Scorching the Garden 2019 Part 11
Every year we grow the peppers and garlic and onions and herbs to make our sauces. Every year we try something new that we hope is better. We ditch something that doesn’t work out. And we repeat and refine those things that promote the completion of our goals. Follow along and steal all our ideas as we Scorch the Garden in 2019.
The end of October is when we take the fences down and clean out the garden. Its been quite a season. Rain at the beginning, super high heat in the middle, then beautiful up until very soon. We are pushing the grow to the very last minute, anticipating the mad scramble to pick everything in one shot.
Even though there has been damage and it looks like late afternoon in the middle of the day, the garden does look beautiful. We are seeing more and more green turning into red, but there is still a frightful amount of unripe peppers we’d like to see turn.
Most of our herbs are pretty hearty and don’t mind the chilly mornings. In fact, lower temperatures will keep things like cilantro from bolting so we can continue to pick flavor packed leaves. Surprisingly, the Thai basil seems to enjoy the cold mornings more than the hot ones i prefer.
We are still harvesting bunches upon bunches of dill, oregano, thyme, cilantro, sage, catnip, parsley, kale, and even basil. We moved a few plants to consolidate them. Things like sage, cilantro, catnip, thyme, and oregano can survive the winter and with a little prep and protection, might even keep growing under the snow.
A big chore in closing the garden is taking the stakes down. This is so much easier than cages, but next year, cages all the way.
We also have to remove the fencing and untangle all the large weeds that grew into it. Next year, we will be sure to have cardboard UNDER the fence to prevent this from happening again. Had we used metal fencing, we could just burn the weeds out. Perhaps in a few years we’ll look into that.
Even the rain catchers go into storage. They were very helpful and we learned a lot that will help us next year, such as, more rain catchers.
Back at home base, we examine our harvest. Some peppers grew into the most interesting shapes. With all the beautiful variation of colors and sizes of these fire-packed bombs, it was only fitting to fire up the smoker and flavor up some peppers. We cut down 2 maples this year and collected a lot of apple limbs over the summer so we were prepared.
All day, we were smoking and turning and packing, then all night long, it was drying and grinding. The next morning, the entire building was filled with the delicious fragrance of smoke and peppers. Smoked peppers should be an aromatherapy option or cologne.
