Henny Penny Farmette

Peppers for my Mexican and Caribbean cooking

My pepper plants are still producing. It’s a week before Thanksgiving and by this time last year I had harvested all the warm season crops like the peppers. But the plants still have many peppers hanging and are still blooming.

Sweet red and green bell peppers

I even have a tomato plant that’s got blooms on it. Of course, most old timer gardeners will tell you that tomatoes won’t set fruit if night-time temperatures aren’t 55 degrees Fahrenheit or higher. So I’ll wait for another week or two to figure out whether or not to pull out the tomato and harvest the peppers. I can use the sweet bells in my Thanksgiving dinner prep.

A giant sunflower starts as a small seedling

Yesterday, I  laid out on a small stone floor a giant sunflower head that had already dried. The birds, and especially the squirrels, love the seeds. The squirrels practically replant them for me all over the property. The giant sunflower heads laden with seed are my gifts to the wildlife each autumn.

There are sunflowers and then there are the giants that stand seven or eight feet tall with heads the size of dinner plates. The stalks are as thick as the diameter of a coffee mug. It usually takes me a few hours of working with a pick axe to dig out all the stalks and compost them.

Picture postcard-perfect giant sunflowers

I save the seeds from the giants so I can let them dry over the winter and plant again the next year. I’m just guessing but I’ll bet from all the seed heads I’ve saved, I’ve got thousands of seeds. Maybe I’ll package up 50 or so to a bag and give them away at Christmas or sell them at the farmer’s market when it starts up again next year. For now, I’ve got my sights set on making some pepper relish for Christmas season gift baskets of food.