Pepper Palace

Lilac Bell Peppers

We are at that point in the summer where many tomato plants are beginning to slow down. If your garden is anything like mine, you probably know this to be true. Although the heirlooms are still pumping out some fine produce, the hybrid plantings are all but done. However, this does not mean the end of the summer gardening season. If your garden is anything like mine, a significant section of it is just getting started.

The proof of this is located to the right. That, my gardening friends, is a bell pepper. In fact, it's many bell peppers. This particular plant that I've chosen to show off is called the Lilac Bell Pepper. It has been growing right next to the tomato garden all summer long. It has now decided to put on a right fine show. But, it's not the only pepper plant that looks like this.

If your pepper garden is anything like mine, it should be riot of color at the moment. It's a veritable rainbow of colors. They range from orange to red, brown to green, and all colors and points in between. They are all in different shapes and sizes. Unike tomatoes, however, the taste can range from "very sweet" to "blowtorch hot." Fans of the blowtorch hot varieties would like my pepper garden this year. There's a great deal to choose from. I did not plan this, by the way. It's just the way that it turned out.

Ghost Pepper

Proof of this accomplishment in the blowtorch hot variety is located to your left. That my good friends, is called the Ghost Pepper. The more formal name is Bhut Jolokia. At one time, this variety held the distinction of "hottest pepper on the planet." It has since been dethroned of that lofty title by other pepper varieties, but the Ghost Pepper still remains as one of the most unique pepper varieties you can grow in the garden. Provided you enjoy the sensation of burning your tongue and lips clean off. I'm not really a fan of this you understand. But, this is the sensation that will greet you should you make the mistake of biting into one of these flaming red bad boys. The Ghost is nothing to fool around with.

Still don't believe me? Check out this collection of Ghost Pepper Challenge videos on Youtube. Yes, it's true. Some people will do anything to get clicks.

Orange Habanero Pepper

So, why grow it? Why submit my tastebuds to this kind of horrific damage? Because it's not permanent. Secondly, there are some pepper afficianados who actually enjoy munching on these. They cannot get enough of them. They are also highly desired peppers for canned salsa efforts. Unlike other peppers in the "hot enough to cause blisters" category, the Ghostie doesn't lose its punch when you put it through the pressure canning process. Other hot peppers, such as the Orange Habanero, do. They can turn into pipsqueaks on the Inferno Scale with the type of pressure processing that some salsa creations require.

Home canned salsa is a real treat. But it's also nothing to fool around with. There are salsa-specific garden recipes to follow when crafting a delicacy like this, and the salsa creator must get that acidic and non-acidic balance just right. Otherwise, you're just creating a jar full of death, or a really bad stomachache. The assignment is tougher than it sounds. You can cook up the perfect salsa creation with a heat factor that is "just right" in the world Goldilocks, only to have that ultimate taste and balance vanish after 30-minutes in a pressure-canning device.

Pepper Garden

Speaking of the Orange Habanero, yes the Ghost Pepper plant has a "friend." I just happened to come across the Orange Habanero starter plant earlier this spring, so I planted it and the Ghostie together. They are part of the "hot stuff" collection in this year's garden. There are other varieties in this collection, and some of them are peppers that I do enjoy. One of these varieties is called the Cinnamon Jalapeño.

C'mon now! Am I really telling you that there is a Jalapeño variety that carries the name of cinnamon? Yes, I am. It also goes by the name of Pumpkin Spice. Does it really taste like cinnamon or even pumpkin spice? No, it does not. At least, not the Jalapeño peppers coming out of my garden. I suppose that the marketing team that came up with this name could possibly be referring to the color of this particular pepper when ripe. Then again, maybe not.

Pho Ga with Peppers

These are, however, the types of flamethrower peppers that my stomach agrees with. Plus, I've always been partial to that Jalapeño taste. The Ghost Pepper can be a bit bitter in my opinion. But the Jalapeño is not. I will usually harvest one to three of these types of Jalapenos for various dinner creations, such as the Chicken Pho (Pho Ga) soup I recently put together. It carries the right amount of heat to make this dish interesting, but not put me in the hospital attached to a stomach pump. Jalapeno peppers are also good additions to hamburgers cooked over a grill. YUM!

So, why grow Ghost Pepper if I really cannot eat or enjoy them like I once did? Part of it is the challenge, I suppose. Ghost pepper plants are not easy to grow. You need the right kind of weather and the right kind of soil. Even with those two combinations, a myriad of things can still go wrong. I cannot begin to tell you how many beautiful Ghost pepper plants I've grown from year to year in the garden, only to have them produce one to three peppers. That's a pepper-pathetic production job. Yet, it happens with this variety. This year, however, is the exception. The 20-bright red Ghost Peppers I've pictured above are about a tenth of this year's crop. Yes, it's been a very good year indeed. Someone close to me is going to enjoy some Ghost Peppers. At least, I hope they enjoy them.

King of the North Bell Pepper

Most of this year's pepper garden, about 24-plants in all, are of the sweet variety. The vast majority of them are bell peppers. But not all of them. There are a few Doux D. Espagne pepper plants in the mix, which produce very big, cylindrical sized peppers. Like most peppers, they start out green and turn a pleasing shade of red when ready to harvest. There's a Japanese Shishito in the mix, plus several varieties of other bell peppers that will turn to a dark shade of purple when ready to harvest. Some are so dark they appear to be black.

I have a myriad of uses for home grown bell peppers. I will grill some of them until they turn soft and process those softened peppers into a soup broth creation. Peppers are also great when they are stuffed with meats like hamburger or chicken. You can also chop up a bunch and freeze them for winter-time soups, stews or other home-cooked creations. If you don't have a package of peas and carrots in the freezer, a bag of multi-colored peppers works great in a pinch!

Etiuda Orange Bell Pepper

I will be honest with you. All of the pepper varieties that I've mentioned here were not purchased as starter plants in local big box stores or nurseries. All were grown from seed. Seeds are really easy and cheap to acquire, if you know where and when to look. The Sacramento County Library system, for example, is a great place to look for unusual pepper seed varieties. Other sources are local gardening groups on Facebook, Twitter or other social media sites. You can find gardening clubs in nearly every community, and those clubs sometimes offer seed-swap events.

You local Dollar stores even get in on this act. Unfortunately, in California, it's more like a $1.25 store. But it's still a good way to collect and store seeds for future uses. Green Acres Nursery is a fantastic location to shop for pepper seeds. Even the local big box stores can offer a surprise find. It all depends upon when and where you look. Best of luck!

The HAUL

Heirloom Tomato Haul

I haven't been blessed like this for a very long time. Not since my gardens were located in North Natomas and I was using a different blog from a past lifetime. The haul of tomatoes, peppers, onions and basil currently coming out of the Citrus Heights garden is one for the ages.

The photo you see pictured to your right is just one part of it. I picked this for a canning project last weekend. This sink full of ripe heirloom tomatoes came from approximately half of the plants in the garden. I'm still harvesting from the other half that didn't get touched, hoping that my neighbors don't get tired of my never-ending gifts of vine ripened tomatoes.

I've stopped waiting for the 101st Airborne Rat Army to show up. It's nearly September now. In the past two or three years, this garden would have been decimated from top to bottom by now. Every tomato still on the vine would be damaged with large and disgusting chunks in the shape of large, sharp rat teeth. It was impossible to walk down the garden rows, unless you enjoy rats suddenly zipping across your shoes as this walk interruped their non-stop feeding regimen and garden destruction habits. It was really something to experience. Depressing too.

Single Plant Harvest

But the introduction of "The Mango" as my neighbors now call him (they did name him, after all), has meant all the difference in the world. I kept waiting for weeks on end for the 101st Airborne Rat Army to parachute in on any given night and lay claim to the ripening heirloom tomato crop. They never did. Not with The Mango, my tiny orange rescue kitten from the Bradshaw Animal Shelter, now patrolling the garden area.

His presence has resulted in what is pictured above left. That isn't a harvest from my heirloom plants. That's from ONE plant. Plus, that is just the harvest from that ONE plant on the day this picture was taken. I've been pulling tomatoes off this ONE plant for weeks. It's still loaded with tomatoes that are still green at the moment. Which means another monster harvest from this ONE plant is coming soon.

Processing Tomatoes

So, with heirloom tomatoes literally coming out of my ears, it was time to put some old gardening tools to work again. This would result in a project I had not undertaken for nearly a decade. I would turn a sink full of vine-ripened heirloom tomatoes, garden bell peppers and jalapeño peppers, garden grown onions and basil, and turn it into as many jars of spicy tomato sauce as I could get.

This was an all-day job for two people a decade ago. I'm alone now. I wouldn't be all that surprised if this job took me more than a full day. That did happen, but only because I ran out of canning jars and the all important canning jar lids. The lids are the one thing you cannot recycle. Once they've been used, you cannot use them again.

Simmering Sauce

I'm not sure why I chose to hang onto all of the old garden canning equipment when I found myself living alone again. Anyone who has been through this experience, and a lot of us have, will find themselves throwing away a lot of old and unpleasant memories. This I did through the years, but I kept the old water-bath and pressure-canning equipment sitting on a shelf in the garage. It had gathered a fine layer of dirt and dust through all those years of inactivity. But you know what? You can wash the dirt off. You can enjoy life again.

Turning a sink full of heirloom tomatoes and peppers into jars of spicy tomato sauce is a fairly simple task once you've done this a few times. The first step is to wash and core the fruit. It's then cut into chunks and liquified in a food processor. The amounts are then measured and added to a large pot. Once everything is added, you bring the mixture to a boil and let it simmer.

The Payoff

I wanted a thicker sauce this time. So, rather than just one hour of a hard simmer, I kept it going for two. It's useless to keep an air conditioning unit working during a project like this because the heat coming out of the kitchen is fairly intense. Of course I would choose the hottest day of 2022 to take on such a project. That only makes sense. I had forgotten about the kind of heat that comes out of a kitchen when a pressure canning unit is hard at work.

The end result is 13-pints and three quarts of the thickest sauce I've ever created. Do you really think I'm going to consume this much heirloom tomato sauce during the winter? Are you insane? That's what neighbors are for. The same neighborhood children who gifted my orange rescue kitten with the name of "The Mango" will get to enjoy the results of his non-stop garden patrol efforts.

The Mango

If "The Mango" enjoyed tomato sauce he would most certainly get his fair share. After all, he earned it. But, he's more than content with his kitten kibble. The only snack he seems to enjoy is the ocassional bug he hauls in from the backyard. This is one garden assassin who works cheap.