Agreed, paper layer unnecessary. As long as you pull little weeds when you first see them, you shouldn't have weeds in such copious amounts that you need to smother them. I'm sure the prior corn farming operation had very few weeds going to seed in the field. They spray as much and as many chemicals as necessary to make sure of that. So you're starting with as clean of a slate as possible. Birds & wind will bring weed seeds, but it's a lot easier to spend a minute here, a minute there, then wait until it's "time to do some weeding." The leaf mulch will do a lot for preventing weeds from being able to start growing at all. I find it a lot easier to push aside where you want to plant than to try to not cover plants with leaf/mulch. Some prefer the opposite though. Consider what you would prefer before you start. If you're going to do a bark mulch, I would do it on top of the leaves. It will keep them from blowing or washing away, and that's what the worms and microbes are going to eat first anyway.

Another option might be to try the Caponata from Small Batch Preserving. Not quite the same, but we like it a lot and it has been tested. CAPONATA "Caponata is a Sicilian dish served as a salad, side dish or relish. We also like it as an appetizer spread on toasted baguette slices." 1 small eggplant, cut into 1/4-inch (5 mm) cubes 1 1/2 tbsp pickling salt (20 mL) 2 large tomatoes, peeled and chopped 1 medium sweet red pepper, diced 1 cup diced zucchini (250 mL) 1/2 chopped onion (125 mL) 3 large cloves garlic, chopped 1/4 cup chopped stuffed olives (50 mL) 1 tbsp capers, rinsed (15 mL) 1 bay leaf 1 tsp fresh thyme (5 mL) or 1/4 tsp (1 mL) dried 1/4 tsp each: salt and freshly ground pepper (1 mL) 1/3 cup red wine vinegar (75 mL) 2 tsp granulated sugar (10 mL) 2 tsp olive oil (10 mL) 2 tbsp tomato paste (25 mL) (Read Step-by-Step Guide (below) before proceeding with recipe.) Place eggplant in a non-reactive bowl. Sprinkle with salt and stir well. Let stand for 2 hours. Drain eggplant in a sieve and rinse twice. draining thoroughly; press out excess moisture. Place eggplant, tomatoes, red pepper, zucchini, onion, garlic, olives, capers, bay leaf, thyme, salt and pepper in a large roasting pan. Heat vinegar, sugar, and oil in a microwavable container until hot, about 1 minute, stir into vegetables. Bake in a 350 degree F (18OC) oven for about 1 1/2 hours (1 hour for a convection oven), or until vegetables are softened and liquid has evaporated, stirring every 20 minutes. Remove pan from oven, discard bay leaf and stir in tomato paste. Remove hot jars from canner and spoon relish into jars to within 1/2 inch (1 cm) of rim (headspace). Process 15 minutes for half-pint (250 mL) jars and 20 minutes for pint (500 mL) jars in a boiling water canner. Makes 5 Cups (1.25 L)

Did they sit out at room temperature for the first 20 hours? That's on the hairy edge for something under-processed or under-acidified. Then to process them, you just wiped the jar rims, put new (?) lids on, and put the room temperature jars in a pot of water and brought them to a boil? That's not a proper process either. The recipe seems fine except for the oil - though The Joy of Pickling (a generally accepted as safe source) has a similar recipe using 1Tbsp of oil on the top of each jar and a 50:50 vinegar ratio, I always omit the oil to be safe. You'd also want to use pickling salt, since sea salt contains impurities. But you should have processed the jars for 10 minutes when you first made them, or poured off the liquid, rinsed the peppers (to get the oil off, the oil is only supposed to be on top), mixed a new brine and boiled it, put the peppers in clean hot jars, filled with hot brine and used new lids before processing for 10 minutes. I wouldn't eat those peppers if you didn't follow that (re)process.

First of all, Carlk is telling it straight, these peppers are canned at home and in regular oil, the cheapest vegetable oil you can find, using traditional home canning methods. He's not lying when he says that in old Italian neighborhoods, every house with "older" people has these peppers. Make a roast and a sandwich with these peppers and you'll know exactly why they all have them. Old Italian women seem to have, in my experience, a habit of never really showing how something is made, like it's their legacy, like, "those peppers Eva used to make unbelievable". I've been on the same quest to duplicate the Italian Frying Peppers my grandma used to have. I've searched for 20 years to come up with the recipe. Branco's peppers are sort of okay, but are basically crap compared to homemade one. Barnco's used to use good oil and now they got cheap, they use preservatives and they leave the seeds in, which most people don't like. They also get bad REALLY fast once opened. I've talked to many people, people have made attempts to make these things and nobody comes close. The peppers are cubanelle peppers and they are very mild, just like a green pepper. Many people who can't digest green peppers substitute cubanelles because the skin is easier to digest. One thing you notice right away with Italian frying peppers is that they have a little "bite", not spicy, but kind of hot. This is strange since it's a mild pepper. I've been told that nothing is added to make them hot. In most people's attempts, the peppers stay yellowish, with few red ones in each jar, but the oil looks orange. Almost too orange to have turned orange from so few red skinned peppers in the jar. Most people's attempts yield peppers that are too stiff, unlike the "family made" ones. Someone told me that if you freeze the peppers first and then thaw them when you can them, they will soften. I'll actually be glad to give anyone $100 that can give me a recipe that works and I'm not joking one bit. The old Italian women take their recipes and pratices to grave. My grandma used to make a thing called a falalone, I've yet to ever find anyone that even knows what I mean. I've posted a picture of one of the last 2 jars I have left. I've been told they'll stay good for 2 years or so. There's a link to the pic below. You can contact me at mike AT mjsawyer DOT net http://bit.ly/uhOrmY And having worked in Bellevue for 5 years and selling Internet to about half the population there, I'm kind of curious who CarlK is if he's from there??? And Branco's peppers are a far cry from homemade ones! I'd also like to know how they take a mild pepper and make them hot. The "mild" versions of Italian frying peppers even have bite. This is Branco's business listing on Yahoo - http://local.yahoo.com/info-33246360-branco-s-gourmet-italian-fremont I haven't made it through the entire Internet yet, but I've been using the following search phrase: +recipe +canned +"Italian frying peppers" -stuffed