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These top two peppers, i dont know anything about, the tags have been lost in the pepper jungle

i bought new mexico peppers this year because i LOVE the XXX Hot Hatch chile peppers they sell annually in flagstaff AZ out of the big roasters, and was told the New Mexico Chile Pepper was the same, However, although similer in taste, they lack significant heat, and size before ripening. Being this is my first year growing in my parents old garden i was wondering if anyone had any pointers for some of these varieties that seem to be growing vevry small

this is about the size of all my poblano peppers, again with the small size, we havent picked one yet that was stuffable

my first long cayenne

my superchilies (spelling?)

Jalapeno variety 1 longer and wider than my variety 2

var 2

unknown wide pepper, i think maybe one of the lost annaheim plants?

more cayennes

my globe bell peppers getting bigger =) I thought these would be good for mexican food, it didnt occur to me that to get that big they have to take a long time to grow

my serranos are just thick and every branch i lift has tons more

My only Tabasco Pepper plant, do these turn color before they ripen?

oh, i thought the preview was weird then i realized its because i was using my hand as a size reference

maybe more pictures later, thanks and have a great day!

Everything looks great to me. Don't know what to tell you about the size of some of them. Maybe later fruit will be larger. The tabasco's do turn orange on the way from that yellow-green to red..

Lookin' good, indeed.
I don't have a single Tobasco pod yet...

Josh

thanks =)

this is my first season growing in my parents garden, so I am still a little iffy on the ins and outs of it given the only previous experience i had was a handful of Bonnie jalapeno plants i grew in a window at my old apartment (more greenery than anything)

I definitely planted things too close, and i didn't stake anything until they were all sprawling across the ground tangling up with each other.

I am currently in a war with our 8 foot tomato plants that are trying to crawl over my peppers.

and i bought one of the refurb Excalibur dehydrators on their site last night in order to dry and grind my peppers into spices.

What do you guys do with your Serranos? I am running out of ideas and I'm not allowed to make salsa any more because I am the only one who can eat the last batch i made.

Does anyone have a good Serrano/tomatillo green salsa that they have had good luck canning?

haha! Guess you have indeterminate tomatoes, huh? They definitely will take over their neighbor's space if you don't have a way to keep them to themselves! Been there!

Good luck with the dehydrator, I got one last year (though, it wasn't a refurb), and it's great!

I mostly use serranos in fresh salsa, but, have used them like any other chile pepper in hot sauce as well..turns out jsut fine! Other than that, I don't really use them much. I've cut back to only one Serrano plant. But, I'm also space-challenged so I have to be choosy what I plant and how many.

Welcome ! I don't post much here but read the posts almost daily,and I can tell you there are some nice , kind and knowledgeable people that frequent this site.
I esp. like the weeding the kids did for you , that's the kind of stuff that happens to me.Nice to see you involve them in gardening,could be introducing them to a life long pleasure.
Gene

yep that they are, i went out today and cut a number of non producing branches lower on the monsters. I used some garden twine to tie up a number of the others so they would grow up instead of out. They have completely filled and exceeded the capacity of out homemade tomato cages that are 6 foot tall and probable a good 2-1/2' in diameter. The good thing is that all of our friends will have lots of tomatoes to share at home.

I have yet to hear anything bad about the Excalibur dehydrators so i am hoping i can get away with a refurbished model holding out long enough for the 10 year warranty period.

I don't think i have any recipes for hot sauce, maybe i will Google some tomorrow. Just about everything i make needs to be able to be canned though, we put up a lot of food for the winter months. We cleaned and canned almost 30 quarts of peaches today YUM!

I have started to notice the quality of people on this forum. I am still getting used to the format, NAXJA.ORG being one of the only other forums i frequent (for Jeep Cherokees) I got used to the layout and different tracking methods etc.

Those two rascals can be a handful, my niece doesn't tire nearly as quickly as my nephew, Tyler will see a bug or a cat and go haywire. But my niece Lexi likes to help out when she can as long as its not longer than an hour or so, and small relegated tasks seem to be a lot more productive than the kind of work i was doing when i was little haha.But I agree, I hope they will have their own gardens some day, I sure am enjoying my parents' garden and i don't know what i will do when i get my degree and enter the workforce and have to find a place of my own!

I have also been exploring the forums a but asking questions about making stained glass and transplanting trees like the black walnut and catalpa trees that grow wild around here. There are also some blackjack oak a few miles from me but I have to get a new radiator for my jeep first, i don't plan on bringing saplings back with me on my bike.

Although I am a "fire-belly" I also have a huge passion for berries nuts and indigenous flora. So i have been trying to get my dad to let me relocate some sand plums, pecan trees and a couple other misc things i found interesting on hikes to his yard, but he doesn't share my enthusiasm it seems

anyway, I'm off to bed, and up in the morning to deal with those pesky Japanese beetles on my grapes and peach trees.

-Trent

Welcome to the forum. Your plants are looking great!

1. Those definitely look like regular habaneros (the ones they sell in the large grocery stores). Carribean reds are a different shape and ripen to red. Yours are ripe now in the orange state.

2.the lost tag plants look like an Annum, probably a numex or annaheim style.

3.we always have some of the beginning pods (pollinated early) and some of the late pods (pollinated late) on the annum (numex,annaheim,cayenne,jalapeno) grow curled up and grow smaller than they should be. Usually the middle crop grows large and true the best, don't know if it has anything to do with light. But it doesn't seem like something we have been able to avoid.

4. we always wait until the pods are ripe to eat, but you can eat at the green stage also. When ripe the flavors and heat are more complex and just generally better, i think.

5. Serranos are one of my favorites. They make a really good sauce and if picked ripe have a definite sweetness. One of my fave things is to smoke/char them on the grill (chipotle style), then dehydrate and make a smoked powder. This is fantastic in goat cheese, microwave popcorn, or a rub.

I have an exacalibur dehydrator also and love it, it gets a work out. If you don't want to can everything in the heat of summer, then you bag up and freeze your peppers. You can thaw them out later in the cold weather and dehydrate them, mix them into sauce, or cook with them.

enjoy
kendra

Trent, if you go to the Harvest section and do a search for
hot sauce. You will find some recipes.

Linda

oddly enough i didnt see a single jap beetle today. Maybe the swarm moved on? Fine by me! I still got a good half a milk crate of ripe peaches. Our white peaches are still green too.

i picked the orange habs and removed the tag from the plant saying they were red Caribbeans - wish my dehydrator was here so i could make some ground hab powder for my pork chops or fish tonight.

it's always good to hear another review about the Excalibur dehydrators, with everyone pretty much satisfied i can expect pretty good results i think.

I'll have to wait and see about those peppers, i hope my serranos continue to put on fruit like they have been, and i think i will let my jalapenos go to full ripe this year and throw them and the serranos and a few others in the smoker with the ribs, hotlinks, brisket, and bologna we will be smoking here soon.

by goat cheese do you mean like feta?

-Trent

30 quarts??!! That's a lot of peeling / slicing! I (with help from the GF) just did a bushel of peaches the weekend before last. I didn't think I was ever going to get done, and I think I had about half of what you did!! LOL

I'm sure your refurb will be fine. Never heard a bad thing about the company or product. I can't imagine having a problem that wasn't dealt with.

Oh, and feel free to just finely chop the fresh peppers and use in a marinade / basting sauce if you don't have any dried at the moment. :-)

Also, I think it's great you're getting the little ones involved. Loosing a few plants is a small price to pay for the memories and gardening traditions that you are passing along to them (as well as yourself)! I can tell you 100% that the reason I have any garden at all is because my parents had a garden all while I was growing up. I may have hated having to help pick green beans or shell peas, etc.. but, I got much more out of it than I could have imagined.

"by goat cheese do you mean like feta?"

-Trent

Feta is traditionally a sheeps milk, slightly firm. Goat cheese is usually sold soft and tangy.

well, i hung my plants upside down in the garage and got a lot more to ripen before they froze in the garden, I've made about 19oz of cayenne 7oz or smoked green jalapeno, 11oz of Serrano, and 5 oz of home made chipotle with only 1.5 oz super hot powder. I still have another brown grocery bag of cayenne, two bushes of Tabasco peppers, three holy mole, and two garden salsa peppers to process. the garden salsa peppers turned out nice and hot, even hotter when i grill them.

i will burn whats left of the garden off when the wind dies down and make plans for this year. starting a new thread, and begging to collect my seeds.

Thank you all for your help and emails this 2010 season!

- Trent