Pickled Peppers

     My garden did very well this year and my two bell pepper plants have produced twelve large fruits. These were labeled as Orange Peppers. As such, they would have started out green, then gone to yellow, then to orange. But instead, they went from green to red. I like red peppers, my wife does not. Yellow and Orange bell peppers ARE better though. 

    As a result, I am the only one eating the peppers and one of these monsters lasts me a week cut up in salads. I don't want they rest to go to waste so I decided to pickle some.

    I used the same technique I used to make my "Dilly-beans"; canned, pickled green beans. You can go back a couple postings and see how I did that.

    I had the leftover juice from two jars of "Famous Dave's Spicy Pickles". In truth, these Famous Dave's pickles are not all that spicy, they are sweet with just a hint of sharpness. I love them and buy them frequently. I thought the sweetness would complement the sweetness of the peppers. Hopefully they aren't too sweet.

    I cut two peppers into strips and filled two sterilized canning jars (pint size jars) with the cut up peppers. Then I poured in boiling pickle juice to fully cover the peppers. I left one half inch of air space in the jar. I lightly sealed the jars with the lid and ring, placed them in a boiling water bath, and boiled them for five minutes. Afterward, I took them out of the water and snugged down the lids so the jars could seal. As they cooled down, I heard the pop, proof they were now sealed.

    Time will tell how well they turned out. I will wait at least two months before I try them so that the flavor permeates the peppers. They should taste good.

 

Small Solar Powered Comfort

     I went camping in New York to do some kayak fishing this past week. I have access to a property where I can camp for free and it is near to a great river for fishing. But, it was forecast to hit 93 degrees during the days and go down to the mid-70s at night. That is warm when you are in a tent. A great time to test out my Ecoflow Delta 1300 Solar Generator and the 200 watt portable solar panel array.

    I took along a small fan and a small light to make the evenings a bit more pleasant. I like to read at night after a long day; it relaxes my mind and helps me sleep better. So, a small reading light would be better than trying to hold a flashlight while reading and turning pages. 

    The fan was awesome. It moved just enough air to make it comfortable (on its LOW setting) and the white noise masks my tinnitus quite nicely. 

    The portable solar generator I brought along for this trip is small, its battery capacity is only 1,300 watt/hours. That is more than a car battery and you can run it down to zero charge without damaging it. Lead acid car batteries should not be discharged below 50% . 

    I had both the light and fan on for about two hours and it only dropped the charge to 89%. I didn't really need to recharge it for the second night but I wanted to test out the solar panels. 

     I bought a refurbished 200 watt folding array a couple months ago from Ecoflow. There are four actual panels and each has a primary side and a secondary side. The secondary side will generate a little bit of extra charge from reflected light while the primary side is oriented to the sun. In perfect conditions it will generate 200 watts of power. I had far less than perfect conditions and was generating 135-155 watts of power, depending on the clouds. I was able to fully recharge the batteries in one hour and 45 minutes. It would take several hours to recharge the system if the battery was drained though.

    I just used some broken off branches to prop up the panel, trying to get it facing the sun as directly as possible. But you can tell by the extended shadow that it was not propped up high enough. I will make adjustable legs from dowel rods or old tent pole sections to do this better.

    These generators are very temperature sensitive so I used the panels to shade it. The generator also has an internal cooling fan to protect the circuitry.

    I also brought along an inexpensive solar charged, motion-activated light. I think I paid less than $20 for this. I charged it during the first day and then used it as a security light at night. Any person or large critter that would walk in front of it would activate the light. It is a nice bit of security. You can also just switch it on and use it as an area light.

    

    I fished in the early morning and late evenings when it was cooler and then hung out on a shaded porch during the hot hours, reading. These Amish men were not so fortunate; they were bringing in hay during the heat of the day, out in the full sun. God bless them.

 

Garden 2024 - Spring

   As readers might recall, I bought the components and set up an emergency power system using solar panels and battery storage. And since I had all that power just sitting around waiting for an emergency, I set up a simple grow light system. That grow light system allowed me to get seeds germinated and sprouts growing at least a month before I ever had done before due to the normal cold, wet springs in Pennsylvania. Now, as we roll into June (tomorrow), I already have a well-established garden growing strong.

  This smaller raised bed has about thirty lettuce plants and twenty onions doing really well in it. As the days heat up, the lettuce will be affected but until then I am eating salad every day and it is really good.

  In this longer bed, I have fifteen green bean plants two peppers, and four sweet potato plants growing. I intend to get a couple more pepper plants and will fill in the gaps with root vegetables.

  In the other long bed, I have two tomato plants and three cucumbers. I will do a second planting of green beans in the far side of this bed later in the summer to be my fall crop of beans.

  I planted two more sweet potatoes in this low raised bed and staked in a trellis for them to grow up to save ground space.

  I have about twenty potatoes growing in this bed. I will add wood chips and other organic matter to the bed as the plants' foliage grows. This bed was fallow last year, and I piled on six inches of mulched grass and leaves to it in the fall and covered with plastic, so it is raring to go. 

  I still have lots of open spaces that I want to fill. I just need to look through my seeds and see what I want to grow.