Dried Hot Peppers

 I don’t know about you but it seems like September here. The weather is in the mid 80’s, the humidity has dropped along with the first set of leaves and the vegetable garden seems to be coming to an end. Even though it’s only the beginning of August, all of these are signs of September.  Now I’m not complaining because Fall is my favorite time of year. I just wasn’t ready to can. I have already put up tomatoes and this weekend I started drying the chili peppers.  Here are a few still on the vine.

 

Last year I found a Magic Chef Food Dehydrator at the thrift store for $10, a steal. 

Apparently, this dehydrator is no longer sold but I found enough information online and was able to figure it out.  For those interested, I have posted the instructions at the end of this post as well as a link to them here.  Enjoy!

 

BEFORE AND AFTER

 

Instructions

·         1. Wash the cover and trays of the 470 dehydrator with warm, soapy water and a sponge and allow them to dry before you use the unit.

·         2. Slice the foods you want to dry. Keep the thickness between 1/4 inch and 3/4 inch. If your food is extremely moist, you can pat it dry with paper towels to help the drying process.

·         3. Plug in the power cord. Turn on the unit at the base and preheat the dehydrator for 5 to 10 minutes before loading the trays with food.

·         4. Place your sliced food onto the trays in a single layer.

·         5. Allow the food to dry; to check to see if it is dry, remove a few pieces and cut into the middle. The outsides should be slightly crisp and the insides should be leathery but dried. Drying times vary from four to 18 hours, depending on slice thickness, the type of food and how many trays you use.

·         6. Turn off and unplug the dehydrator when the food has dried. Store food in plastic bags or storage containers and refrigerate.

 

 Thanks for visiting,

West Facing Flower Bed; Take Four

We have lived in our home for exactly four summers. When we moved in the back yard needed a lot of love. Over the past few years we have put in a fence and a shed and added a lot of beds around the peripheral of the lot, (see a sneak peek pic at the end of this post). There is still much to do but I love to garden so its less of a chore for me than my husband....he hates it. 

There is this one spot that I have wrestled with every spring, hence the title of this post.  

West facing flower bed take four!

Here is a "before" shot of the bed. Okay, okay...keep strolling down. It gets better, I promise. LOL

In this bed I have tried various plants and flowers without success. The space gets most of the afternoon sun so it needs a plant that can tolerate the heat. And no...roses did not work and this really led to some head scratching. Hmmmmm! Well...this year I am going to try Phlox Paniculata Franz Schubert or what most gardeners call Garden Phlox.

 

This plant is a herbaceous perennial (family: Polemoniaceae) that grows well in zone 4 to 8, I live in zone 7.  In the right garden it will grow to a height of 2 to 3 feet with blooms of lilac with white eyes from July to September. I chose this perennial because it can take full sun.

I know, I know....if the roses didn't make it what makes me think this will? Sorry, I have no good answer except that I really want a  showy fragrant flower that attracts hummingbirds and butterflies and can be cut for indoor arrangements (fingers crossed).

To give these new plants the best possible chance I decided to pay special attention to the soil preparation. One reason that the other plants I tired didn't thrive might have been due to poor drainage. 

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Before going any further I must provide full disclosure - I am a novice gardener at best so this is nothing more than a gut guess on my part. 

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The bed had build up quit high over the past several years so removed some of the soil (A), added a fertilizer and tilled the dirt well. 

After soil prep I also edged the bed with my new favorite gardening tool (B), the "Hound Border Dog Edger"

  Since I didn't take any photos of this process, here is a picture from their website showing its use:

After preparing the soil I covered it with a couple of tarps and power washed the brick around it. Remember this house was build in 1951 and I am sure the brick is original. 

Above is a photo taken after I did a portion of the power washing to show the difference it made. Nice huh? Oh yea...I also LOVE my power washer.

After finishing the power washing and removing the tarp I laid out the plants while in their pots. I wish I could say I measured them with a tape measure but I didn't...used the old eye-balled-it method which usually works for me but I can't recommend it. Use the tape measure to avoid error. 

Last step....planting, mulching and watering. 

And here are photos of the finished bed.

In a few weeks (July) they should grow to look like this....

Oh yea..I almost forgot another reason I picked this plant. If you scroll back up you will see the very ugly concrete basement stairwell and hideous blue door in the background. Someday we will replace the door but regardless the stairwell is an eyesore. These plants are suppose to grown to a height of 2 to 3 feet with a spread of 1 1/2 to 2 feet and will hopefully hide their background. 

So cross your fingers for me. I'll check back after summer with the results, good or bad, and as usual, thanks for visiting.

 Oh yea...here is a sneak peek of my back yard this past spring. More to come :)

God's Beauty

Sundays are such wonderful days, especially in the Spring. Our weather has been very spring-like over the past several days which has given me the chance to photograph some of God's beauty growing right in my own yard. Just had to share. Enjoy!!

Thanks for visiting,

Spring in the Air?

It might be the end of February but a swift stroll around my yard gave hope that  

Spring is in the air....or at least in the ground. Personally I can't wait until the blooms are a bloom'n but in the meantime I have several projects that will bring color to my home. 

Just a hint of what's to come....guess what???

The End of Summer (and our garden)

Labor day marks the end of summer for most but in our house the end of summer is marked by the start of turning over our garden. This was a very hot summer and our harvest was not as good as last year but I did get enough tomatoes to can a few. I also tried my hand at canning pickles and salsa. The pickles will be pickled in a few more weeks so we will see.

Our garden at the beginning of the season. In retrospect we planted things a little too close and I only needed two cucumbers...three was overwhelming.

I also decided a few weeks back that we needed a bigger garden for next year and started working on edging the new space. Below is my work in progress.

Here is what our first garden looked like.....so tiny but the cucumbers where gigantic.

I thought the cucumbers where so large because of the trellis I build (below) but later I figured out it was the type of plant I panted. If you want cucumbers that are long and tapered I recommend Chef Jeff's "Burpless" and if you want ones that are good for pickling I recommend Chef Jeff's Bush Pickles

I also recommend using a trellis. I build mine out of garden stakes, screws, and wire but you can also purchase one from Gardeners Supply Company

One last thing I did during our garden turnover was to replant the hot peppers into a planter and move to the deck. The red pepper plant it so pretty, I wanted it to live out the rest of the season in a place where we could see it easily and everyday. Unfortunately I don't know if this was the plant I bought at the garden center or the one that my father-in-law gave me. I plan on moving it inside this winter to see if it will continue to grow. Worth a try don't you think?