Garden Planning

Its that time of year again. The time of year when I get 1 or two seed catalogs in the mail every day, even though I never asked for them. I also have no need for them since I've already purchased my seeds for next year! I ordered some from www.groworganic.com, a company that I've been happy with over the last couple years. However, they don't sell hybrids there, and there are some vegetables that I really wanted to get hybrid varieties of, so I ordered some from www.burpee.com.

If you're wondering what I'm going to grow this year, take a look at my tentative garden map for next year. New additions this year are shallots and multiplier onions (both planted in the fall along with garlic) and Okra, per Jaime's request. I'm also trying peanuts again, but I ordered "peanut seeds" this time as opposed to trying to use unroasted peanuts from Wegmans.

Apple Wine Update

I was in a bit of a rush to try the apple wine around the time of the first apple wine post since I was having some friends over and I wanted to have it available for consumption at that time. Over the weeks since then, it continued to settle. It now is crystal clear and the yeasty flavor is entirely gone. It still lacks apple flavor and has too much acidity, but it is definately better than it was. I can now give it a 5 out of 10.

Hot Sauce!

If you recall a post from a few months ago, we had a bumper crop of peppers this year, including cayennes.

What better to do with excess cayennes than make hot sauce? I made two different batches. One was intended to mimic Frank's Redhot, while the second would be a bit more custom. Here is what the peppers looked like. Some of the peppers had fuzzy mold inside. I'm wondering if this was because I left the peppers that ripened early in the season on the plant rather than taking them off? Anyway, here is what it looked like when I was chopping them up.

I found a recipe online that said it was a copycat recipe for Redhot, so I decided to start with that. The recipe is quite simple. Pepper, vinegar, garlic, and salt. Boil everything together for a while, then put them in a blender and strain the resulting liquid. I got about 8 fluid ounces from the recipe. Using small pieces of bread to dip in the sauce, I decided that it had too much vinegar, not enough salt, and the vinegar flavor didn't seem quite right. It wasn't necessarily bad, but I also wouldn't say its all that great.

For the second batch I decided to use more salt, less vinegar, and use half apple cider vinegar. In addition, I used more salt, more garlic, and added a bunch of black pepper. Unfortunately it didn't work out too well. There wasn't enough liquid so I put in some water, but it ended up too liquidy. Somehow I managed to put in too much salt also. Its a shame, too, because if it wasn't for the excess salt/water, I like the underlying flavor of that batch quite a bit.

I didn't have any empty hotsauce bottles around, so I put the sauces in 4 oz. jelly jars. Makes it a bit inconvenient for using it. Here is what the final product looked like.

Here is a visual comparison of the two homemade sauces along with Redhot and a random hotsauce that I happened to have at the time. This is after letting the sauces rest for a few weeks.

Both homemade batches are slightly hotter than the commercial sauces, but not overwhelmingly so. The vinegar flavor in first homemade sauce seemed to mellow a bit in the jar. It tasted reasonably good, though it didn't have a lot of depth of flavor. The second batch continues to be too watery and salty, but the underlying flavor is quite good. With less salt and water, I think it would be right there with my favorite commerical sauces like Redhot and Cholula.

With very good (and reasonably cheap) commercial hotsauces widely available, I don't see a lot of reason to keep trying to make my own hotsauces. However, I do plan to grow at least one hot pepper plant next year since they are great for throwing in stir-fries and other dishes.

Year End Garden

Here is what the garden looks like as of 12/26.

The carrots are still fine, the scallions are sort of ok (partially frost damaged), while the lettuce and arugula finally got killed off in a hard frost in mid-December. The weather has been unseasonbly warm here this month. That is nice for the heating bills, but it confuses some of the plants. The garlic, onions, and shallots that I planted in October have started to sprout above the leaves that I put over them.

The garlic I planted last October did the same thing and it turned out OK, so hopefully they will all be fine this year too. I'm thinking next year I'll plant that stuff in November rather than mid-October.

Holy Cauliflower

I was recently in Wegmans and I saw some massive heads of cauliflower in their locally grown section. I was satisfied with my ~1.0 lb per plant yield, but these cauliflower put mine to shame. I measured one of them and it was around 4 lbs! I don't even know what somebody would do with 4lbs of cauliflower. Either have a cauliflower party or freeze it, I guess.

South Wedge Winery 2011 Apple Wine Review

It is cloudy, but quite a bit lighter in color than the cider that the initial cider.

The aroma isn't terribly enticing as it smells somewhat yeasty. There is only a mild apple smell. It has remarkably little flavor. Some fruit and apple flavor, but way less than I expected. Its actually kind of remarkable how little apple flavor there is. There isn't too much yeasty flavor, though its hard to get away from it since the smell is so strong. The wine benefits tremendously from an open-air rest as much of the yeasty aroma/flavor disappears. The sugar is almost entirely gone, and without the sweetness to mask it, there is a surprising amount of acidity.

I'd have to give this a 4 out of 10. Its certainly consumable, but not exactly good. I would probably only buy it if it was in the bargain bin.

There are a couple things wrong with the wine. The first is the yeastiness. I have no doubt that if allowed it to go through a secondary fermentation and fully settle and clarify, the yeastiness would be gone. In fact, it seemed to improve significantly between the day after fermentation stopped (my first taste) and 4 days later (when I'm writing this review). The yeastiness is probably going to be a fundamental problem with the quick and dirty ferment it in the jug method. The second thing that is wrong is the lack of apple flavor. Its kind of amazing how little it tastes like apple anymore. I think if I had used a yeast that got impaired at lower alcohol levels, it would have ended with some more apple flavor and a little bit of sweetness to balance the acidity. Just a hint of sugar, though. I still maintain that all commercial hard ciders I've drank have been too sweet.

The 2011 Harvest Summary

The 2011 growing season is clearly winding down at this point. There are only a few things left in the garden now including Kale, Pak Choi, Lettuce, and Carrots. Those veggies are still alive, but aren't really growing anymore. I've hacked up all the rest of the vegetation and put it in a new compost pile for the winter. The new pile consists of the recently cut up garden vegatation, the contents of the compost can from throughout the spring/summer/fall, the previous compost pile contents (stuff that was in the compost can but wasn't fully rotted in the spring), and leaves from my front yard on top. You can see that pile on the left side of the picture below.

With the majority of the harvest complete, I've "published" the 2011 harvest spreadsheet. It shows how much of each vegetable we produced here at the homestead and its approximate value. If you're too lazy to look, there was about 120 pounds of produce harvested, with an approximate market value of $300. That is a similar haul to 2010, which is surprising considering that the growing season (especially early) wasn't all that great. I'm consistently impressed with how much produce you can get from a pretty small area. The actual square footage of planted beds in the garden (not including paths) is probably around 160 square feet. Thats an average of 3/4 lb per square foot!

In terms of which crops did well, the best performers were:

• Peppers (all varieties)
• Kennebec Potatoes
• Pole beans, especially the Blue Lake variety
• Kale
• Garlic

On the other end of the spectrum, the disappointments were:

• Corn
• Melon
• Red Norland Potatoes
• Rapini
• Brussels Sprouts (again)