Why buy a jar of pickled jalapenos at the grocery store when you can make a home-made batch with peppers plucked from plants on your patio?

Pickled jalapenos are a favorite food around here and I usually have a store-bought jar at the ready to add to panini sandwiches, to top a pizza or to sprinkle on Mexican food.

But since gardening this year has yielded such a good chile pepper crop, I decided to create my own easy recipe for pickled peppers.

I mixed the recipe for these refrigerator pickled jalapenos by starting with the ingredient list from the back of the jar sitting in the fridge–and then adding my own ideas. I experimented with the quantities until the pickling brine tasted just right.

Before you start, please save yourself some pain and slip on a pair of plastic or rubber gloves to protect your hands and eyes while working with fresh peppers.

The truth about tomatoes is evident when tastefully arranged in a 1930s vintage glass bowl. “Scientifically speaking, a tomato is definitely a fruit.”

It’s the first of September and now that tomatoes are being eaten at every meal, it’s easy to say gardening here is just a bowl of cherry tomatoes.

The frustrations of a cold spring are a distant memory with such a bountiful harvest of tomatoes.

I planted 13 different kinds of tomatoes–and this fruit bowl is filled with 12 of them. The Giant Belgiums won’t be ready for a while.

On display here are Sungold, Crimson Carmello, Tomaccio, Sweet Treats, Supersweet 100, and Early Girl mixed together with heirloom tomato varieties Black Prince, Black Krim, Yellow Pear, Great White, Yellow Taxi, and Stupice.

It would be hard for me to choose a favorite from this bowl because all are delicious in their own way.

The hard work of sowing and growing is over around here and now it’s time to enjoy the chile pepper harvest.

One of my favorite parts of summer is when it’s almost over. That’s when gardening gets a lot more enjoyable because the hard work is done and the harvest has begun.

These days I’m having fun picking peppers off the plants on the patio.  It’s not the biggest pepper crop I’ve ever grown, but it includes seven different varieties and some are hotter than others.

In the photo from left to right are:

Casa Bella–This plant was a gift from someone who told me it grew small Jalapeno-like peppers that turned yellow. These cute little peppers are some of the hottest peppers I’ve grown–much hotter than Jalapenos. We like our peppers hot, but these are too hot to eat raw. When I add them to recipes, I only use one, remove the seeds and mince it like crazy. Once the peppers turn from yellow to red, they lose a bit of heat. I plan to dry the red peppers and then grind them into powder to sprinkle in soups, chili and other cold-weather fare.

It’s time to start harvesting and donating your Plant a Row for the Hungry produce to a food bank, soup kitchen or food pantry near you.

This morning I spent time picking and packing 7 pounds of home-grown organic tomatoes and French yellow beans to drop off at The Friends of Saint Andrew in Aurora.

It’s taken most of the summer, but I finally had grown enough fresh veggies to play a small part in the Garden Writers Association national Plant a Row for the Hungry effort here in the Denver Metro area.

I called ahead and spoke with Sarah Norton, program director, to confirm the times volunteers would be there to accept produce and to ask the best way to package it. She said individual packets would make it easier for the volunteers to distribute, so I spent about 15 minutes packaging all sizes and colors of tomatoes and handfuls of long golden beans into small baggies.

Did you plant and grow any flowers, vegetables or herbs from Renee’s Garden seeds this year? If so, you can enter Renee’s 7th Annual Photo Contest and receive more seeds.

I’m having a hard time deciding which vegetable pictures to submit to Renee’s Garden for the gardening photo contest this year. Everything I planted did so well this year, including these round baby carrots called Romeo.

If you planted any of Renee’s Garden seeds, now’s the time to take a picture of the flowers, herbs or veggies and enter the contest. Every entry receives a free packet of seeds and a chance at a $50 gift certificate.

In addition to the main contest, there’s a special kid’s garden contest, too, for anyone under age 16.

For more information about the photo contest, visit Renee’s Garden website.

Renee’s Garden is known for its high-quality seed and every year the company offers a number of new flower and vegetable varieties.

Good things do come in small packages, especially when talking about miniature tomatoes. These gems may be small in size, but they’re big on flavor.

When I planted my crop of mini tomatoes in May, I was looking forward to harvesting a big batch of small fruits in a variety of colors, shapes and sizes.

Now I’m enjoying the fruits of my spring-time efforts.

Every year I plant a number of small tomatoes in containers on my patio, mostly as insurance against elements that seem to conspire against abundant tomato gardening and harvests in my climate. Many summers it’s either too cool or too hot. There may be too little precipitation or there’s too much hail.

Planting a nice selection of tomatoes helps ensure I’ll have some kind of crop by the end of the season. While the rest of my heirloom and other larger tomatoes are still growing, I’m enjoying the superior flavor of these littler ones.

The Loch Ness Cucumber, submitted by Ron Doyle, was the winner in last year’s Weird Veggie and Funny Fruit contest sponsored by WesternGardeners.com.

If it’s August, it’s time for the WesternGardeners.com Weird Veggie and Funny Fruit contest. I hope you’ll join us for some gardening fun.

For the next month, be on the lookout for any odd-looking fruit or vegetables you find in your garden or at a farmer’s market. And I do mean odd.

I’m talking about a potato that looks like Lady Gaga or an eggplant that grew into a work of art.

I’m looking for the weird and wonderful results of what happens when things go wrong with Mother Nature’s gardening plans…like Sweet Cheeks, a pear tomato I found growing in my garden last year.

When you find a crazy veggie or funny fruit, just take a digital picture of it and email it to jodi@westerngardeners.com by September 1.

Bill McDorman, president of Seeds Trust, is dedicated to helping gardeners preserve heirloom varieties for future generations. Bill will present his “Going to Seed” presentation in Pueblo, Colo., on August 5. (Image and information courtesy of Seeds Trust.)

Legendary seedsman Bill McDorman, president of Seeds Trust, will bring his Going to Seed Summer Revival Tour to Pueblo on Thursday, August 5th.

The program, co-sponsored by Pueblo County and CSU Extension, helps promote the role of gardeners in saving heirloom seeds.

Bill’s presentation is one part exposé on the need to address diversity, regional adaptability and food security by saving seeds, and one part seed saving techniques.

In the late 1980s, Bill was so concerned about the globalization of the seed market and the proliferation of hybrid American seeds, he traveled behind the Iron Curtain searching for open-pollinated, cold-tolerant varieties.

While in Russia, Bill was given seeds to many heirloom treasures from gardeners who did so under severe penalty if caught.

These ripe sungold tomatoes signal the summer harvest is about to begin.

This year’s growing season is taking a lot longer than most–just ask the Hatch chile farmers in New Mexico or the peach producers on the Western Slope. Many crops are delayed because of the cool spring weather that seemed to last forever.

I experimented with planting two tomato plants in early April, thinking the wall of waters would protect them. I was dreaming of taking my first bite of home-grown tomato in June.

Ha!

Those poor plants had to suffer through freezing weather, several snowstorms, driving rain and then suddenly hot weather. The tomatoes on those plants are just now starting to ripen.

I planted 14 different tomato varieties, but some of the tomato plants have yet to set fruit. That means I won’t be growing any 2 pound Giant Belgiums like I did last season.

The September/October issue of Hobby Farm Magazine features everything you need to know about home canning in a special section called “Canning Simplified.”

Gardening season is still in full swing around here, but it won’t be long before it’s time to preserve the harvest by freezing, drying and canning.

If you’ve never canned before, or you feel like you need a refresher course, be sure to pick up a copy of the fall issue of Hobby Farm Magazine.

Inside the “True Country Living” magazine’s pages is a super-duper article called “Oh Yes You Can!” by Nancy Mann Jackson that includes everything you need to know about canning–including a quote from me on why I love the canning process.

Nancy builds the case for canning, details how to gather equipment and supplies, provides the steps for getting started and explains all the safety measures that guard against food poisoning. She’s even included recipes for hot salsa, quick pickles, and microwave apple butter.