Hello friends,

This is our second year growing alma paprika plants. It's really satisfying to sow them as little tiny seeds, see them grow up into seedlings, and then onto big pepper plants with red peppers that you can dry into mild paprika.

The process for growing alma paprika plants is pretty much the same as any other capsicums or chillies. The seeds need to be sown in late winter, at the same time as tomatoes, and they need consistent steady heat in order to germinate. At that time of the year we have them sitting in the dining room where we have the fire going each day. Within a couple of weeks they germinate, and slowly over a couple of months they grow into seedlings which need to be potted on.

I move the alma paprika seedlings into the glasshouse in early October, and once it gets to Labour weekend, it's time to plant them into the ground in the glasshouse. Over the next few months they get bigger, and need staking, and at around Christmas they begin to flower. The rounded alma paprika fruits begin to grow, and then it's a wait over late summer and early autumn for the growing fruits to begin to change colour to a bright red hue.

Once the alma paprika fruit has turned red, it's finally time to pick them. I cut them off the plant using a pair of secateurs, and then take them into the kitchen to begin processing them.

After chopping them in half, cutting off the stalks, and removing all the seeds, I slice the alma paprika fruit into thin slices and lay them out on a tray.

Then they go straight into the dehydrator at 35˚C, and I dry them until the slices are bone dry and brittle, ready for turning into paprika powder.

After a quick whizz in our spice grinder, the paprika powder is ready to use in cooking. The spice is tasty and mild, and works great in a number of dishes. The whole process is really easy, and satisfying, so it's now yet another yearly thing for me to do in the garden and kitchen.

Do you have any yearly tasks you enjoy? There's great satisfaction in accomplishing them when it means you have tasty food over the cold winter season.

Have a wonderful day

Julie-Ann

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Tags: 2024, Alma Paprika, Autumn, Capsicums, Chillies, Cooking, Dehydrating, Dehydrator, Food, Food Processing, Garden, Gardening, Harvest, Harvesting, Homegrown Food, Kings Seeds, Paprika, Plants, Seed Catalogue, Seed Sowing, Seedlings, Seeds, Spices, Spring, Summer

Hello friends,

Over Labour Weekend in October hubby and I planted our vegetable garden for the summer.

My first task was to weed the garlic growing in the smallest vegetable garden bed, and then also sow onions, carrots, beetroot, radish, sugarbeet and carrot seeds as well.

Hubby then dug over the two remaining large garden beds, and I added sheep pallet fertilizer for the soon to be growing plants.

For the next bed, which was already growing peas and potato plants by now, I added lettuce, rocket, black turtle beans, summer sprouting broccoli, and cabbage, that I had been growing in the glasshouse.

With the last large garden bed I planted maize, corn, and pumpkin plants in the top half. In the bottom half of the garden bed I sowed wheat and linen flax seeds, while hubby acted as a scarecrow to keep the birds off them, and then we double bird netted the seeds to protect them from the birds.

With most of the glasshouse now empty of plants, we emptied out the space, and hubby dug over the garden bed. After that there was just the task of fertilising the soil, and then planting cucumbers, basil, chillies, capsicum and many tomato plants. There was also the big task of setting up all the climbing frames for the growing plants.

It's been a few weeks now, and everything is growing nicely in the garden, despite low snow falling the week after we planted everything. I can't wait to feast on all our vegetables over the coming summer.

Have a wonderful day

Julie-Ann

Want to discuss my post? Feel free to chat with me on Instagram or Mastodon.

Tags: 2023, Basil, Beetroot, Bird, Birds, Capsicums, Carrots, Chillies, cucumber, Food, Garden, Garlic, Glasshouse, Plants, Potato, Potatoes, Pumpkin, Radish, Radishes, Repotting, Root Crops, Seed Sowing, Seedlings, Seeds, Spring, Sugar Beet, Tomato, Tomatoes, Vege Garden, Vegetables, Wheat

Hello friends,

During last year's growing season I had a Serrano chilli plant growing in our glasshouse, and over summer it gave me an abundant harvest of both green and red chillies. I picked so many chillies that I had no idea what to do with them all. I gave away as many as I could, and then with the rest I decided to dry them. We mainly use chillies as dried chilli powder in the kitchen throughout the year, so this method to prepare them was the best way to use all the left over chillies.

I waited until I had a big chlli harvest (some had already started drying out whole), and I cut off all the tops off before splitting them down the middle and removing the seeds (while wearing gloves). I then dried them in our dehydrator on trays at a temperature of 50˚C.

The smell was quite pungent, so initially the dehydrator was sitting outside under our veranda for the day, and then in the garage after that.

Once the chillies were dry, they were stored whole in a plastic container until it was time to grind them.

Last week, I finally got around to actually grinding them in our coffee and spice grinder. So as not to stink out the house with powdered chilli, I placed the grinder under the rangehood with it turned on.

It didn't take very long to turn the chilli into powder. It didn't make as much as I thought it would, so I think that this year I won't give as much away, so we'll have more chilli powder for ourselves.

And we've already used our new chilli powder in a meal, we made chilli con carne that very night. It wasn't too spicy, but it had a really great flavor that we liked. I'm definitely happy to make even more chilli powder this coming growing season.

Have a wonderful day

Julie-Ann

Want to discuss my post? Feel free to chat with me on Instagram or Mastodon.

Tags: 2023, Chillies, Cooking, Dehydrating, Dehydrator, Food, Food Processing, Garden, Gardening, Harvest, Harvesting, Homegrown Food, Plants, Summer, Vege Garden, Vegetables

Hello friends,

It's been another busy week in the garden, with warm and mild weather to welcome the start of spring.

I had to repot my chilli, capsicum and tomato seedlings in the last week, as they'd gotten too big for their plastic small glasshouses in the dining room. They're now happily situated in their now bigger pots with potting mix in the glasshouse, and are sitting in a frame which is wrapped up with multiple layers of frost cloth each night. If there's even a hint of bad frosts or snow, they'll be back inside the house in our spare bedroom until the bad weather passes.

Seed sowing is still underway, and will continue through spring.

Vege seeds sown this week:

• Pumpkin Crown Prince F1
• Pumpkin Musquee De Provence
• Pumpkin Baby Bear
• Pumpkin Marina Di Chioggia
• Maize Manaia

Herbs sown this week:

• Chamomile Roman
• Chamomile German
• Catnip
• Soapwort
• Marshmallow

Flowers sown this week:

• Eupatorium Hemp Agrimony
• Gypsophila Snowflakes
• Gypsophila Deep Carmine
• Yarrow Summer Pastels
• Valerian officinalis

There's so much more seed to sow, and things to do in the garden, but work is also busy right now in the lead up to the Christmas season, with me preparing eco textile products for inclusion in the online craft artisan website Felt gift guide. I hope I can balance the two between now and Christmas.

Have a wonderful day

Julie-Ann

Want to discuss my post? Feel free to chat with me on Instagram or Mastodon.

Tags: 2023, Capsicums, Chillies, Flowers, Glasshouse, Herb, Herbs, Repotting, Seed Sowing, Seedlings, Seeds, Tomatoes, Vegetables