Texas Heat!

[jinman]

Yep, my peppers and tomatoes in my garden are coming back and putting on lots of blooms. I picked several nice bell peppers, pimentos, and tomatoes about the size of golf balls this morning. The tomatoes sound small, but during the heatwave, they rarely got bigger diameter than a quarter. I think I'll have good tomatoes and peppers up until first frost. Heck, we even have one watermelon that came up volunteer and it has a footlong melon about 6" in diameter.

 

[pacerron]

Yep, my peppers and tomatoes in my garden are coming back and putting on lots of blooms. I picked several nice bell peppers, pimentos, and tomatoes about the size of golf balls this morning. The tomatoes sound small, but during the heatwave, they rarely got bigger diameter than a quarter. I think I'll have good tomatoes and peppers up until first frost. Heck, we even have one watermelon that came up volunteer and it has a footlong melon about 6" in diameter.

Jim,
That's great, just like you predicted a couple months ago.
We got the last bucket of cucumbers and peppers yesterday from our little garden. It was a great harvest do to watering a lot and lots of canning of tomatoes, juice, relish, salsa, dill pickles and frozen squash resulted. we ate tomatoes breakfast, lunch and supper for 2 months. What to make with the hundreds of sweet banana, hot hungarian, and jalapeno peppers is always a challenge. We had the sweet ones raw about every meal and another favorite became cooking sausage and putting it into shredded parmesean, spreading on the pepper halves and baking. Using pepperoni or shredded fried bacon with the parmesian was another great taste.
The one that really hit the taste buds was using hot hungarian wax or jalapeno in the receipt attached in the picture. The hot and sweet combination is really great, if you like that sort of thing and your gall bladder and heart can stand it!
We have our 7 foot high deer cloth and 8 foot metal stakes all ready purchased for next spring's garden.
Thanks for all your good garden tips this summer.
Ron

 

[Western]

Bird, that was spot on for our place too. Real nice this morning, even if I haven't accomplished what I set out to do on a nice day.

 

[Bartcephus]

Sunday night we got about an 1 1/2 up here. Jim, I'm jealous of your garden. I was so disappointed I shredded and plowed mine under a couple of months ago. But now, I have a great start on a turnip garden! I'll be checking the food plots out tonight. Hope to see some sprouting action, although I really don't think 3 days will be enough time for the seeds to germinate. I too wish that we had one of those week long soaker rains.

Humidity is certainly up from the 15% figures we were seeing. But not near the 80% that we usually have around here. Temps have dropped into the low 90's last couple of days.

Eddie, Did the rain get that far South?

Bart

 

[Western]

Last night on our local news they said a power line was responsible for the Bastrop fire. Most expensive fire in Texas history, should top 150 million.

If we hadn't had the heavy snow/ ice this last winter, we may have had more power line started fires, but the power companies where frantically trimming trees this Spring since the limbs had been causing so many outages during the cold snap. At least where I'm at.

 

[txdon]

Last night on our local news they said a power line was responsible for the Bastrop fire. Most expensive fire in Texas history, should top 150 million.

That is what I heard also with the addition that the tree that fell on the wires was not in the right-of-way (or responsibility) of the power company.

 

[txdon]

Bastrop County property owners may get a break by getting their taxes prorated to September 4th because of a little known provision in the Texas tax code.

Bastrop County may consider rare reappraisal of properties destroyed by wildfires

 

[jinman]

What to make with the hundreds of sweet banana, hot hungarian, and jalapeno peppers is always a challenge. Ron

I copied that recipe and will give it a try. It may be next year because my peppers this year have not been big. I have a lot of them, but just not many 6" to 8" peppers like in past years. What I do with banana peppers and sweet bell peppers is to brown a full chopped onion in olive oil in a wok. Then, I add the sliced peppers (two or three cups) and stir fry them until tender. Just before dishing them up, I put a tablespoon of soy sauce in and let it steam into the peppers. I eat this dish just like any other vegetable with a meal. It's particularly good with grilled steak or pork chops.

 

[Bartcephus]

Jim,

That kinda talk makes me hungry. When will dinner be ready? :licking: :laughing:

 

[pacerron]

I copied that recipe and will give it a try. It may be next year because my peppers this year have not been big. I have a lot of them, but just not many 6" to 8" peppers like in past years. What I do with banana peppers and sweet bell peppers is to brown a full chopped onion in olive oil in a wok. Then, I add the sliced peppers (two or three cups) and stir fry them until tender. Just before dishing them up, I put a tablespoon of soy sauce in and let it steam into the peppers. I eat this dish just like any other vegetable with a meal. It's particularly good with grilled steak or pork chops.

Jim,
The wife says the receipt is for peppers about 3" long.
Six inch would take twice as much ingredient.
Jalapeno as you know is really hot when green and gets a little sweeter when left to turn red on the vine. We like them both ways.
Ron

 

[Western]

Bastrop County property owners may get a break by getting their taxes prorated to September 4th because of a little known provision in the Texas tax code.

Bastrop County may consider rare reappraisal of properties destroyed by wildfires

Don, That sure would be a blessing , but I can't imagine the school district being able to function without that "cash". I wonder if their school enrollment will go down? Some folks may be forced to move. Very tricky situation down their.

Also on another topic you may find interesting, On the news last night they showed the oldest living fire fighter in the world! A man that works for the Irving TX FD, 76 years old I believe and is retiring this year. He has been passing all the physical test with time to spare each year, just an amazing guy it seemed.

 

[two_bit_score]

Bastrop County property owners may get a break by getting their taxes prorated to September 4th because of a little known provision in the Texas tax code.

Bastrop County may consider rare reappraisal of properties destroyed by wildfires

This will help and I'm really glad to see it.

Just hope the insurance companies don't try to screw people like they usually do.

 

[Bartcephus]

NE Texas received another blessing of rain today. Still not near enough... in fact... not even close. Hope the rest of you are getting more than we are!

Bart

 

[Bird]

NE Texas received another blessing of rain today. Still not near enough... in fact... not even close. Hope the rest of you are getting more than we are!

Bart

Yep, I went to Sam's Club, had to turn the windshield wipers on for one swipe 3 times, even felt some drops in the air, and the NWS says Denton got .04", but my rain gauge is still bone dry.

 

[charlz]

Did you guys get enough rain to put out the fires or are they still burning?

 

[Western]

Most of the fires I know of are out, but I'm sure there are some somewhere.

I ended with just under 1/4" from 2am to 2 pm today and thankful for it.

 

[Bird]

You want to see how bad the drought is in Texas, here's something from the Parks & Wildlife Department.

2011 Texas Drought

 

[Western]

Telling photos Bird.

 

[Bartcephus]

Wow, It's been so hot, I haven't even thought about going to a park this summer. Thanks for the link Bird.

Bart

 

[jinman]

My thermometer says it's 46.5 degrees this morning. There's lots of dew and even some low hanging fog, but we only got .03" of random rain yesterday. My lake is down so far that I'm digging/hauling sand where the creek makes a sandbar as it enters the lake. I'll try to remember and get some pictures the next time I'm diggin'.