What's happening today 2016?

Those look great. My sis bought me a small bag of Himalayan sea salt that had scorpion peppers mixed in. It is tremendous on popcorn! I bought what I thought was a similar product from Marshalls that advertised pink sea salt with ghost peppers and it wasn’t nearly as good. Scorpion peppers are I believe the second hottest pepper. They are from Sri Lanka

I just looked at my one and only peach this year. I think it should be ripening soon but then I noticed the he on top and when I looked under the peach there was a PC crawling around. :disappointed_relieved:. As you can tell it had bacterial spot. It’s the trees first leg and I didn’t spray it with anything. So no real surprise

Drew I had the same idea with my ghost peppers I grew. I didn’t realize they got that hot. I haven’t ate them since I grew them. One pepper in a kettle of chili was to much for me. I was thinking making an application for fruit would work to keep anything away!

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I watched some good videos on you tube a few years back on people eating a whole pepper. Here is a video of a guy and his son eating the hottest pepper to date of the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWQnx84cVAk

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Yes for eating I like the milder hot peppers. Many peppers are really really hot, so Reaper is hotter, but peppers called 7 pot peppers, are because one pepper is good for 7 pots of whatever you’re cooking!
C. Reaper soon will no longer be the hottest pepper. The guy who developed it now has another even hotter, it’s called Death Strain It’s not the hottest till Guinness says it is, Which will not be long!

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I picked my first real ripe Superior plum today. That makes it my first ripe fruit from my orchard!

It was OK. The one I ate two days ago was sweeter but not as ripe. I think it had sunburn. I am hoping the plums on higher branches with more of this year’s growth will be better. This one was on a short stubby branch without many leaves.

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Damn… one of my Superior plums has a bulls-eye brown spot on it, a darker spot in the middle and another concentric ring around it that is brown also.

Would that be brown rot? Should I pull it and bury it in the next county?

Birds can’t taste it, only mammals. I guess it works well in bird seed to keep squirrels out.
That video is funny! True it does not really burn at all. But people panic if they have no idea what they just ate!

Yes it does work in the blocks with birdseed and oil/fat mixed with the seeds. There is a bunch of videos of hot pepper eating.

I went to the farmers’ market with one of my daughters on Saturday and spent $50 total. I bought a bushel of Elberta peaches, which are often one of my favorites. I also purchased 1/2 bushel of beets, a 1/2 peck of green tomatoes that were just starting to develop color, which is the perfect stage for making fried green tomatoes, and an orange fleshed watermelon.

I don’t know what others think regarding the value received compared to amount spent. I didn’t think it was too bad.

I’ve been slicing up the peaches and dehydrating them for snacking.

My daughter bought bags of mixed peppers, sweet onions, red slicing tomatoes, young eggplant, and small yellow summer squash. She made ratatouille for dinner that night.

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Great purchase Muddy.

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I’d love to hear more about that, Muddy. I have a solar oven that I converted to a solar dehydrator using small solar powered fans and just finished dehy some hot peppers to grind for spices. I’ve wanted to do fruit for exactly that purpose (snacking). Just thinly slice and lay on the sheets? I tried doing some blueberries last year but they were not appealing.

A quick dip in very hot water and then immersion in cold water helps to make skin removal easier. It’s much the same as the process for peeling tomatoes.

I don’t dip mine in citric acid preservative or treat them with sulfur, though both methods help to retain color longer. Elbertas aren’t overly quick to brown. They process well without treating.

I slice mine the same way as in making peach slices, though not quite as thickly. Alternatively, cutting in longitudinally and then slicing latitudinally in order to make slices will result in more uniform thickness of each slice.

I rub the drying trays with an extremely thin coating of oil before arranging the peach slices. This prevents them from sticking too tightly to the trays once dry.

I use an electric dehydrator set very low - between it’s lowest setting of 95 and 120 degrees - because I prefer the results of lower temp drying. I believe lower temps create less flavor change. I realize that higher temps are more effective at halting the enzyme reactions that can cause continued ripening, but since these are being preserved by desiccation, that should also halt or greatly reduce the speed of the process, depending on how much moisture remains after the dehydrating process.

Once the slices have reached the stage of dryness that I prefer, which is not crisp, but slightly flexible, I remove them and seal the slices in bags. At this stage they are chewy when eaten as a snack. The ones that are expected to be held longer term, I place in the heavier vacuum seal bags and store in the freezer.

I hope that’s enough description to be of help, Anne. If I left anything out, or you have other questions, just let me know.

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Is this brown rot on my plum? The affected site is not too soft. (The white coating and spots on the plum are Surround WP).

After many attempts, I finally got these two plants to grow. Can anyone name them?
The first, and most challenging

The second, and perhaps easiest to identify

Anyone else growing these? Have any tips for their culture?

I would guess they are in the ginger, galangal family

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Mamuang, you did not disappoint me. Before I posted them I thought for sure you would know. So you are correct - the 2nd picture is galangal. Do you now what the 1st one is?

The first one looks like a ginger plant. I killed one in a pot last year. There are many kinds of ginger plants, the ones I grew up with had large leaves like that.

If you google canna, they look similar, too.

Please let me know what it is.

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I’d say the first is a curcuma. Going by what I know of you, it’s probably turmeric.

They both look like healthy plants. Congratulations.

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@mamuang: It does look like a canna. Ginger I have grown for years in ground and in large pots and it has been pretty easy and forgiving of my ignorance/neglect. The first pic isn’t ginger. My ginger plants are taller than the galangal and have thinner leaves - look more grassy. Once I got ginger to grow I could keep it going year to year. These two ‘experimental’ plants were kinda, hmmmm, ‘reluctant to thrive’, LOL.

@MuddyMess_8a: Haha, tumeric it is!! Congrats to you, Muddy. Have you grown it? Wondering about dehy some and grinding it - if I have enough after this season. I mean it is almost August, and that’s all there is.