Apparently the only thing that was hot at all about that jalapeño last night was the seeds and membranes I had handled.

I gave it to Lin. He took a big bite of the cleaned and processed pepper. I winced and waited for him to start getting red in the face or reaching frantically for the glass of milk, and none of that happened. He then told me to take a bite. I determined I could trust him when he said it wasn’t hot, because surely he wouldn’t allow me to take a bite of a pepper that was really, really hot. So I took a tiny little bite, cringing while I did so.

Nothing. No heat at all. It was so “mild” it tasted just like a bell pepper. In fact, that bell pepper we had a few weeks ago was far, far hotter than the jalapeño.

It had a great flavor though! I do hope we get some more of them. With the next one, I will try removing only the seeds and leaving some of the membrane, so it will have some heat. I mostly planted those for Lin, and he was a little disappointed with its complete lack of anything resembling heat.

Lin and I have performed our mutual poisoning ritual with that ugly tomato of mine, each taking a bite at the same time so we both get grossed out or die. I am pleased to announce the ugliness of the outside of that Mr. Stripy did not extend to the inside.

Meaty, juicy, sweet with a nice tart after-bite. Oh how I hope we get at least a few more of those! It is one tasty tomato!

A reminder to myself, and maybe some of my Austin readers would like to go too and learn about having chickens in your back yard.

The THIRD-annual FREE Chicken Seminar will be held at the beautiful Natural Gardener Nursery, Saturday, 9 to 10 AM, July 19th.

The Natural Gardener is at 8648 Old Bee Caves Road, Austin, Texas 78735 (Off of Southwest Parkway, corner of Travis Cook Rd and Old Bee Caves Road).

Chickens not only provide tasty, nutritious eggs, but also, they are great pets: interesting, communicative, smart in their own way, and very humorous! In an informal gathering, chicken keepers will share information with each other and with those who wish to have their own flocks.

Speakers include Carol Ann Sayle, Paula Middleton, and Diana Claitor.

Subjects to be discussed:

Benefits of a back yard flock and recommended size of flock
Breeds of Layers and their attributes
New Chicks: hatching and adoption
Feed Sources (Buck Moore Feed Supply in North Austin now carries certified organic chicken feed)
Hen House Design
Chickens and Composting
Chicken Tractors
Predators
Roosters
Etc….

Today’s harvest includes a collection of mutant tomatoes and that one lonely jalapeño, all of which will be consumed with tonight’s dinner. I grew it, and we will damn well eat it!

There was all manner of tasty goodness at the market today! I love it when there are so many things in season. It’s going to be a yummy two weeks!

Now I’d like to point you in the direction of the two farms we do our business with.

Finca Pura Vida is the farm we get 90% or more of the veggies we eat. Everything they sell is both organic and heirloom varieties, and all of it just simply wonderful. They also sell beef, pork, and a variety of fowl, but we haven’t tried theirs yet. Why? Because we love the meats we get from Richardson Farms. Jim and Kay are the sweetest people ever, and their beef and pork is so flavorful and fresh.

So if you are in the Austin area and looking to buy local, environmentally sound, and healthy foods, check out both of these farms. They are both run by fantastic people who do farming right and care about doing it right. We visit them at the Sunset Valley Farmers Market, but I know both of them also set up at other markets and sell directly from their farms as well. Sure, it costs more than at the grocery store, but I can tell you it is beyond worth it in flavor, freshness, and quality of life. I can’t imagine ever going back to the way we used to eat!

Now to go decide what to make for dinner tonight. I’m thinking a nice hearty pot of chili would be good.

The salmonella tainted tomato investigation is still ongoing. They haven’t found the source of the bad tomatoes. They haven’t even found a tomato tainted with salmonella. They have continued to plug ahead with the idea that it was tomatoes making people sick, until recently. It seems that people are still getting sick from that very particular strain of salmonella, and since this has been ongoing for so long, there is no way it could possible be a fresh tomato. No matter how they are stored, tomatoes simply don’t last months. They are now ready to explore other options of what it might be that is making people sick. Now they are considering things commonly served with tomatoes. I’d say that’s a pretty broad range of things.

I’ve known about their lack of surety concerning the culprit being tomatoes for at least a couple of days. My feeling is that right this moment, any foodstuffs at the grocery store could be the thing that kills me. Maybe it’s avocados. Maybe it’s carrots. Maybe it’s lettuce … again. Maybe it’s even salad dressing. Who knows at this point? Doesn’t exactly put me in the mood to go grocery shopping, so we will be eating simply until we go to the market on Saturday. At least if anything from there makes me sick, I know who to throw up on and point the finger of blame at.

It’s not so easy to point the finger of blame at someone for a tainted tomato, or any vegetable, bought at a supermarket. If nothing else comes of this latest food mess, it might be that people have a better understanding of how those vegetables get to their market. I know I was surprised to find out about repacking. I wasn’t surprised to hear vegetables are shipped to warehouses and repacked by size, weight, ripeness, etc. I assumed that happened. No, what surprised me was finding out that tomatoes from Mexico are shipped to a state in the USA, repacked with that’s states produce, and then it is sold as a product of the USA. The opposite also apparently seems to be true, that tomatoes from a state in the USA can be shipped to Mexico, repacked with Mexican tomatoes, and then shipped back to the USA as a product of the USA.

In light of this revelation, it would seem those stickers on fruits and vegetables are totally meaningless. When I pick up a vegetable upon which a sticker says it is a product of the USA (or Mexico, Brazil, etc.), I expect it to actually be a product of that country. There are countries I don’t buy from, and there are products I don’t buy from certain countries. With the repacking system they have going on with tomatoes, who knows where any particular tomato comes from, and I have no doubt this process applies to many, many things in the produce department. Hell, it might even apply to everything in the store. How am I to know the tomatoes used in my American-made tomato sauce are actually grown in the USA? I don’t.

The last few years of food scares have really put me off food that isn’t grown by someone I have personally conversed with in a face-to-face situation. Unfortunately, that leads to two possible dietary realities: eat a completely seasonal diet or buy in bulk and can/freeze/dry/store foods to cover all seasons. We can’t afford to buy organic and local food in bulk, because it is rather expensive, and I would die during the winter months when most of the things available fresh are things I don’t especially like to eat. That forces me to buy some foods at the grocery store, and that leaves me with a nervous twitch running down my spine every time I do so. It’s not fair we have to think and worry that the foods being sold in the corner store might make us sick or kill us. It’s not fair at all.

I really do wish my garden had done better this year. Next year, I will be throwing myself entirely into gardening, and I will succeed. It feels like an absolute necessity to be producing as much of our own food as possible and buying what we can’t produce from our farmer friends. I’d like very much to never have to go to a grocery store again, except for things like coffee, tea, and Dr Pepper. I doubt that will ever happen, but it’s a nice dream of mine.

Here are some associated links about the ongoing investigation:

Unsolved Mysteries: Tainted Tomatoes or Not?

Tomato ‘repacking’ vexes salmonella trackers

Salmonella probe adds foods served with tomatoes

It was so good to get back to the farmers market! I missed our farmer friends so much. I missed all that great fresh and local food too!

I also stopped to talk to the people from Ladybug fertilizers. We were going to buy some of their stuff, but she managed to talk us out of it. Not a very good salesperson! She did share a lot of information though, for which I was very grateful. It seems I am not the only one having problems getting produce to set this year. It’s everybody. It’s just been too damn hot too early. Even the professional farmers are having problems. It looks like when I see flowers on my plants, I will now be helping the pollen get where it needs to go. Hopefully that will help. It looks like I picked the very worst year ever to decide to start growing our own food. I’m going to struggle through it though. It’s all been a lot of fun and a learning experience.

Also, Fertilizer Lady said what I had been doing was just fine and to keep doing it. She said I didn’t really need to use a fertilizer too, because the things I have been putting on my plants (composted manure, Epsom’s salts, coffee grounds, egg shells) is just as good as anything I could buy. I guess she saved us some money. Next year, we’ll buy something from them. She was really sweet and helpful.

It’s thundering like crazy. I think I’ll go check the radar and step outside to investigate the weather. Boy, let me tell you … it’d be really great if it rained today!

As you can see, the mutant tomato is still looking like a mutant. In fact, all the tomatoes on that particular clump are rather odd looking. It’s not the whole plant though. That plant looks like it’s going to be my biggest producer, or at least it has been so far, and the rest of the tomatoes on it look far more normal … and tasty.

And they are tasty!

I harvested the Fajita Bell Pepper. It had that blemish that appeared last week, and it looked like it got sunburned today. The poor thing was only about the size of a three inch cube. A little small.

Of course I immediately cut it open, cleaned out the seeds, and cut out the blemish. It smelled wonderful. Just like a green bell pepper should. I cut off a quarter of it for me and one for Lin. When I handed it to him, he said “Mutual poisoning?” It’s our running gag about how every time there’s some new food from my plants, we each eat a bit at the same time. The answer to his question is “Yes” … because I’m not going to go down alone.

Well, it’s a good thing I didn’t pop the whole bit in my mouth at the same time. Oh it tasted awesome. Very green and fresh, with a slight hint of sweetness. Then, the longer I chewed, my tongue began to inform me that this pepper was hot. Not just a little hot like I expected from the description of the plant. No. It’s really, really, really hot. Jalapeño hot. Very hot jalapeño hot! Wow was that thing hot!

I’m a bit grumpy about it being so hot. I wanted a bell pepper with just a little kick, not a lot of kick with a little bell pepper. Not that it matters much anyway. None of my peppers are doing much of anything. I had the two banana peppers, but that plant hasn’t bloomed again. There’s the one lonely jalapeño still waiting to reach full size, but no more blooms on any of those plants. The cherry pepper plant bloomed weeks ago and hasn’t done anything at all since. At least the tomato plants bloom all the time and some of those blooms have started turning into tomatoes. The pepper plants are so far something of a disappointment.

I did spray all my plants today with one tablespoon Epsom’s salts in a gallon of water, which is supposed to be helpful for fruiting and blooming. After I got them all good and misted, I added some sugar to the leftover water and watered the worst looking ones with that. Someone suggested that, and at this point, why not try it? Maybe doing these things will do some good, but even though my soil tests as being really great, I still feel like my plants are lacking something and need some feeding.

I’m sure I’ll feel less grumpy about my garden tomorrow. I do, after all, have oodles of Sugar Snack tomatoes hanging around beginning to turn red, and Mr. Stripy has two tomatoes now. All is not lost.

Ow. I just rubbed my eye with my pepper corrupted hand. Yes, the Fajita Bell Pepper burns eyes just as well as tongues. Off to the bathroom to wash my eyeball! Ow, ow, ow!