Tomato Harvest Update!

Right now I am in peak of my tomato harvest. Below are some pics of the tomatoes I have harvested. The first pic is of my holding the huge heirloom tomatoes I picked. The second pic is of those same tomatoes on the table. The biggest Kellogg's Breakfast heirloom tomato weighed 1.77lbs! The third pic is our table covered with mostly hybrid tomatoes, and some Romas. There are also, Better Boy, Juliet, Early Girl, and Sungold Hybrid. The last two pics were taken after slicing the Kellogg's Breakfast (orange) heirloom tomato and the Dixie Golden Giant (yellow) heirloom tomato. The were delicious!

Costoluto Genovese Heirloom Tomato Harvest

The tomato that I knew I wanted to grow the first time I ever saw it. The Costoluto Genovese. It is an Italian heirloom that has an amazing sweet flavor. The pics below are of the tomatoes in a cluster on the vine, of the tomato itself, and of the tomato after slicing. Enjoy!

Final Harvest Pictures

I have not posted in a while, but have been meaning to. My father passed away a few weeks ago, and there has been a lot going on. I wanted to jump on here real quick and post some pics of my final harvest. I had to cover my plants a few nights in a row due to frost, but I was able to harvest all but some super chiles and cayenne, which I have more than enough to last me til next harvest season. There are more peppers that were harvested, but I really have not taken any pics of the ones that are still ripening. I have all of the peppers that are ripening in brown paper bags sitting on my desk(8ft table).

Something I have learned and works very well, is stick your unripe peppers in a brown paper bag and put in either some almost ripe peppers or some almost rip tomatoes. Something with whatever the ripening fruit puts off, helps the unripe fruit to ripen(Peter Piper Picked a Pack of Pickled Peppers...HAHAHAHAHAHA).

Update Chile Roaster Video

This is the newest video of of the roaster after being updated. It is working out great. I do want to add a propane burner to the bottom of te roaster so that I do not have to build a fire to roast pepeprs. The one nice thing about an open fire is that you can add some apple wood chips to add to the flavor. In the second video, the flame is awfully high, but it still roasted them fine!

New Mexico Green Chile Cheeseburger

I have to do an emergency post on this topic. OK, so I wanted to try a green chile cheeseburger today. My friend from new Mexico is always talking about the famous "Bob's Burgers" in New Mexico. He says that they have the best green chile cheeseburgers anywhere around. I made some up this evening. Nothig special, just some lettuce, tomato, onion, cheese, and green chile. Served them with homemade salsa and chips. It was by far the best burger I have ever eaten!

UPDATED Home Made Chile Pepper Roaster

I made some modifications to the roaster today. I did away with the wood legs and made steel legs out of an old basketball goal. I attached a shelf to the top and added a hinged door with handle for opening the roaster. I am ready for the big roast tomorrow. I think we are also going to cook steak on the same fire we roast on. The steak has been marinating in the fridge for the last 12 hours or so.

Today's Green Chile Harvest

Just a few pics of today's green chile harvest. We will be roasting them tomorow, so I will try to post pics or a video of the roasting activities.

Tonights Dinner

Just wanted to post of pituce of tonights dinner. Nothing real fancy. Porkloin cooked with jalapenos, green bell, orange bell, yellow bell, red bell, and some New Mexico green chiles. That with some fresh corn on the cob and some mashed potatoes(no, not the box kind). It turned out really really good!

Today's Harvest

These are a few pics of today's harvest. Nothing major, but I only had a small amount of time. My son helped me this time. He is a GREAT HARVESTER!!!

Building a Chile Roaster

Roaster Videos

There are a few kinks that need ironed out with the roaster, but I am very pleased with the way it turned out. I see lots of people here on my blog, but not comments?? Comon...post those comments!

NEW Roaster takes it maiden VOYAGE!

OK, so in an earlier post I showed my prototype for the roaster I was wanting to build. Honestly, there was no way I was going to use that to roast chiles. It would take too much work to make it work properly. I used the same concept and built the roaster pictured.

My wife just happened to have a rotisserie motor in the trunk of her car (doesn't everyone have one in their truck?). Her mother bought it at a garage sale for $1 and thought we might need it! SHE WAS RIGHT!!! We used the roaster today on some new mexico green chile and it works wonderfully. The only problem was the legs caught on fire! I will make new legs out of galvanized pipe. If anyone is interested in how I built it, let me know. I will be more than glad to help you out. It was very cheap and simple. I will post a video of its voyage soon.

Roasting New Mexico Green Chile

This is today's green chile roast. I wish I had a lot more to roast at a time, but some roasted green chile is better than NO GREEN CHILE!!! I did however, roast these peppers in the rain. The things I will do for some green chile.........

And NO, I did not use the roaster I built. I still have some modifications (rust removal) before it will be ready to use.

Unfortunate Accident

I came home today and asked my wife in our son had gotten his bath yet. She said yes, and I asked where he was. She said that he said he had to go outside into the backyard for a minute. I looked out the window and there he was. In the garden picking my peppers. I thought I was going to have a heart attack. The peppers on the top left were banana peppers, which as you can see, are not ready. The ones on the top right are new mexico green chiles, which were ready for picking. The ones on the bottom are super chiles and should have been red before picking. He asked me if I was mad at him and I told him that I wasn't, I knew he was just trying to help. He was so proud of his 3 different bowls of peppers. The will not go to waste thats for sure!

Roasted New Mexico Green Chile

OK, so I could not wait any longer. I picked about 6 green chiles today and built a small fire. I roasted the peppers, removed the skins and chopped them up. This is the finished product. These were given to a friend of mine and used to live in New Mexico and he said it was the best green chile he had ever had.

1st Pepper Harvest

These Hungarian Yellow Wax peppers were picked Aug 15th, 2009. They are the biggest wax peppers I have ever grown.

These peppers were picked Aug 8th, 2009. The peppers on the left are mini sweet peppers and Jalapenos on the right. This was the first pepper harvest of the year.

Pepper Garden 2008

Ok, so first things first. I guess the place to begin would be a plan of attack for this years pepper garden. Mostly hot peppers will be grown. Other plants will include: Sweet peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, cilantro, most likely some garlic, and other misc herbs. My wife wants to plant pumpkins again this year, but I dunno. They grew so big last year that they took alot of the nutrients from the ground and the other plants suffered.

Anyways, back to the plan. I have roughly 80 different kinds of pepper seeds, so I need to pick 20-30 different kinds to plant. It is important to start pepper plants early since some take as long as 120 days til harvest. My frozen peppers stash is getting smaller, so I am eagar to the process started.

I will also be planting ornamental peppers in the front of the house (where normal people plant flowers). I have about 15 different kinds of ornamental peppers.

I will make sure to post pics with every post. Below I have posted some pics of the last of the pepper stash. Let me know what you think!

Let me know if you would be interested in cayenne seeds. I have lots of them, and will send them to you with SASE!

The mighty cayenne powder! This is the final bottle of powder. I think I will be ok til next harvest.

I liked growing the Hungarian Hot Wax peppers. They were my heaviest producers next to the cayenne peppers. I still have 2 of these bags left.

And last, but certainly not least, the Habanero. I really only had one plant that produced real good. I think I started them too late last year. Oh well, I learned. I will make sure I start tese babies earlier this year.

topic: garden

topic: peppers