My name is Trent, I live in Cashion, Oklahoma and am a borderline zone 6/7 officially a 6 though according to ivillage.

my peppers so far, i didnt notice mold had grown in the ziploc bag until i went to post this, they are all going to the chickens in the morning =)

Josh

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?

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.

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

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

Linda

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

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.

-Trent

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

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