good afternoon lovely friends!!!! the sun is shining brightly here in my neck of the woods and I'm thankful for it. I know as of late, a lot of people are hurting from the hurricanes that have ripped thru the Southern US and the Appalachian Mountains. lots of death and destruction has taken place and my heart breaks for them all. I pray that God will help the survivors. I pray that this country will step up and help these good people. please continue to pray for these people and the areas that has been devastated. it will be a very long recovery period. years and years for most.
it's just about that time to wrap up the summer garden and put it to bed for the long season. oh how it breaks my heart. I have enjoyed this garden season. and I love doing things that people have said it can't work or it won't work. if you want to see this old person get into a tizzy, just tell me that something can't be done, and I'll prove you wrong or right, one of the other. but when it comes to gardening, I'll probably prove you wrong, but you'll never know it. unless you find it out by accident. hahahaha """if you can't be an encourager, keep ya yap shut.""" hahaha """but if ya say it to me, I'll prove ya wrong every time!!!""" hahaha
just wanted to share what I'm up to over the last few weeks and a little bit about why I do what I do sometimes. I've had a lot on my dehydrators the last few weeks, so this is just a touch of what I've been up to. but I need to share why I do what I do.
the first pic is my harvest from sept 24th. the pic second pic is everything I got on the dehydrator sept 25th. I stripped the stevia leaves from the stems yesterday and got a good 2 quarts. I just popped them in the fridge till this morning. I got them layered on 3 of the trays. they are on the bottom of my upward forced air dehydrator. I didn't want my stevia getting hot pepper infused into it. although that might be an idea......hummmm. hahaha
so that leaves me with all these peppers. my goal is to be able to keep each pepper separate and all their seeds respectively separate too. I done some experimenting a few years ago and this is something that I found out. not only does dehydrating at 110*F keep my produce from turning gray or black, but it also doesn't damage any of the viable seeds in the produce. I was in an online group, and I asked if anyone had ever planted a seed from a dehydrated pepper. I was quickly jumped on, cussed up one side and down the other for EVEN ASKING that question. well, that was all the dogged determination I needed to find out for myself what can be done. and I'm happy to report that I did find out.
do not ever plan on next years garden coming from dehydrated seeds. that's NOT what I'm saying at all. but I am saying, that if you've dehydrated your seeds at 110*F and if the seeds are viable to begin with, even before dehydrating, guess what? they're still viable. they will grow a pepper plant. but, that's only if the seed was viable to begin with.
when I was told that it was impossible and that I was stirring a pot, well, that didn't sit well with me. I'm not a pot stirrer!!!!! but that was all I needed to set out and prove it one way or the other. I have a small greenhouse on my deck. I've started hundreds of seeds in it over the years. it gets up to 125 degrees easily and my thermometer doesn't go any higher, so it probably gets hotter. but seeds will germinate in the heat of that greenhouse. now, I try not to let it get that hot during the day when I'm trying to sprout seeds, but sometimes it might get that hot before I get the door opened.
that particular spring I dug around and found seeds in the bottom of my pepper jar that I had dehydrated the fall before. I put them in my seed trays. nothing. I done a couple more, making sure I got seeds that looked like they were viable. nothing.
as soon as I got peppers that was ready to come off the plant later in the summer when they started changing color, I was picking different types of peppers and that's when my experimenting started.
I knew I had been dehydrating at 135*F. so I loaded a few peppers and dropped the temp to 125*F. as soon as they were dehydrated, I got another batch going at 120*F. as soon as they were dehydrated I done another batch at 115*F. and the last batch I done was at 110*F. then I took a few seeds from each temperature that I had dehydrated and started the process of trying to see what, if anything would grow.
just a couple of seeds from each temp and marked my trays well. from that experiment, the only thing that sprouted and grew was from the 110*F and the 115*F dehydrated peppers. both seeds that I planted from the 110*F pepper jar came up. 1 seed from the 115*F pepper jar came up. none of the rest of them came up.
the next year, I done basically the same thing. and for the last 2 or 3 years, I've been dehydrating everything at 110*f for these reasons that I have mentioned. for beautiful colors of my produce and viable pepper seeds.
like I said, do not count on a garden from dehydrated seeds. but if someone gives you some pepper that you love, that's been dehydrated, ask them at what temp they dehydrated. you just may be able to grow a pepper from one of the seeds. once I figured that out, now, when I give someone some dehydrated peppers, I always tell them that if they like the peppers, try to grow a pepper from a seed, because most of them will be viable.
now, back to the pictures. I wanted to keep all the peppers and their seeds separate from the others. so I got to digging around and found these little parchment tart cups. I took the liners from my trays and flattened these out just a little bit and then as I sliced my peppers, I put them in the little tart cups. they turned out to be perfect for what I was wanting to do. when I got done with cutting one variety, I washed the cutting board, my knife and my gloves I used to chop up those hot little buggers. so I think this will be a good way to help keep all the peppers and seeds separate.
each year I always grow 1 or 2 peppers from each variety that I have dehydrated. just to keep proving to myself that I done something that someone told me was impossible to do and then commenced to cuss me.
this probably isn't something for everyone to try. but if you have an experimental attitude, you may want to try the same thing. my philosophy is "something is better than nothing". and if seeds ever get hard to come by, then for a while, I'll have seeds of some of my favorite peppers to grow.
experimenting with seeds is not a bad thing. if it was, I would not, under any circumstances suggest anyone try it and I would not have done it myself. I want to always be safe in my kitchen and garden and I would never make a suggestion that could knowingly harm someone in any way. if anything, I'll strongly discourage anyone from doing something potentially harmful.
having said all that, I'll even encourage you to save seeds from anything hybrid. when you can't get seeds, "something is be better than nothing." just don't buy into the traditional "NO, you can't do that!!!" guess what, can't never did do anything but discourage those around it. so try to save seeds from anything you can get your hands on. hybrid or heirloom, a seed is a seed and will produce something. you know my drill by now, "something is better than nothing!!!"
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