Recipes for a Cheapskate: Poppin' Peppers

Too many things to do this weekend to really get the dirt under my fingernails but I did get to harvest my jalapeño plant.

As the peppers were starting to turn bright red, that signaled that the time had come.

I got 13 peppers, just enough to make into a side dish for this week's barbecue.
So what can I do? Make mini jalapeño poppers.
Easy in concept but the smaller size of these peppers make a bit hard to stuff.

Each pepper is sliced on one side, propped open, and stuffed with my homemade mixture of cream cheese, chopped serrano peppers, and bacon.

I wrap them up in foil, poke a few holes in the top, and then put on the grill with our burgers.

The finished product looks something like this.

Darryl
Copyright 2013 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

Battling Back for a Harvest

So far, my harvests this year have been pitiful. The drought's taking it's toll...not on the plants directly...but driving animals down from the dry, cooked mountains behind our house.

Deer have been using my rose garden as a diner, picking up dinner whenever the flowers are in bloom. Squirrels have invaded, some even trying to burrow under our water heater, and have decimated my zucchini. Although they can't stand the hot chiles, the leaves are to their taste and our pepper harvest is very minimal.

The pest control guy says to just block their access so we try to fill every rodent-sized hole with bricks. Just when I think I'm making progress, I look out and see another squash or pepper plant laid waste.

We have had limited success with our tomatoes, especially the cherry tomatoes I grow in a hanging basket.

The grapes have been my most successful battleground. Years ago, I put up a rodent-deterring cage around the bottom of the vine. That works for the mammals but the birds still have access to the top.

I've tried netting and, while that worked, the fruit was tiny. My wife thinks it constricted the plant too much.

This year I applied holographic tape to scare the birds away. My wife says she still see mockingbirds eating the fruit but even so, some clusters have made it through (I put fruit nets around some of the clusters but not most of them).

The heat and drought have also had another effect. Our grapes usually ripen at the beginning of September. We're harvesting now...the first week of July...and expect to get around 10 pounds.

At least I've had one success this year. Now, if I can just sneak some veggies past the squirrels, I'd be a happy gardener again.

Darryl
Copyright 2014 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

My Languishing Lawn

In the valleys of Southern California, it regularly tops 100 degrees in summer. In my particular micro-climate, pushed right up against the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, the hills trap and intensify that heat so that we also have several days of better than 110 degrees.

It's hot, plain and simple, and not all of the greenery can take it.

My lawn is one. It's St. Augustine grass. It used to look good for around 6 months of the year, and then die back because of the heat or winter dormancy.

We also used to have a big ash tree that shaded much of it but the city, fearing it might have termites, removed it and the shade it provided (when we asked for a replacement, the reply was "we don't have a budget for that"). 

While I missed the shade, I didn't miss raking up all those leaves so I didn't make a fuss about it.

Until I found the other insidious effect...without the shade, my lawn is severely scorched from this blistering summer sun (see the picture at the top).

So, this fall, my big project is the rehabilitation of my lawn. Since I'm the Cheapskate, I've got to find a way to do it that's not going to cost an arm and a leg.

I looked into renting an aerator. Minimum of $45 for three hours...not too bad...but the guys at the rental shop are scaring me saying you better know what you're doing with it and that it's a real bear to operate.  "A gardener can do it for around the same price," I'm told.

Approaching my neighbor's gardener, he tells us at least $800 and that doesn't include the cost of the aerator rental. He'd rather install sprinklers and a new lawn for a cost of several thousand dollars.

My middle and last name might be "Urban Gardener," but he's not quiet getting the first name...

So here's my plan...I'm going to overseed with drought resistant grass.  First, to aerate the lawn, I'm going to wet down the ground real good.

Then I'm getting a metal rake/fork and gouging the ground to aerate and break up the roots.

Some of those clumps are pretty darn tough...look what it did.

Here's today's results. I'm going to do a little bit each day until I'm done. Then, I've got a 10-day trip coming up where I can seed, set the timer on the sprinkler to water everyday, no one will be here to bother it, and - hopefully - that can give it the time and moisture it needs for some quality germination.

Wish me luck!

Darryl
Copyright 2013 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

Too Hot to Handle

I had a slate of chores to do this weekend but a heat wave hit and temps spiked to over 110 on our patio (that's about 44 degrees for my European friends). 

Had to take a breather and take it back up next weekend. The lawn did need mowing but I just hit the worst spots with the weed whacker. 

This zucchini was in danger of going overripe, so I went out and got that too before I died of heat stroke. It's big enough for the three of us to feed on for a week.

I'll try to pick it back up next weekend...

 

Darryl
Copyright 2013 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved