It has come to my attention that my Central American "Culebra Negra" peppers are not at all happy about the cold weather. It's the end of November so we've had a couple of near-freezing nights with 34° to 37°F lows right before dawn, but nothing that I would consider a hard frost. The Hidden Lake Hot Cayenne/Thai hybrids are still flowering and fruiting quite a bit, but the Culebra Negras are a different story. Seems these poor plants, with their [keep reading...]
We don't grow wheat or make flour, but we do make bread, and, along with some herbs from the garden, a base for amazing for stuffing for the Thanksgiving turkey. The recipe is simple and straightforward. Once you've made your own croutons you'll never go back to store bought.
Ever wonder why bakery fresh French bread is so dang delicious? It's an old baker's secret, pre-fermented dough. Here's how to make amazing bakery-style French bread at home.
The best green bean casserole calls for fresh picked green beans, so we're picking the last of the pole beans. It's not easy to keep them growing this late in the year, but I've found that these Forex beans will produce right up to Thanksgiving
Short of the turkey, everything for our family's Thanksgiving feast is grown here at The Acre. It takes a few days to harvest everything and bring it all together, so we always start with the stuff we need to dig up. This morning is was sweet potatoes, red and white varieties. This is way more than the four of us will eat, so we'll store the small ones to plant is spring, and share the extra big ones with our [keep reading...]
Went up on the roof yesterday to clear the rain gutters and finally got a look at how the passion fruit had grown over the summer. It's hard to believe the giant green monster that's eating my patio cover was a tiny plant in a 4-inch pot not too long ago. Obviously it's quite happy where it is.
All summer the garden is thick with big, fat orb weaver spiders. By mid-autumn, they're all but gone. Here's one of the few left weaving a web backlit by the sun setting over the Pacific.
Winter is well on it's way and the wind and weather are taking their toll on the hanging gourd garden. Here's a final walk through the garden before it's gone for another year.
The near freezing weather has ended pretty much everything in the veggie garden but these Tom Thumb peas. The plants are tiny, but they kick out a whole lot of peas.
The first real rains of the season blew down this 20 foot tall agave flower the woodpeckers had stuffed with acorns.
