[gardeners] Wednesday
George Shirley (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Wed, 30 Sep 1998 21:03:52
Didn't do a lot of gardening today, went out and picked a 10-quart bucket
full of chiles, hot and mild. I must say the Lemon Drop chiles, seed from
Lillian Kepp, are most attractive. Sorta flat but a bright yellow and
hotter than, well pick something hot and double it. Miz Anne wanted me to
dry an assortment of chiles for a small ristra to use in her art classes so
I made one today from Lemon Drops, they dry an almost satin gold and are
very attractive that way. Another small ristra is mixed with Charlestons,
Longhorns, Turkish Hots, Lemon Drops, and Thai Hots, quite the mixture of
colors and shapes. The rest of the chiles were either frozen whole in
vacuum sealed bags or chopped, frozen, and vac sealed. Neighbors are hiding
from us and locking car doors nowadays.
The lagenaria longissima, Hercules War Club gourd, is producing heavily. I
sliced and froze for later use three of them today. Sliced another one and
made it into a casserole with ground meat, tomatos, onions, etc, then baked
for 45 minutes. Pretty tasty but I like them better stir fried with some
onion and garlic or tempura deep fried. For the newcomers, we eat gourds
because the squash borers eat our squash vines before we can get fruit from
them. The gourds have solid core vines and the borers don't bother them.
Miss Sleepy Dawg encountered her first snake today, jumped a little garter
snake out by the main garden. Scared me worse than it did the dog. Had to
call her off of it as I don't see much point in killing a predator of bad
insects. She takes her duties as guard dog pretty seriously for a 16 pound
animal. She did get a treat for her efforts though, I cut up a small bell
pepper and fed it to her. Darndest dog we ever had, prefers veggies over
meat and will do tricks for sweet peppers. Afterward she took a little
2-hour nap under my computer desk as I scanned in a government manual I'm
working with.
Weather here is hot, running mid-nineties in the daytime to mid-seventies
at night. That's Farenheit for you folks that live in reasonable nations
where the metric system is used. I love the metric system, always had
problems with fractions. No rain lately and none in sight, did a little
watering today, will do a lot more tomorrow.
George, life is good