I would just recommend try different plants and see what you prefer. Some are called "frying peppers" and for "pickling" for a reason, depends on what you want. For bells I like "Golden Summer", very large plants that have light green peppers that are good tasting even before they ripen beautifully. "Flavorburst" is somewhat similar, with light green unripe peppers that are good also. "Big Bertha" is a very nice hybrid to red bell. "Corno di Toro" and "Carmen" are excellent bull horn peppers, sweet peppers at their best. "Giant Marconi" is a very nice long pepper, Burpee's "Big Daddy" is a vigorous ripen to yellow Marconi type pepper.

Chandra, I truly hope you enjoyed your day off and were able to get a lot of those tasks done. Please tell Priya how much we are thinking about her and hoping that all goes well for her with the pending birth of your twins. She is so tiny and petite and I am amazed that she has carried the twins so well and so long. She must be amazingly healthy to accomplish that! Tanu looks so darling surrounded by the veggie harvest. I hope she is enjoying the wonderful harvest and her wonderful play area in the backyard too. Your entire yard and garden are a masterpiece. Every area looks so good and so right and so beautiful. I hope you have been able to enjoy the visits from all your sweet, loving friends and family who have visited to help Priya in these last few weeks before the babies arrive. Now, to address some of your gardening concerns: Watering: This has been a big concern for most of us, except for Carol, Michelle and a few others who have had plenty of rain (in fact, too much rain at times!). Just do the best you can and don't fret over it too much. Remember that infrequent slow, deep watering is better for the plants than shorter, more shallow waterings done more often since it encourages the roots to go deeper. If life gets too crazy after the babies arrive, you can put soaker hoses or sprinklers or drip irrigation systems on a timer. Red Candy Apple is a little hard to manage as it can be slow to grow and doesn't size up nearly as well as Candy grown in identical conditions. It has superb flavor but seems to be a slower grower. I read Bruce Frasier's advice on the Dixondale website to northern growers to give Red Candy Apple extra nitrogen to push it to perform better and grow bigger, so I tried it, even though I'm obviously a southern gardener. I gave Red Candy Apple a standard pelleted all-nitrogen lawn fertilizer (33-0-0) sometime in May when we were having all that rain. They really increased in size, for the most part. I think next year I'll try to give them more nitrogen earlier in their lives. Some of my Red Candy Apple onions were the same size as some of the big Candy and Super Star onions, but not all were. That difference in sizes might be an indication that I didn't distribute the pelleted fertilizer evenly. I normally don't use pelleted chemical fertilizers, and I just scattered it by hand. Still, I was pleased with the difference it made, and think using it earlier next year will make an even bigger difference, so I'll likely either rototill it into the soil before planting or will top dress it after the onions have been in the ground 3 or 4 weeks. Cool Season crops have suffered greatly from the very early arrival of abnoirmally hot temperatures this year. We get a second chance with cool season crops in the fall, and all we can do is hope for the weather to be better in the fall or next winter. Blackberries and raspberries may have had issues with late freezes freezing their blossoms. Or, if you just planted them next year, they just need to make some growth and ought to do better next year. It wasn't a great berry year here either. Telow gave you great grape advice. I'll try to pull up the OSU grape growing guide and post it in its own thread. It is incredibly hard to grow grapes here without preventive spraying for diseases. The peas had the heat issues to deal with. For comparison's sake....last year was a great pea year in our garden because the weather stayed cooler longer and we harvested about 35 lbs. of sugar snap peas. This year, we got maybe 6 or 8 lbs. We got too hot too early this year, and all the rain in May also caused some disease issues (mostly powdery mildew) for some Oklahoma gardeners with their peas. Carrots that mature in warm weather do lack sweetness. When carrots are able to mature before the heat arrives, they will be much more tender and sweet. Lettuce performed really well here too. Remember that you can plant it again in the fall, and some people grow it indoors in the winter. I think you can grow it in containers this winter in your greenhouse if you want to. I don't grow fava beans but I think Mrs. Frodo (Andria)does. Maybe she'll see this and tell you her secrets to growing fava beans. I think they are cool season and may need to be planted in the fall. Likely the heat is what is damaging your fava bean blossoms. It has been a great potato year here too. I am glad you got such a good harvest. If you had any small potatoes that you didn't use for eating purposes, you can save them to use as seed potatoes for your fall crop. Your corn sounds right on schedule. Silver Queen is a very late corn and I imagine it will tassel and silk soon. Tomatoes: My feeling is that I don't care how the plants look as long as they are producing. Tomatoes get every foliar disease that comes along, pests love them and the high temperatures are hard on them, but as long as they are flowering and setting fruit, all that other stuff doesn't really matter. High temperatures can impede pollination, fertilization and fruit set, but that doesn't mean it permanently shuts them down. Whenever we have a day with highs less than 92-95 degrees and lows less than 72-75, you'll still have some fruit set. Patience pays off. Some summers I've seen my plants sit there and drop blossoms for 3 or 4 weeks, but then a cool spell comes along and they do set fruit on whatever flowers they have at that time. The plants that produce bite-sized tomatoes are not affected by high temperatures nearly as much as the varieties that produce larger fruit. Peppera often have foliage issues and there are several diseases that cause the puckering and curling of foliage. I generally just ignore it and it either corrects itself or the plants just keep on producing anyway. I don't see any difference in production between plants with perfect foliage and plants with puckered or distorted foliage. I don't pinch off blooms usually because I don't think it is strictly necessary. In our climate, I try to let the tomatoes and peppers set all the fruit they want before the heat shuts down production. Eggplants are virtually indestructible, at least in summer heat. Just watch how they perform all summer. One year, during exceptional drought, I stopped watering the garden in June. Despite that, the eggplants produced until the first frost in November in an almost total absence of rainfall and irrigation, which I think is remarkable. I fully expected them to wither and die after I stopped watering. All your "hot season" crops like sweet potatoes, okra, etc. ougt to be exceptionally happy in this weather! Thank you for sharing all the beautiful photos of your garden with us. I am so proud of you and so proud of how well your garden is performing this year. I know you spent many, many hours on research and never hesitated to ask questions and to carefully read the answers and glean from them all the info you could. Your efforts certainly have paid off as you have a fantastic garden. Your garden must be giving you great joy this year, and I am happy that so many of your friends and family members have been visiting y'all this spring and summer and have been able to see your garden and enjoy it too. The beautiful rainbow of crops in many colors that you're growing are something to be proud of, and just think.....a year or two from now, Tanu will have to share those sugar snap peas with the twins, so you're going to have to plant a lot of them! Happy Gardening to you, and give my best wishes to Priya for a restful, quiet week and for a happy delivery next week (if not sooner). Dawn

Let's keep thinking positive thoughts. Sunday night is still a few days away and the forecast low can fluctuate up and down a lot between now and then. I'll cover everything I can if conditions warrant, but I've already decided I'll only cover one of the three pepper beds--and the one I will cover is the one that is producing most heavily. I picked all the large peppers, but left a lot of babies on plants in that bed. In the other two pepper beds, if they freeze, they freeze. I cannot protect my pole beans. Well, I could do it by putting row cover up along both sides of the trellis and folding it over the top and pinning it closed with clothespins, but that's more effort than I am willing to expend. I will protect the bush beans. Can you pile up leaves or straw or something over the portion of the winter squash vines where those three melons are? I've done that before in November when I actually had fallen leaves to use. Leaves really aren't falling here yet because it is too early, but I'm going to pile up hay on top of the part of the winter squash vine that is on the ground. The part on the trellis may get covered, if I figure out how. I have Agribon frost blankets and I have heavier moving blankets that are really heavy and might bring down the trellis..... In light of the approaching cold front, I pulled out all the hanging-basket style cherry tomato plants that were growing in the cattle trough. They still were producing and blooming, but I just really wanted to put the back-up lettuce plants in that trough so they can get established and grow. I already have lettuce in the ground and in three large containers, but I wanted to do something with those leftover lettuce plants, and I had a lot of them. I still have cherry type tomato plants in two molasses tubs and SunGold in the ground, and I'll cover up all those. The tomato plants I removed had produced well all year, but were looking pretty tired and ratty, though still covered with fruit. I picked about 2 or 3 gallons of cherries from them, and then put the plants out at the deer feeding area for the deer to eat. I hope they like green tomatoes. It has been a long, hard garden year, Carol, and y'all had that horrible storm plus the hail on top of all the other wild weather. I can understand why you've had enough! I'm stubborn and so I will protect the warm-season stuff and try to keep it going until at least November. Apart from that, I've put in a big fall garden with lots of cool-season stuff and the grasshoppers have been eating everything down to the ground. I'm grateful for these 2 back-to-back cold fronts and hope they KILL some of those hoppers so my cool-season stuff stands a chance. Apparently, at least in our garden, grasshoppers prefer Wild Garden Kale from Wild Garden Seeds and Purple Sprouting Broccoli above all other cool-season veggies. I had some success hiding the Even Star Farms Smooth Kale from the hoppers by planting it between taller rows of purple hull pink eye peas, and did the same with Falstaff Brussels Sprouts by planting a row of it between rows of bush beans. I'm not sure if hiding those cool-season crops between rows of warm-season crops is why they haven't been nibbled, but I think it might be. Carol, I have the most green Seminole winter squash I've ever had this late in the season but they just sit there and refuse to break color. It is driving me crazy. If they freeze before they ripen, it is their own fault for being slowpokes. Oh, I forgot the Sugar Snap Peas or, as they now are known here, the Grasshopper Chow. They've devoured every plant down to the ground. I am so happy to know that somebody enjoyed eating those pea plants, but wish it had been our family eating them instead of those grasshoppers. Dawn

This is a thread cut & pasted into the FAQs. Drying peppers for later use Posted by Cathy123 z5 IL (My Page) on Mon, Aug 5, 02 at 11:17 I am growing Serrano and Cayenne peppers this year for the first time. I am mainly growing them to feed to my parrot--he LOVES peppers, especially the seeds. Are there any quick and dirty instructions for how to dry peppers? Is there a certain way whole dried peppers should be stored? I'd like to save some of the harvest this way so I can give my bird some home-grown peppers during the winter. Thanks for your help! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Follow-Up Postings: RE: Drying peppers for later use Posted by: Taba z5b MO (My Page) on Mon, Aug 5, 02 at 16:51 Lucky bird! I've only dried Habaneros and Jalapenos, but I imagine it would be the same process. I use a dehydrator. I haven't tried drying whole because I grind them afterwards for spice mixes. I cut off tops, slice in half, remove seeds and placenta, then place in a single layer on the dehydrator screens. It takes a couple of days to dry completely and it fills the house with pungent odor, so consider doing it in a well-ventilated area. Also make sure that they are completely dry - any moisture left will encourage mold during storage. I put the dried halves in a big freezer ziploc, and take them out when I need to grind more. There may be a better way - this is just how I have been doing it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- RE: Drying peppers for later use Posted by: John__ShowMe__USA 5 (My Page) on Mon, Aug 5, 02 at 17:36 Cathy123, Would your parrot eat frozen peppers? Just a thought. A lot easier than drying. I often throw throw peppers in a ziploc freezer bag for use in soups and stews later. (I also dry a lot) JohnT -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- RE: Drying peppers for later use Posted by: Cathy123 z5 IL (My Page) on Mon, Aug 5, 02 at 17:49 He might eat frozen peppers, I've never tried giving them to him. His favorite parts of the peppers are the seeds and the stem--I'd like to find a method drying/freezing/preserving the peppers that keeps those intact. My father-in-law has a dehydrator, maybe he'd let me use it while visiting. Although he HATES hot stuff and would probably abhor the aroma of drying peppers. Hmm... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- RE: Drying peppers for later use Posted by: Scribz z5 OH (My Page) on Mon, Aug 5, 02 at 18:11 Abhor, maybe not, but if you dry any quantity of hot peppers indoors, be prepared to fill your home with eye-burning, chest grabbing, cough and sneeze provoking fumes. Been there, done that. Recommend doing your drying out on the picnic table, patio or deck, especially if you dry habs. I have a yellow head Amazon, 17 yrs. old, hand-raised as a chick. Thinks he's a human, and eats hot peppers without even blinking. I planted some seeds from the peppers in his food, and they are really nice plants. Anyone want a tempermental , messy animal that gets noisier every year and sings opera?? I would trade him for a set of front and rear bumpers for a '70 Karmann Ghia... :).... just kidding, I guess. It is amazing that they don't seem to mind the pepper juice. Scribz -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- RE: Drying peppers for later use Posted by: Byron 4a/5b NH (My Page) on Mon, Aug 5, 02 at 18:12 I save most of my chiles as ground powder. I cut most of my pods in 1/2 for dehydrating. When I am done most of the seeds are on the dehydrator tray. If you want just seeds and stems, I am sure there are a lot of folks that would send some.. Most of us just compost that stuff. Byron -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- RE: Drying peppers for later use Posted by: John__ShowMe__USA 5 (My Page) on Mon, Aug 5, 02 at 19:24 >>If you want just seeds and stems, I am sure there are a lot of folks that would send some.. Chorus: "Those stems and seeds that we don't need...." Hmmm, sounds like an old Cheech & Chong song. I would think that the Cayenne peppers would air dry nicely. JohnT -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- RE: Drying peppers for later use Posted by: Taba z5b MO (My Page) on Mon, Aug 5, 02 at 23:30 >>It is amazing that they don't seem to mind the pepper juice Scribz (and Cathy) - Capsaicin is actually good for birds. Helps combat intestinal lesions in parrots and mackaws according to this article. Vitamin A in peppers brightens the birds plumage according to this DeWitt article. I don't have birds but know several people with parrots and mackaws. I second Scribz' recommendation for dehydrating outside. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- RE: Drying peppers for later use Posted by: rossjm 5b Elkhart (My Page) on Tue, Sep 3, 02 at 16:55 I dont have a dehydrator but lots of outdoor space:-)) How would one go about drying peppers "the old fashioned way"????? Can I wrap them in panty hose, not used of course, and dry them that way?? Can I hang them in a garage and air dry them,what would be the best way to surpress the molding of the peppers??? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- RE: Drying peppers for later use Posted by: Earl SW Ohio 5-6 (My Page) on Sat, Sep 7, 02 at 9:47 If the pepper all turn red at once, pull up the entire plant, hang it root end up in a dark place. Remove peppers when they become brittle. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- RE: Drying peppers for later use Posted by: ragland z6 KY (My Page) on Sat, Sep 7, 02 at 22:13 When picking your peppers, make sure to leave some stem. Take a needle and some thread and thread all the peppers through the stems and hang outside to dry. It will take several weeks to completely dry, so make sure they don't get rained on. After they have dried you can cut off however much pepper you need and leave the rest hanging somewhere in the kitchen. ragland -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- RE: Drying peppers for later use Posted by: Mocknbird Wash, DC (My Page) on Tue, Sep 10, 02 at 11:42 If you are drying cayennes then you shouldn't need a dehydrator. I just leave mine out on the kitchen counter in a big bowl. They dry in a few weeks time. Check them for mold or wetness every once in a while and throw out any that are not drying properly. You could probably remove the seeds first if you wanted to. Serranos are likely a different story because of the thick walls. I don't know. Good luck, M -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- RE: Drying peppers- turning black Posted by: DaveAinVA Z6/7 (My Page) on Fri, Sep 27, 02 at 12:48 I am using a dehydrater for drying "salsa" peppers, also super chili and serrano. Especially the "garden salsa" peppers turn black. Why? At frost I have pulled the whole plant and hung it in the garage. I grind the dried peppers in the spring to use on sweet potatoe plants and others to keep off the rabbits and hogs (ground). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- RE: Drying peppers for later use Posted by: John__ShowMe__USA 5 (My Page) on Fri, Sep 27, 02 at 14:22 > Especially the "garden salsa" peppers turn black. Why? They do turn color to a darker red. This is normal. Black is not in my experience. I suspect that your dehydrator temp is too high. If your dehydrator can be turned down to a lower temp then do so. And open the vents all the way. I can only use the top two shelves of my cheapo dehydrator w/o using a rheostat to lower voltage to the heating element. I can stick a meat therometer down the vent holes in mine and check temp at each shelf level. Although I try to keep mine at 140°, a lower temp might be even better. Just my opinion, and I make no claim that it is the best way to do your drying. JohnT -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- RE: Drying peppers for later use Posted by: VinnyC 7 LINY (My Page) on Thu, Oct 3, 02 at 16:51 I second the needle and thread method. My grandmother used to sit for hours, threading cayennes she bought by the bushel from the vegetable truck in late summer. Southern Italians fry the dried peppers in olive oil, and use the oil as a seasoning, as well as eating the peppers. I still do it with peppes from my garden. I have a string of about 50 drying now, and a couple hundred more outside ready to pick. Nana used to hang them near the water heater in the basement of the family restaurant in Queens, NY, I just hang them from the curtain rods in the kitchen window. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- RE: Drying peppers for later use Posted by: audrey_mi z6MI (My Page) on Tue, Oct 8, 02 at 0:10 OK, I've read all of your offerings on drying peppers. Uually I put a batch into the freezer for later use,and I have, but I thought some drying would help, especially my serranos. I do not have a dehydrator. I have tried stringing cayennes, but our weather here at this time of year is to humid to dry. I used my microwave with great success (except for the batch I overdried, which just about drove us out of the house!!) Has anyone tried it? Also, my oven will heat to the lowest of 170 (Gas with no pilot), any suggestions for me? I guess I'm looking for a large batch method since I picked dozens tonight due to a frost warning here in Michigan. Help! Audrey -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- RE: Drying peppers for later use Posted by: Absent UK (My Page) on Tue, Oct 8, 02 at 4:03 I too stitch through the stems of my peppers and hang them up to dry, I've found that as long as the stem of the peppers is undamaged they'll just dry slowly by themselves . A friend brought me back a large wreath of them from Hungary where they are sold fresh and just left alone to dry, Oddly enough I grow them for the parrot too, swap your 17 year old temperamental messy animal for a two year old full flighted fussy stubborn little sod with a wiring obsession? I have Rock Pebbler. Little swine tried to drop a 2lb glass vase on my head the other night, even checked to see if I was sitting underneath. Incidentaly - don't train your parrot to give people a kiss if it likes hot peppers, I made that mistake. The peppers I got from his food bowl are short conical things, very fleshy and eye watering even before the skin has been broken - I'm not sure what type but they made a damned good hot sauce. Duster picks out the seeds from his and throws the flesh away. Absent -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- RE: Drying peppers for later use Posted by: dwalls 7 AR (My Page) on Tue, Oct 8, 02 at 7:47 Audrey, Be careful microwaving some peppers. They can EXPLODE. Donnie -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- RE: Drying peppers for later use Posted by: John__ShowMe__USA 5 (My Page) on Tue, Oct 8, 02 at 8:52 Donnie writes: Be careful microwaving some peppers. They can EXPLODE. They for sure can! Nuking whole peppers can shave a lot of time off the drying though. I use short bursts over and over until they have wrinkled. Use the lower power settings so that you don't cook the pepper. It takes some experimenting to get this down right with each pepper variety. I use short bursts at low power even for sliced peppers that can't explode. If you have a defrost setting on your microwave you could experiment with that. It might work. JohnT -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- RE: Drying peppers Posted by: astroyaker z6 SC (My Page) on Tue, Oct 8, 02 at 10:48 I've got some Cowhorn peppers I may try to dry, though I have thrown a few in the freezer for quick use in sauces & stews. FYI, birds are not sensitive to capsacin (sp?) so they can eat any pepper seeds to their hearts content. BTW, putting some pepper oil or seeds mixed in with regular bird seed should go a long way to discourage squirels and other non-avian pests from eating the food you put out for the birds. BTW, anyone know what the process is for readying pepper seeds to be used for following year planting? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- RE: Drying peppers for later use Posted by: audrey_mi z6MI (My Page) on Tue, Oct 8, 02 at 14:08 Thanks for the info on micro drying. I would cut the peppers in half and yes use short bursts of power. I think the last time I did this, I used the method in my micro book for herbs. I'm going to try again, will let you know how it works out! Audrey -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- RE: Drying peppers for later use Posted by: audrey_mi z6MI (My Page) on Tue, Oct 8, 02 at 22:40 OK, I did it! And we do not have to live in the garage because of the smell. I nuked the red serranos, cut in half @ 50%. 1 1/2 min & re-arranged them after that time. It took about 5 times on a double paper towel. Yeh a lot of time, but I was testing. Put them on a paper towel on a paper plate to rest to see if they were crispy. They were not. Most of you were right,these serranos are more meaty. I revved up my oven to finish this drying @ 350, put in the peppers, shut it off, open door and we done!! They are crispy, which I wanted so I could crunch them for sprinkling on pizza or watever? Am I Ok? Audrey -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- RE: Drying peppers for later use Posted by: Absent UK (My Page) on Wed, Oct 9, 02 at 3:45 Preparing seeds for next year - I just dry the fruits naturaly and either leave the seeds in them hanging up until I want to plant or if I use the peppers, transfer the seeds to a paper envelope and leave them in the pantry, Absent -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- RE: Drying peppers for later use Posted by: King29122 Western Ky. (My Page) on Fri, Oct 11, 02 at 0:59 I use a dehydrator to dry mine. Does a better job than hanging to dry. No mold. Keeps the color better. Dries more completely. The cayennes dry the best. Habaneros are the hardest to dry. I'd be afraid of the microwave or the high temp oven. Might change the characteristics of the pepper heating the flesh and water molecules to over 212 degrees. Dehydrators use low heat and convection currents (draws air from the bottom, exits out the top) to dry. Very similar to hang drying.