Gardening – well, anything really, but today I’m talking about gardening – is a learning experience. Even harvesting.

This weekend, we learned:

Hot Peppers: The very tip of a hot pepper isn’t indicative of the rest of the pepper.

T. cut off the tip for me to taste, to gauge hotness so we knew how much to put in our enchiladas. Nothing. So he sliced off another tiny slice.

Burning, so much burning. Drinking milk, drinking cider, crying. Well, not quite crying. So much burning.

Turns out those were the ghost peppers. Whoops!

Hot Peppers, part II: When drying hot peppers in the oven, check the oven before turning it on to make cookies.

Then again, it’s not the first time we’ve learned that. You could smell the capsaicin all the way in the other end of the house.

Carrots: Can overwinter just fine in the garden, just mulched over a bit. Also, given a raised bed with fresh compost + peat, they go wild. These things are huge!

(Also purple. But that was on purpose).

Kale: a fitted queen bedsheet works great as a row cover on frosty mornings, esp. for a 4×6 foot raised bed. On the other hand, kale doesn’t give a shit about frost and the bed we didn’t cover was just fine.

Tomatillos: aren’t supposed to get ripe. Also, if you plant a tiny free tomatillo plant and let it go, it will take over a whole bed.

Broccoli: get huge! if you let it flower.

And, considering the tomato blight and the ridiculously sad squash harvest, we’re really glad we don’t depend on our garden for our food.

All in all, an educational week!

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