigo rose, tomatoes

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day August 15, 2012

Posted on August 15, 2012 by Patsy Bell | 2 comments

GBBD 8-15-2012 Hot, Hot, Hot August

Cut and come again bright pink zinnias stand 3 feet tall.

With vivid colors and long stems, theses zinnia make excellet bouquets lasting for a week or more.

Morning Glories are at their best. Morning Glory, “Grandpa Ott’s”

Seed for Morning Glories and Zinnias are from Renee’s garden

Lots of ruffled lettuce leaves which held up longer in the spring than most lettuce. When lettuce bolted, these lovely lavender flowers will soon produce seed.

The bright green lettuce was in a mesclun mix. I do not know what it is. Or, I would buy more. I let it go to seed and it’s bloom those lovely lavender flowers. Anyway, I hope to gather a few seed in a couple of weeks.

Senorita Blanca™ Spider Flower Cleome hybrid.

The cleome is a great flower to show off and contrast with vivid colors.

Supertunia® Watermelon Charm has been a hummingbird magnet this year. It’s self cleaning and easy care.

The Senorita Blanca™ Spider Flower Cleome hybrid and Supertunia^® Watermelon Charm are trial plants from Proven Winners and will be available next spring (2013).

Lycoris squamigera (resurrection lily) is a plant in the amaryllis family, Amaryllidaceae, subfamily Amaryllidoideae

Lycoris squamigera’s (resurrection lily) sudden late summer appearance is reflected in its common names: surprise lily, magic lily, and resurrection lily.

The lovely lavender bloom is an eggplant flower. Photo by PBH

“We can have flowers nearly every month ofthe year.” ~ Elizabeth Lawrence

Our Host Carol always has a beautiful site.

Last months GBBD

Vegetable garden report. August 15, 2012.

The drought has shown no mercy on the vegetable and herb gardens. Then heat wave and drought broke. We got some rain, so the peppers and tomatoes are productive again. With the deluge of tomatoes, I made small batches of salsa and all my favorite tomato dishes.

What did come out of the garden became spendid dishes like gazpacho, tabbouleh, bruschetta, canned salsa and the following baked egg in a tomato cup.

I found this baked egg in a tomato on Pinterest. My version, of course, has herbs. Chives, basil, chervil.

The original baked egg recipe is on Pinterest.

I loaded my tomato with extra cheese, herbs or real bacon bits.

Then, I made Heirloom Tomato Quiche. This easy quiche was very good. The recipe is on my Hub Pages.

Next time you make BLTs, cook a little extra bacon to go in this quiche if you like.

All ratatouille ingredients are home grown.

The recipe for this French vegetable medly is on my Hub Pages. Ratatouille is my gardens signature dish. Eggplant, peppers, squash, tomatoes, onion, garlic and herbs all come from my garden.

I’m sowing some chervil, chilantro, a bit of arugula and lettuce, looking forward to cooler days.

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Posted in GBBD Garden Bloggers Bloom Day

Tagged August, Bloom Day, GBBD, Morning Glory