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joel said:
Well, that & a few truck loads of firewood should keep you warm all winter!:)
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And healthy too!!! don't skip that part... :)

Chilli peppers contain more Vitamin C than oranges

In fact, hot peppers can offer some super-hot health benefits, ranging from stopping migraine pain and calming cold symptoms to extending your life. Turns out, the spice can give you more vitamin C than an orange. These fiery peppers beat oranges 3 to 1 in terms of the immune-boosting nutrient. It is said that a half cup of chopped or diced chilli peppers can deliver 107.8 mg of vitamin C.

Health benefits of chilli peppers

Immune function: chilli peppers are very high in vitamin C, which can help strengthen immunity and reduce your risk of chronic conditions, including heart disease. There’s also good evidence that vitamin C help with cold and flu symptoms and reduces the risk of developing further complications such as pneumonia and lung infections. Peppers also packed with vitamins A, B, E, and K, copper and potassium, etc. They also contain several plant compounds that have been linked to various health benefits. Capsaicin, which gives the spice its pungent (hot) taste, is one of the most studied antioxidant plant compounds in chilli peppers.

Weight loss: Some studies suggest that chilli peppers may help with weight loss by reducing appetite and increasing the process of fat burning. For instance, one study involving 24 people showed that taking capsaicin before a meal led to reduced calorie intake, which is an important factor for weight loss.

Arthritis: One study found that capsaicin reduced discomfort from arthritis and fibromyalgia by half in just a few weeks. However, some studies suggest that capsaicin may work best when coupled with another pain reliever. Capsaicin is being used as an ingredient in many creams, lotions, and patches.

Cancer: Lab studies suggest that the spicy chemical could kill cells linked to more than 40 types of cancer - such as colon, liver, lung, pancreatic cancers, and leukemia. According to the researchers, capsaicin may even change how some genes linked with cancer cells act and prevent them from growing. However, more research is needed here as some studies link chilli consumption with an increased risk of cancer.

Longevity: Taking chilli peppers has been linked to a longer life expectancy. According to a large study, adults who consumed at least one fresh or dried hot red chilli peppers a month for at least 20 years cut their risk of death by about 13 per cent. While researchers aren’t sure why, they believe the beneficial effects may be due to the nutrients in peppers and their ability to fight inflammation and other conditions like obesity and heart disease.

The bottom line is, chilli peppers are a popular spice all over the world. They are rich in vitamins, minerals and antioxidants that may help boost your immunity, speed up metabolism and fight inflammation. They are natural antimicrobials, which means they can kill germs and other microorganisms that can spoil foods. Using them as a spice in your diet may be a healthier option, while paying attention to your own tolerance levels.

(found on a nutrition site)
 
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We are expecting low 30's temps next week, so I decided to pick all our peppers and maters this weekend and process however. I picked a 5 gallon bucket of japalenos, poblanos, and bell peppers. Mostly pablanos and jalapenos. Some of them were FAT. They'll make nice stuffers. Gonna freeze quite a few, maybe all them.
We'll gonna grill a bunch tomorrow.
 
Amish Heart said:
That's what I'll probably be doing on Sunday. Monday night is a freeze. So tomatoes, eggplant, 4 types of peppers.
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Oh NO!!!! You used the horrid word I've been dreading for months. FREEZE!
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I'm jealous of Sup42!
 
last weekend it hit 28f for a low and was below freezing over half the night..garden was toast sunday morning. on the plus side...theres still a nice thick patch of sugar peas in full bloom.green onions and various greens in garden so hopefully i will get a bit more.
 
My first freeze is not even in the year, according to "The weather channel"..
I do not believe it, my low for the next two months is 37F, that can not be right, I have never had tomatoes growing in December.
Peanut what does you weather look like?
 
My best guess... cold and dry winter. Since labor day I've been seeing signs in the woods of an early winter. It's like the intensity of the sun is dropping faster than the calendar says it should.

I've cut hay the first week of November before... no grass this year. Grass stopped growing in September.
 
Today I moved the indoor strawberries outside, and moved a large part of the tiny okra (that hasn't produced) inside. I took a stiff brush to my empty seed starter trays, some of the cheaper ones did not survive the cleaning....

I did not make as much progress on the greenhouse as I had hoped, but I did get the ducting and the blower installed for the underfloor heating, but not the heat collector. Have to stop early to do evening church service tonight.
 
I checked the melon vine, and several melons did indeed have those browned-out "pigtails" some of you mentioned, so I went ahead and harvested those melons. Out of curiosity, I cut open one of the "mini melons" and ate it 1/2 hour before having my cereal... watermelons are assimilated into the body very quickly, just 20 minutes or so on an empty stomach, therefore I like to eat them first and let 'em settle before I eat anything else. Folks think of melons as dessert following summer picnics or BBQs or whatever, but I like mine for breakfast, or at least as a starter course, lol. Here are pics of the melon vine and melons I brought inside:

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The melon I ate was delicious, though I believe the flavor would've been more robust had the melons fully developed. I think I planted the vine too close to a line of pine trees, and as the sun crept southward in latitude after the summer solstice, by September the taller pines were blocking sunshine and arresting development of the melons. That's a mistake I won't make again, I have all kinds of sunny areas in my yard where I will plant melon vines next spring... ;)

I saved the seeds from today's melon, and I'll save all the others too, I'm hoping to germinate them next spring, possibly in the mud room, and once the sprouts are old enough, I'll transfer them outdoors. Anyway, I'm pleased to know that melons will grow here, when I first put this vine into the ground as an experiment, it grew like wildfire... but I started a bit late and I also put the vine to close to the pine trees, so the shade began to encroach and block the sun. :rolleyes:

On a different but related note, here are my range & melon inspectors, I think they're with the USDA, and possibly the GASP (Gubmint Appliance Safety Police), lol. :oops:

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And THIS is the blackberry vine which is doing rather well, it was TINY when I bought it, you understand, but now the branches are strong and they are spreading quickly... I hope to protect this vine from all hard freezes this winter, so it can really grow next spring. I love blackberries (any kind of berries, actually), they're great in smoothies, on cereal, or even simply eaten fresh off the vine! I might have to toss in a pic or two of the berries I had with my breakfast, lol... :thumbs:

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That's some sort of low ground cover near the blackberry vine, but it doesn't seem to be affecting the blackberry, so I leave it alone. The blackberry vine was a slow starter, took awhile before it showed any real growth, and the first leaves & branches kept dying off for whatever reason, but it's doing fine now. Here's a shot of that area of my yard, the NE corner, where I have the blackberry vine, peach & pear saplings, and plenty of room for more stuff next season. :cool:

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P.S. Quick questions for y'all: can I simply dry the watermelon seeds and put them in an envelope, to be stored in a dry cupboard over the winter? And can I germinate them in the spring by placing them in wet paper towels or cotton or whatever? I did that with the weed seeds and they germinated no problem... hopefully I can do the same with these watermelon seeds I'm saving, I'd like to plant heaps of melon vines next spring! In sunny areas, not in the shade, lol. :(

And YES, that IS a MIXING BOWL for my cereal! Been using mixing bowls for decades, no reason to stop now! :dancing:
 
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Amish Heart said:
Clearing out the garden is kicking my butt. A bit less than half done today, and a low of 34 degrees. So I have one more day. 47 flats of green tomatoes in the basement so far, and 13 flats of ripe ones inside.
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A big job that can't be done until it's time!!
 
We are in spring here in Australia and it's predicted to be an incredibly wet summer with flood warnings out already. Our farm is in the subtropics, so when they say wet they mean days on end of torrential downpours over summer. Our soils are very heavy with a high clay content which plants don't like. I have been adding organic matter and compost over the last two summers, and while it has helped it will take a few more years I suspect before the soil is really good.
I've also run out of growing room due to animals and diggy dogs! Well, there is stacks of room, it just needs to be fenced off, which is on the never-ending list. However, I've got eggplant, kale, jalapenos, capsicum, various leafy greens, spring onions, celery, stacks of herbs, lemons, mandarins, oranges, mulberry, elderberry, ginger, strawberry on the go at the moment. And flowers because they make me happy.
 
Emmy-Lou said:
stacks of herbs..., mulberry....., elderberry, ginger.....,
And flowers because they make me happy.
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A few of us are interested in herbs. We have a natural remedy section.
I grow elderberry and I'm very fond of mulberry pie too.

I grew peaches here, 200 trees. It was my dad's retirement fund. lol.

Wish I could grow ginger, had turmeric for a couple years but I'm to far north for both. I get snow in winter, not a lot but my turmeric died out. Another member is growing ginger, in pots I think.

I made tincture out of ginger root this summer. I don't have to have fresh root in the fridge anymore. I cook asian food sometimes, fried rice, hot n sour soup, lot of things that call for ginger. I just add ginger tincture to a recipe. Tastes great!

Of course the other reason, ginger is a medicine, used to treat many ailments.
 
Peanut said:
A few of us are interested in herbs. We have a natural remedy section.
I grow elderberry and I'm very fond of mulberry pie too.

I grew peaches here, 200 trees. It was my dad's retirement fund. lol.

Wish I could grow ginger, had turmeric for a couple years but I'm to far north for both. I get snow in winter, not a lot but my turmeric died out. Another member is growing ginger, in pots I think.

I made tincture out of ginger root this summer. I don't have to have fresh root in the fridge anymore. I cook asian food sometimes, fried rice, hot n sour soup, lot of things that call for ginger. I just add ginger tincture to a recipe. Tastes great!

Of course the other reason, ginger is a medicine, used to treat many ailments.
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This is my first season growing ginger, though both ginger and Tumeric grow well here. I don't currently have any Tumeric in the ground. I also have horseradish which is good for colds and flues etc too. My Elderberries are just freshly transplanted from someone who gave me a couple excess to her needs, so no fruit yet. But I am certainly looking forward to making cordial and syrup.

We are in the mountains so we get a sub-tropical summer but quite a temperate, frosty winter.
 
We haven't had the near freezing temps that others are getting. I planted all my garlic this weekend and noticed the strawberry bed not only had flowers but some had berries! This is northern NJ. We shouldn't have strawberries. We should have a swirl of autumn leaves wafting down to the ground. I'll cover with plastic at night and see what happens. Maybe I'll have Halloween strawberries.
 
ClemKadiddlehopper said:
I have strawberries ripening as well as gladiolus and dahlias blooming. It's nuts.
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Here too! Almost no late summer asters bloomed. Maybe 10% of what I usually see. Vervain and other summer plants are still blooming.

Guess it's about to stop, supposed to hit 30 degree tomorrow night. I seriouly doubt it'll frost. Hope not, I want a few more peppers to ripen. If I have a bunch of wilting leaves the next morning the peppers are going in the dehydrator as is.
 
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We are supposed to get into freezing either tonight or the next. I don't really have growing room in the house and my greenhouse plans are on hold for a couple of months. That said, I placed clear drop clothes over all the raised beds with things still growing and hoping to make it just long enough for things to keep ripening. I've got tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, cucumbers and squash that only need a couple of more weeks.

Oh, and thanks for the advice on the peppers, we did a mix of freezing, canning and dehydrating. Curious to see how we use them, and which ones will be best.
 
One variety of garlic has strated to sprout.

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Please note

I found a bag of old garlic that I tossed in as mulch when I planted the cloves figuring that as it rots and breaks down it will feed the new garlic.

Ben
 
So the little greenhouse is working, 100% powered by solar... Thermally it is fairly stable.... so far... but we have not had any of those 9F nights either.

This weekend I did dig up all my Okra plants and planted them in the largest nursery pots that would fit in a seed starter tray. They are now sitting on the floor of my greenhouse (it's getting crowded in there). So I am wondering if they will die, they has already lost most of their leaves when I dug them up. So this afternoon I checked on them and most of them have new leaves popping out and 4 have flowers! Anyway, I now have 32 indoor Okra plants!

I have been emptying and cleaning my indoor growing stations, tonight I pruned my laurel (Bay) plants because they were up against the lights. The wife is drying the leaves now.

I was able to harvest some green onions for the wife's Quiche tonight.

I placed 2 strawberry plants under the wife's hedge... but I didn't get caught!

I am planning to pull all my summer garden plants this week. I took 3 days off this week just to do my fall cleaning. :)

I am debating wither or not to install a second layer of plastic sheet on the inside of the greenhouse walls to create a better thermal barrier...
It is nice to have a level floor in there, I can't wait until I can try pumping air in the gaps I designed into the floor leveling project. Right now the ducting is in and the fan is on the outside of the greenhouse, because the duct is going to run up to the roof, I placed a #10 can over the fan, just in case it rains. Mr. Goldberg would sure be proud of this thing. ;)
 
After trimming back the indoor tomatoes, they seem to be okay:
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Here are the Laurel plants (Bay Leaves), ignore the cream of soup in the background, it is a figment of your imagination:
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I have some rosemary, time, and basil that need to be repotted or trimmed.

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The oregano does fine out doors but I may put some in with the okra:
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The exterior plastic is 3.5 mil, but it is backed up by nylon window screen to handle the wind. I was thinking of adding a layer of 0.7 mil on the inside so there would be a 3 1/2" gap between the interior and the exterior plastic layers.

I was thinking of installing it with a 1/2" gap at the top and sealed at the bottom to create a cold air trap between the inside and the exterior layers...

It may be more work than it's worth, but I have to keep thinking....
 
UrbanHunter said:
After trimming back the indoor tomatoes, they seem to be okay:
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Here are the Laurel plants (Bay Leaves), ignore the cream of soup in the background, it is a figment of your imagination:
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I have some rosemary, time, and basil that need to be repotted or trimmed.

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The oregano does fine out doors but I may put some in with the okra:
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Since imitation is a sincere dorm of flattery.... consider yourself flattered. :thumbs:

Installed the four foot lights today.

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They are installed via tie wraps to the shelf above.

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All the lights are on a single timer with each shelf having a unique switch.

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I turned on the seedling starting mat for the top shelf and turned on the space heater with a set point of 50 degrees F which is the minimum possible for the heater.

Hoping for good results.

Ben
 
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