My Cayenne peppers from the garden are now all dry (I've had them in the dehydrator to finish the drying.) so today I ground some Cayenne pepper and made some pepper flakes.

First I broke up the peppers using my hands.(Be careful doing this and wear rubber gloves as these peppers may burn your skin.) I did this outside to avoid breathing in the vapors from the peppers. I then placed the crushed peppers on a screen to remove most of the seed which was discarded. The crushed pepper was then divided; some (with some seeds) was kept for pepper flakes and some (without seeds) was ground into Cayenne pepper.

I ground the Cayenne pepper using a food processor until the pepper was finely ground.

Here is the finely ground Cayenne pepper. I toss my old cayenne pepper and fill the container with this freshly ground pepper!

Last Friday evening it got down to 30 degrees F overnight and it was too cold for the last of my peppers that were still in the garden. Saturday AM I harvested the remaining peppers and roasted them on the outdoor grill.

I then removed the seeds and most of the skins and processed them to make a puree. I added some olive oil and salt and froze 2 pints of the puree for use later in soups. I had enough left over to use as a topping for nachos along with some of the remaining jalapenos from the garden.

Fall provides pumpkin from my garden for pumpkin bread. This recipe is from my soon to be published cookbook Dad's Home Cooking, Traditional Recipes for Preparing Healthy Family Meals.

Fall

Winter is approaching so it is time to protect my carrots in the garden from freezing. I keep them in the ground throughout the winter since it generally does not freeze the ground here in the Pacific Northwest if I keep them covered with leaf mulch. This method does not work if you live in an area that has mice, rats or moles as they will eat all of your carrots and you will not know it until you remove the cover and find them all missing! I have not had a problem with deer, opossum or raccoon bothering carrots kept this way but I guess there is always the possibility.

These are Mokum carrots with a 56 day maturity that were planted on July 17, 2012. They have very little top green growth so they are easy to cover with mulch. I have been pulling carrots to eat since mid September. They are very sweet and tasty and are advertised as the finest fresh-eating carrot know!. This variety is never found commercially since they are so fragile they often split when pulled by hand even in very soft soil. I use large maple tree leaves for protective mulch and then cover the mulch with staked-down row cover to keep the mulch in place. They will be enjoyed fresh and cooked until spring.

Today was pumpkin and squash freezing day. I had 2 nice pumpkins and 1 large squash to freeze.

The first step was to cut them in half and clean out the seeds and pulp. I then baked them in a 350 degree F oven for about 45 minutes until the flesh was cooked. I then let them cool briefly and removed the outer shell.

The next step was to run the flesh through a conical sieve to remove all the stringy pulp.

I then packed 3 5/8 cups of pumpkin into 5 each 1 quart freezer bags and placed in the freezer. Each bag will make 2 pumpkin pies so I froze enough pumpkin from my 2 pumpkins to make 10 pies plus enough left over to make a loaf of pumpkin bread. The squash was placed in  4 each 1 pint freezer bags and frozen with some left over to serve fresh for dinner.

The plump pumpkin/squash seeds were dried in the dehydrator for pumpkin seed snacks.

The asparagus ferns in my asparagus bed are turning yellow and I will be removing them shortly to prepare for winter. They put on quite a color show as they turn from green to yellow in the fall!

My geraniums on the outdoor wood fired oven hearth are liking November! They are hardy to about 30 degrees F but if the roots freeze, they are dead. I overwinter mine in their pots by putting them in my heated potting shed when the temperature is expected to go below freezing. In the spring, I clean them up and set them out again after adding soil and fertilizer. Geraniums are easy to start by taking cuttings of the green stalks. Cut off 4 inches of a healthy green stalk and remove all but the very smallest leaves. Insert each cutting in a clean draining-type  pot or container filled with damp potting soil and place on a sunny window sill. Keep the soil damp. If the stalk turns brown and shrinks in size,  it did not root, so remove the stalk and insert another freshly cut stalk. When the stalk grows new leaves, the new plant is rooted and on its way to being transplanted into a larger pot or for setting out in your garden when weather permits. Fertilize as soon as new leaves appear with a complete liquid fertilizer.