Monday, November 8, 2010

Fall Harvest, Probably One of the Last

I've been so amazed with our fall harvests. The bell peppers are still producing even though it's been in the 50s all week. Nights drop down to the 40s. But, we are still harvesting bell peppers, and I also harvested for the first time some mustard greens.  Not much, since the bugs keep eating all the leaves, but I was able to harvest a handful of leaves that weren't eaten up.  They are really peppery tasting. I don't know how much longer before our first frost hits and kills off the rest of the vegetable plants so I have to savor the harvests while I can.
But, by far the best producing plant has been the giant habanero.  It just amazes me how many little peppers I harvested from this plant.  Before I brought the plant inside, I harvested 24 habaneros.  Just amazing!  The pole beans are still producing like mad and I picked my first fall radish.  Nice! And check this out, when I was clearing the tomato plants to put in the compost, I found an heirloom tomato growing! How about that??
I have no idea what I'm going to do with all these habaneros.  I mean, they are hot, hot, hot peppers.  I saw my neighbor the other day when I dug up my habanero plant and she saw me wheeling around the giant plant in my wheelbarrow.  LOL.   (so embarassing)  I shouted to her from across the street, "hey Liz, do you like hot peppers?"  She said yes, so I unloaded a dozen habaneros into her hands.  Score.  One of the coolest thing about habaneros is that even though I picked these peppers when they were green, 3 days later they turned colors!!  From one plant, you can get orange, yellow and red peppers.  So awesome!!  Does anyone know, can you freeze these whole?
For more fall harvests, visit Daphne Dandelions.

24 comments:

  1. Those are gorgeous. I've never frozen habaneros, but I freeze other peppers all the time. With small ones, I just throw them into a baggie whole. They defrost very quickly.

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  2. I have no idea what you could do with the habaneros. They're way too hot for me but they are so pretty! I'm kind of tempted to try growing them just because of how beautiful they are.

    Nice harvests!

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  3. Bell peppers still?! Did you install a furnace out in the garden LOL? Congratulations on making that season productive and lasting, nice job!

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  4. I use to freeze my peppers whole all the time.

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  5. Secret: I'm afraid to try habanero peppers - I might burn my tongue off!

    Keep up the great work!

    Shawna

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  6. I am sorry, but I have no experience with freezing peppers. I would be more tempted to make a hot sauce of a pickle with kick as a way of preserving them. I wish I lived next door. I would take some off your hands!

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  7. I can't believe that you haven't had a frost yet. You are only about 80 miles east of me and we have had several nights in the 20's!! You can always pickle some of those hot hot peppers. Just use 3 parts white vinegar to 1 part water, boil, pour over the peppers and either process them or put them in the frig. Very nice harvest!!

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  8. Looking at those peppers and reading about how hot they are, all I can think of is "Wash your hands before you rub your eyes!"

    They really look nice!

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  9. Fantastic November harvest! If we were neighbors, I would trade you some cayenne peppers for your habaneros, as I've never had habaneros before. That tomato, although green, looks like a good sized tomato, too!

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  10. I have no experience with habaneros, or freezing other peppers whole. I do freeze chopped peppers for use later and they do just fine. It's good that your neighbors likes hot ones!

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  11. What a nice array of peppers! Are you saving seeds?

    We had hail up here in Nyack today.

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  12. Some interesting shaped habaneros you have there! I grew two different plants, one seemed to be the scotch bonnet habanero, not sure of the other. But I got like 200 peppers off those plants this year, all in the freezer whole. That is how my mom does it, so, I did it too! Ha, I have 2 gallon bags full in my freezer! Hope you find lots of fun stuff to do with them!

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  13. Those peppers look wonderful! You should definitely save some seeds from them and maybe even share or trade the extras with me haha.
    Great job on the continued harvests! Enjoy them while it lasts, we had our first real frost last week, and the days are getting much colder. All I've got left at my plot is a few Kale plants.

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  14. Beautiful peppers! I usually cut the peppers up before freezing - removing the seeds and stems. Watch out handling those hot peppers though - so easy to touch your eye with the jot pepper oils on it! Ouch! (been there and done that - so I speak from personal experience!)

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  15. Nice harvest! Peppers seem to be the most cold hardy of the nightshades in my garden too. You can just freeze the peppers as they are, but since they are so hot, it might make more sense to chop them first and then you can just take a little bit every time you need some. Another thing you can do is to roast them, peel, seed and devein them and run them through a mixer. You'll get a past that you can freeze in small portions.

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  16. No problem freezing them, I do it all the time. What a fabulous late harvest you have. Gardening ended for me about a month and a half ago.

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  17. that is a lot of peppers from one plant. I'm impressed!

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  18. hmm, my scotch bonnets are more saucer shaped looking and more yellow. I think there are even different varieties of scotch bonnets! Anyways, I posted this a while back about what we do with some of them...
    http://shawnannsgarden.blogspot.com/2010/08/what-do-we-do-with-all-those-habanero.html
    I am going to have to find more ways, cause I have 2 gallon bags stuffed full! But we experiment!

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  19. I've never grown such hot peppers, but if I did I'd be making hot pepper sauce with them. Maybe I need to be growing some hot peppers to make my own.

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  20. I freeze my peppers whole. The skins get weird when frozen, but they slide right off when you take them out.
    habaneros scare me!!

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  21. My mom grew habaneros by mistake last year. She diced them before she froze them.

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  22. My mom freezes peppers but I think she mostly dehydrates the habaneros. They're definitely going on my seed list for next year. I made a habanero jelly this year that was freaking delicious. Everyone has put in orders for next year!

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  23. I've tried to grow habaneros, but in Idaho our season must not be long enough, even though I start the plants indoors, in early March! I tried bringing them in before frost, but just get a house full of Aphids! They're loaded with blooms!

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