IHAVE HAD A ROW OF TINY HOT PEPPERS PINNED to my wall for years, just under the primitive still life of fruit over the dining table. I don’t know what got me started turning chiles into pin-ups, but it’s a habit that has stuck (tee hee), and every so often one becomes the zip in a pot of wintertime chili—or the start of next year’s pepper plants. The topic is…you guessed it: Capsicum annuum. Are you feeling sweet, or spicy?
Those are my faded little hot chiles (above), in case you think I’m kidding. I’ll replace them with a new shiny red set this fall, promise.
STUFFED PEPPERS (with Uncle Ben’s, chop meat, onion, Parmesan) were a staple of growing-up years, baked in Mom’s deep Pyrex casserole dish with V-8 juice as the liquid. So 1960s—and so easy and filling, right? (These days I skip the meat and use brown rice, plus pine nuts, onions and raisins, with my own tomato sauce thinned-down as the juice.)
But my go-to pepper dish is appetizer, not main: simple oven-roasted peppers that make a bowl of olives and some bread and cheese a lot more colorful, and delicious.
freezing the harvest
SPEAKING OF FREEZING: Peppers (especially organic ones, yikes!) can be wildly expensive in winter, so while they’re plentiful, think about putting some away for use in recipes like soups, stews and chili. It’s easy:
Simply wash and core the peppers, removing the seeds and the white membranes inside, and patting dry. Either put just enough for an average recipe in each small container (rather then having to defrost a giant brick) or better yet, do this extra step:
Pre-freeze your halves or slices loose on baking sheets, then once frozen, remove from the sheet and stash in freezer bags. Produce that’s pre-frozen in pieces before packing into
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The all-year round wait is over – Fantastic Gardeners brings you the jolly hugs of evergreen trees! From this month forward, real Christmas tree delivery is available at every door in London. Forget the hassle and concentrate on gift selection or yummy recipe browsing, while we take care of the centrepiece in your holiday decoration.
Interior designer Stephanie Hunt’s seven-bedroom, 10-bathroom Park City, Utah, home is a grown-up, glammed-up, sophisticated version of a funhouse—it’s got so many surprises and delights at every turn. And believe it or not, she got the inspiration for the home on a freezing winter trip to Reykjavík, Iceland. “We were there for a quick weekend trip and I was struck by how the simple barn structures—very close together—looked like one unit. Because we’re art collectors I wondered what it would feel like to have each pod or pavilion, if you will, developed in a simple, honest architectural style, connected by halls and glass elements, with the halls serving sort of in-home art galleries,” she explains.
Ornamental Japanese Maples are widely available for planting in your garden. The autumn colouring makes these trees spectacular when planted en mass in a woodland or Japanese garden setting.
Oak trees conjure up images of Robin Hood and mystical Oak forests. Britain has made good use of Oak trees down the centuries. ‘From little acorns great Oak trees grow’
Hay fever and Asthma attacks can be brought on by Scented Plants as well as pollen or Fungal Spores. Histamin problems can also be exacerbated by scent and smells in the garden.
For something a bit different this book on botanic art covers some of the unusual colours from black flowers, plants and seaweed like strange green, blue and puce pink.
One thing is sure the climate in your garden will change. You already know one week will be different to the next and I can’t remember when two months or any years were the identical to others. In many areas you can get 3 or 4 seasons in one day (or in Scotland one hour!).
Snowdrops are officially called Galanthus. This snowdrop is Galanthus elwessii with larger than normal blooms and a honey scent the other main species are Nivalis and Plicatus. The snowdrop is very hardy, grows in most soils and prefers partial shade.
Arduaine Garden in Scotland is well-known in international Rhododendron circles for the number of wonderful species grown here, many of which are considered tender elsewhere and grow unusually under a canopy of mature Japanese larch. To some people, rhododendrons are those unpleasant purple-flowered objects which clog up our native woodlands. This is but one species, Rhododendron ponticum or a hybrid of it which spreads rapidly both by seed and sucker. Arduaine’s collection is extensive containing about 400 distinct species. The rhododendrons range from the large-leaved giants such as Rhododendron protistum, Rhododendron sinogrande and Rhododendron macabeanum to the small-leaved, high altitude plants which are often classed as rock plants, a sample of which would include Rhododendron fastigiatum, impeditum and orthocladum. In between these two extremes sit the majority of species of differing sizes with a variety of foliage shapes and an astonishing range of flower colour and form. One of the specialities is the only Rhododendron from Ceylon – Rhododendron arboreum subsp. zeylanicum.