Using Herbs

String Up Your Bounty of Hot Peppers

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Cayenne peppers grew so well this year we probably have enough for the next five years or more. Of course we’ve shared with friends, but how many strings of hot peppers does one kitchen need?

Hot Peppers Hanging in the Kitchen
Hot Peppers Hanging in the Kitchen

Hanging a collection of peppers is a nice way to display the colorful fruits and have easy access to them while cooking. By stringing them up the peppers will have room enough to dry out and not mold. If you have lots of counter space you could just dry them on a tray making sure to turn them every day. Just throw away any that turn black- not so appetizing. If you’re short on places to put a tray of peppers for a couple of weeks, try stringing them up. It can be a fun way to get the kids to help out with the end of the growing season chores.

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Time to Make the Dill Pickles

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In the garden we had a dill forest about 4-5 weeks ago. I wish I got a picture of how nice the tall herb looked before that storm blew through here. All the seed heads now lay on the ground or each other, strewn every which way. That area of the garden looks a mess, but it’s the flavors that count.

Dill forest about 4 feet tall in the garden.
Dill forest about 4 feet tall in the garden.

There’s still a lot of dill in the garden even though we used quite a bit for making dill pickles. One head per jar is enough dill weed or dill seed to flavor the cucumbers. We found out we could use the green seed heads just as well as the brown seed heads for flavoring the pickles.

Pickle ingredients of cucumbers, dill and garlic.
Pickle ingredients of cucumbers, dill and garlic.

After another day or two of sunshine we’ll harvest some of the dill seed and dill weed for the pantry and let other stalks release their seeds into the garden. That way, we’ll be guaranteed more dill herb for next year’s fun. Some of the seed that falls to the ground now will be able to germinate and grow a little bit into September, but the small sprouts will die off after the weather freezes. They won’t survive in a hot box for very long into the Autumn.