Of Non-Deadly Nightshades, Part the Second

[Clovis Sangrail]

I got my two Bounties cleaned up, and I'm getting back into growing some peppers and tomatoes. 

Exhibit 1 -- I planted three Hatch chiles on 8/30. One never germinated, but two did. Here they are today. It's about time to figure out where I put the trellis when I broke down the Bounty last summer.



Exhibit 2 -- On 9/7, I planted 4 Orange Hat dwarf tomatoes. In this case, all four pods sprouted. In face, every single seed sprouted. I move one pod into a Harvest just to so how it would do because these are only supposed to get 9 inches tall. And I will have to cull those extra plants.

[LoveSalads]

Sept 29, 2024 9:19:21 GMT -5 Clovis Sangrail said:

I got my two Bounties cleaned up, and I'm getting back into growing some peppers and tomatoes. 

Exhibit 1 -- I planted three Hatch chiles on 8/30. One never germinated, but two did. Here they are today. It's about time to figure out where I put the trellis when I broke down the Bounty last summer.




If you can't find that trellis you can always open up 1 of those spares.   Your plants look very healthy. 

[Clovis Sangrail]

It's pruning time, and I need to call upon the collective wisdom of all you good gentlefolks.

I have two Hatch chiles. Here's one --



And here's the view underneath --



Do I trim off all those horizontal stems underneath that are just leaf stems? Including the big ones that are throwing all the shade?

Do I just make it look like a baby tree?

And I have four Orange Hat dwarf tomatoes.

They all have two or three plants in each pod because every single seed sprouted.

Here's one up close -- 




And here it is after I chopped down the weaker of the two plants --





Should I now clean up the 'trunk' and make it look like a little tree as well?

I wish I could save all the little baby plants, but there's just no place to put them.

[LoveSalads]

As Far as pruning is concerned  Clovis Sangrail I only cut off what is drooping not getting light. We will leave the pruning question to the professional pepper growers here.

For your baby Pepper plant You can BOAB. Break out another Bounty. I am going to go back to back with some of mine so why not it will give you more room.  I loaded 1 Bounty with 9 sponges and wound up with 17 toms. I did cut 1 the Cherokee Purple cause more than 1 of those and I would need a new room addition. That's why only 17 ,I figured yank them out put them in a neighbor Bounty and most of those wouldn't live cause I yanked them out. No such outcome.  Now pretty much the house glows like Chernobyl did. I will be sharing Cherry Toms with the whole neighborhood come November. 

Your Pepper plants are looking good carry on.

[Clovis Sangrail]

Hoom-hah! I have tomatoes --



This is Orange Hat in a Harvest.

[slw]

Clovis, I am not a fan of heavy  pruning but it seems that each of us has our own method.  I like to make mine look like little trees but I don't prune very high up on the main stalk.  Plants are very resilient and usually recover from bad "haircuts" if you catch my drift.  But the best course it to be a bit cautious and don't overdo it at first.   Your plants look beautiful.

As for the culled plants from thinning; this is where your Katky jars will come in handy.  I have successfully raised a lot of peppers in a quart mason jar, or transplanted them to soil in a sunny window. 

Kratky jars from last year...

[Clovis Sangrail]

My experiments with Kratky jars didn't go well, probably because they do not have a little light on them that tells me when they need watering.

But did you know that you can use Kratky jars for canning pickles?



And it's about time for another batch. 

(And a question for the gallery -- Who here has taken a sip of the juice right out of the jar if no one was looking? Be honest, now. No one here will judge you.)

[LoveSalads]

Oct 20, 2024 10:14:56 GMT -5 slw said:

Clovis, I am not a fan of heavy  pruning but it seems that each of us has our own method.  I like to make mine look like little trees but I don't prune very high up on the main stalk.  Plants are very resilient and usually recover from bad "haircuts" if you catch my drift.  But the best course it to be a bit cautious and don't overdo it at first.   Your plants look beautiful.

As for the culled plants from thinning; this is where your Katky jars will come in handy.  I have successfully raised a lot of peppers in a quart mason jar, or transplanted them to soil in a sunny window. 

Kratky jars from last year...

Love the trellis on the jar, nice setup.

[slw]

Oct 20, 2024 14:15:07 GMT -5 Clovis Sangrail said:

(And a question for the gallery -- Who here has taken a sip of the juice right out of the jar if no one was looking? Be honest, now. No one here will judge you.)

I save dill pickle juice in my fridge after the pickles are eaten.  It is a miracle for those middle-of-the-night leg/foot cramps that wake me up and have me dancing around and crying like a toddler.   If anyone here has the occasional muscle cramp I highly recommend a big swig of pickle juice.  (Or a tablespoon of yellow mustard with a water chaser.) 

[slw]

Oct 20, 2024 17:05:53 GMT -5 LoveSalads said:

Love the trellis on the jar, nice setup.

Thanks.   Those Etsy guys make a lot of handy stuff.

[Clovis Sangrail]

Oct 21, 2024 21:49:38 GMT -5 slw said:

Oct 20, 2024 14:15:07 GMT -5 Clovis Sangrail said:

(And a question for the gallery -- Who here has taken a sip of the juice right out of the jar if no one was looking? Be honest, now. No one here will judge you.)

I save dill pickle juice in my fridge after the pickles are eaten.  It is a miracle for those middle-of-the-night leg/foot cramps that wake me up and have me dancing around and crying like a toddler.   If anyone here has the occasional muscle cramp I highly recommend a big swig of pickle juice.  (Or a tablespoon of yellow mustard with a water chaser.) 

In the beginning, there was darkness and void, and then the god of whiskys and whiskeys said 'Let there be Picklebacks, and let them be a shot of whisky/whiskey followed by a shot of pickle juice." (Actually, legend holds it was Reggie Cunningham at the Brookwood Country Club in Brooklyn, but can you ever really know?)

Then came the Dickle Pickle, which is a shot of George Dickle whisky followed by a shot of dill pickle juice. If it's not George Dickle, it's just a pickleback.

And along the way a profusion of nasty martinis made with un-martini-like additives like chocolate and coffee and watermelon.

And of course, the classic Gibson -- a shot of gin garnished with pickled onions, made all the tastier if you dirty it up with just a tiny bit of pickled onion juice.

And now Chez Clovis presents the Gosh-a-Mickle Bread and Butter Pickle Gibson -- A shot of gin and a half shot of slw's bread and butter pickle juice. 

Shake it with some ice and pour into a Nick and Nora glass, then garnish with a slice of B&B pickle.



It's nummy. If your preference is for Gibsons over martinis, you'll probably like this. 

And it ought to take care of those leg cramps.

Edited to add:  The 'Gosh-a-Mickle' is a doff of the old chapeau to this little guy --



Pogo -- Gosh-a-Mickle, Dickle Pickle, Gee Willie Wobbles, Dog my Cats, and Rowrbazzle!

[scarfguy]

I read your last post...  All I can remember you saying is "a shot of George Dickle"  

[slw]

For Clovis.  

[Clovis Sangrail]

Oct 22, 2024 20:28:34 GMT -5 slw said:

For Clovis.  

Most folks call them green onions, but they're really Three Mile Island scallions.

[LoveSalads]

Oct 22, 2024 22:13:28 GMT -5 Clovis Sangrail said:

Oct 22, 2024 20:28:34 GMT -5 slw said:

For Clovis.  

Most folks call them green onions, but they're really Three Mile Island scallions.

I just had my first cutting of chives last night on a baked potato and it was delicious. Have you had any germination with the newer chive seeds ?  As a connoisseur of greens do you enjoy chives or scallions more ? Is it dish dependent or whatever is on hand ?

I wanted to get a bunch of green onions from the store and grow those but I really am out of grow spots at this point. Last time I grew chives they went on for a looooooong time and, I enjoyed them.  I could just grow the Scallions in a cup I suppose.

[Clovis Sangrail]

I like chives better than scallions. I like them better on eggs; I like them better on potatoes; and they are my favorite green thing to chop up and add to Chez Clovis House Dressing.

But I haven't re-started any yet. Same thing -- space problem, but things are clearing out. You are right -- they do go for a long time once they start.

In a lot of ways, scallions are kind of a poor man's chives, what you use when you can't get chives. And shallots -- I can remember when no one in a Kansas grocery store even knew what a shallot was, so the white end of a scallion was a good substitute. 

But when you grow them in an AG, you don't get the white end, just the greens. Plus, scallions are cheap -- dollar a bunch, buck and a half if you want organic. 

So I have moved away from growing scallions in the AG. That valuable real estate will go to chives. 

But if you have some chicken tenders that you don't know what to do with, try dusting them with some flour, then sauteing them in a mixture of clarified butter and EVOO with some chopped scallions, and then finishing them off with a big ol' splash of marsala. Nummy. Feel free to toss in some 'shrooms if you want, and if you don't have marsala, but do have some sherry or tawny port or anything else of the fortified wine ilk, don't let the lack of marsala hold you back. It will still be nummy with that cheap-ass port from the bottom shelf.

(Speaking of no one in Kansas knowing what a shallot was -- Years and years ago, the restaurant I worked at was catering wedding reception, and the client wanted fresh guacamole. This being at least a couple of decades pre-internet, I had to go to the library and look up how to make it, then I had to find a produce supplier who could get me a case of avocados, then I had to stuff them all in brown paper bags in hopes they would ripen in time. I am proud to say that they got their guac, and it was good.)

[pfunnyjoy]

When I was living in western ND, I ran into a checkout gal in the grocery store that didn't know what a zucchini was. Vegetables weren't a big thing there. Restaurants used mostly canned green beans or canned corn for a veggie side. It was pretty dire for a fresh veggie/salad lover like myself!

[Clovis Sangrail]

Nov 5, 2024 15:34:01 GMT -5 pfunnyjoy said:

When I was living in western ND, I ran into a checkout gal in the grocery store that didn't know what a zucchini was. Vegetables weren't a big thing there. Restaurants used mostly canned green beans or canned corn for a veggie side. It was pretty dire for a fresh veggie/salad lover like myself!

Or << shudder >> this stuff --



Here's my canned green bean story from back in the seventies in Kansas -- We were catering a dinner for about 70 - 100 people, and the vegetable was to be green beans, which back then meant opening a few #10 cans of green beans and dumping them into a deep steam table pan and sitting it on the flat top to heat up. Aside from the cheap-ass green beans, which were a staple in restaurants in the Midwest back then, the rest of the meal was top-dollar, and there was a hyper eager manager-trainee hovering over everything, fretting. 

Comes time to bring everything onto the serving table, and one of the line cooks comes up with a foil-covered steam table pan and drops it into a well. 

"What's that?" asks the manager-trainee.

"The green beans," says the line cook. "They were kind of bland, so I chopped up some bacon and tossed it in. Lots better now."

Did I mention this was a bar mitzvah dinner?

Manager-trainee started to throw a little manager tantrum, when the cook said, "Gotcha."

He knew better, and I knew he knew better because we had both been there when the rabbi put the bless on the kitchen to make it kosher. 

Manager-trainee never really recovered, and some time later, after we put him in the dumbwaiter and sent him for a ride, he started to decide that being in the exciting and fast-paced food and beverage industry was not for him.

Anthony Bourdain was right. Running a kitchen is a lot like having your very own pirate crew.

(And I should probably mention that we did not physically put the manager-trainee into the dumbwaiter. He got into it under his own steam. We just shut the door, then pushed the send button and threw the breaker.)

[pfunnyjoy]

Oh man, that's funny! 

And yet, it's hard to say no to the bacon with the green beans! Everything goes better with bacon!

[Clovis Sangrail]

Hatch chiles and Orange Hat tomatoes update --

Hoom-hah!!! We have Hatch chiles. There are about half a dozen on one plant, and the other one . . . well, bless its heart . . . it's trying.



And a plenteous bounty of little green Orange Hats.

Here's one plant in a Harvest --



And here are three in a Bounty -- 





The Orange Hats have been growing for two months, so I am starting to wonder if I have the patience for 'maters.