Squash baby!

I know it has been a while. The Higher Mind of New England has me in its clutches again. A quick update:

1) No potatoes, pumpkins, bell peppers or thai chilies. Tiny carrots.

2) Some cantaloupes. Got watermellon plants but no fruit.

3) Lots of Corn, beans, sunflowers, tomatoes, jalapeños, lettuce and spinach. AND SQUASH!!! Something like 15 fruits, they grew like crazy. A pic of one cut open by The Wife is included.

BTW the jalapeños, so of which are now red, still very fiery to cut (actually had chemical burns on my hands). Interestingly they have no bite once cooked.

I'll have more when I get a few minutes to give a run-down.


Looks great! Can't wait to eat!

Jalapeños of FIRE!!!

So I have been eating some of my jalapeños that I have grown. I have a TON because I planted so many plants and didn't have the heart or desire to cull them. I have been getting edible ones since July but I have noticed that they are very hot. The hottest jalapeños I have ever eaten and I have had by share. What could have caused this? Its the same thing that has basically killed my pumpkins: super hot weather. All those 100 and upper 90 degree days have super charged my chilies. This is weird though considering that most commercially grown jalapeños in the States come from Texas or New Mexico, so you can't tell me that they are having 70 degree days there. I wonder if they shade them to keep them from getting insane? I am going to attempt to grow them in the house over the winter and see if that makes a difference in temp.

So the pumpkins. Powdery Mildew (PM). This stuff thrives on warm, humid, nights. Hmmm, could that have anything to do with the 100 degree days? :( Its spread from the patch all the way down the vines like wildfire. I sprayed with a biological (I forget the name) it seemed to work, then went back to before. *sigh* Probably none of the beautiful gourds this year either. I have tons of squash though, which have PM as well, but they seem to produce more. Suggestion from the Mother of All Giants: plant them later in the year so I don't spend 2 months not growing fruit but mildew. Next season I am planting them on July 4th. Also going to talk with some local growers about what they do when I go picking in October.

No true cereals in the Americas?

I was watching "America Before Columbus" last night. The tile was somewhat misleading in that I thought the whole thing was about pre-Conquest America, but was really 1/2 before and 1/2 after. I won't go into too much detail, but it was talking about how both cultures benefited from each other in the Columbian Exchange (we won't go into the gift of smallpox which killed 50 million natives). One of the points it made was that The Americas were transformed by the introduction of true cereal grains from Europe (wheat, barley, oats, etc.) and that the Americas had nothing really comparable except Maize (a grass) and Potatoes (a tuber). To which I thought; "A 100 million people did not live just eating corn." And guess what? They didn't.

Quinoa and Amaranth were also staple pseudocereals. The Aztecs used to make cakes out of Amaranth grain in the shapes of their gods, and then eat them during celebrations. The Spanish thought it looked too much like Communion wafers and outlawed it. Of course.

After doing some research, Amaranth looks like a great plant. The seeds don't have hulls (so they don't need to be threshed) and can be made into things like porridge (similar to oats) or actual breads. It has higher protein than any of the true cereals, is gluten-free, and looks amazing with red/orange heads. Apparently the orange varieties are easier to digest than the red/brown ones. Its also a warm weather plant (its September and STILL in the 90's) and doesn't need a whole lot of rain.

I'm my continual quest to have a "Native Garden" (an having a miserable success rate on European cultivators) what do you think I will be planting next year? Bet you can't guess???

;)