Pepper Harvest

I don't know why these are called the "dog days"  of summer.  I wouldn't send my dog out into the heat of the afternoons we have been experiencing.  But what is not good for dogs--especially long-haired Cavaliers--is great for peppers.  The peppers (habaneros, poblanos, serranos) just keep coming and coming.  So I decided it was time to do something with the abundance.

Here is the harvest of a couple of days:

First, the peppers were picked--very carefully.  Most often I have to cut the fruits from the stems  so that I don't break off part of the stem with the pepper.  When I am dealing with this volume, by experience I have learned every step must be accomplished by wearing latex gloves.  Habaneros, especially, can linger on the hands for days.  They are that powerful.  The next step was to rinse the peppers, but in fact there is rarely any insect damage to the peppers.  Insects know not to bother them.

The next step--the drying process:

I added some wood chips to impart a smoky flavor and then set the grill to its lowest setting--200 degrees is ideal.  It took several hours, but here is the result:

Now these peppers are ready to flavor a winter's worth of chilis and stews.  It's a good thing I won't be entering the St. James's Chili Cook Off this year--they would have to retire the trophy!

Clematis Paniculata

This is the story of clematis paniculata.  I spent most of my life thinking that clematis was pronounced "cle-maa'-tis"  until someone gently informed me that "clematis"  is pronounced cle'-muh-tis.  Just so we know what we are talking about here.

When we constructed the deer-proof garden in the back forty, we decided that it would be fun to have some flowering plants in addition to the vegetables, so I erected some lattice work with the idea of having several climbing plants that could perhaps be seen from the house.  Climbing roses were a natural  choice, but I thought a clematis would be nice--if one could be found that would withstand the heat of the Hill Country.  There are lots of clematises--a plant that we had grown both in Massachusetts and Connecticut--so the question was which clematis to choose.  Clematises are somewhat particular about their growing conditions, I knew from experience.  They like their heads in the sun but their feet in the cool shade.  I knew we would have no trouble with the first requirement (there is lots of sun) but I figured the only way for cool roots would be an abundance of mulch.

Last winter as the garden catalogs arrived, I salivated once again at the publication of White Flower Farm.  It's not only the lushest plant catalog you can find, but we knew the nursery, located in Litchfield, Connecticut, about 30 miles from our former home.  White Flower Farm is a place to visit as often as possible--it is a dream nursery.

I spotted the beautiful picture of clematis paniculata (also called Sweet Autumn Clematis)--an autumn-blooming clematis with masses of tiny white flowers, and I thought, perfect!  A clematis that would bloom when everything else was going dormant, so I called and placed my order.  The WFF operator informed me that clematis paniculata would not grow in my region, and they could not guarantee its survival.  Buoyed by optimism, I said to send it anyway--I would take my chances.  Unfortunately, the order was not due to be shipped until the first of May (it takes a while for Connecticut-grown plants to emerge from their winter dormancy) so I was resigned to waiting--knowing, however, that "spring"  begins in these parts in February.

A few weeks later I was nosing around a local nursery, which still featured only a few, sad-looking plants that were still in their winter rest period, when I came across--a single clematis paniculata!  I asked the attendant if the plant would grow in our climate; when she assured me that it would, I bought the plant on the spot, came home and called WFF and canceled my order.  The dormant clematis went into the raised bed along with two climbing roses, and a lot of mulch was added to keep the soil around the roots as cool as possible when the hot summer sun was blazing.

Imagine my surprise when the autumn-blooming plant began budding in July and then began blooming around the first of August!  Here it is, in all its glory.

I would say that the plant seems rather happy in its new home!

And here is a close up of the multitude of blossoms.

Should I let White Flower Farm know that clematis paniculata in fact flourishes in the Hill Country?

The Gardener's Dilemma

Or at least one of the gardener's dilemmas.  Discarding plants, that is.

Directions for sowing seeds always indicates to space seeds far enough apart that they will have room to grow and to pull up seedlings that are crowding their neighbors.  I confess:  I hate to pull up a perfectly good seedling and throw it away.  I will do it, of course, but I hate wasting a perfectly good seedling.  Sometimes I wait until the seedlings are a little bigger and then try transplanting seedlings to more commodious parts of the garden (usually not successful).

So that leads me to the lovely Brandywine tomato plant I found in a nursery last spring.  There was only one plant of this heirloom tomato that I had always wanted to grow, so I grabbed it eagerly and brought it home to the new raised bed I had just constructed.  I knew that it was a little early in the year for cold sensitive plants, like basil and tomatoes, but I decided to take a chance.  Well, that night the temperature dipped down into the lower 30s, and here is the result:

If I had only waited!

So I pulled my Brandywine plant from the ground, resolved to be more patient in the future.  But I just could not stand to toss the shriveled plant onto the compost pit, so I stuck it in a pot--just in case.  A few days later the plant bravely put forth a new leaf in the warm spring Texas sun, and then another.  Eventually, the plant looked like a real plant again (not pretty, I must admit--really rather misshapen).  

So I decided to find another corner of the garden to tuck this plant into--just in case.  Yesterday, after returning from our vacation, "Brandywine" welcomed me home with these three beautiful fruits:

Yes, there is a little insect bite in the tomato on the right--evidence that there were no poisons or chemicals used on this dainty heirloom tomato.  Tonight will be the time to savor the "fruits of my labor"--and to rejoice that the blasted plant did not get thrown onto the compost pit.