Fickle things: Ladybugs

I've been slowly taking indoor plants into the screened sunroom where the air and slight light change will hopefully acclimate them to the outdoors before I thrust them entirely out there to fend for themselves.

One plant that I've been aching to chuck out is my ornamental pepper, Black Pearl.

Out of all of my plants, the ornamental peppers have suffered greatly from an aphid infestation that I couldn't shake this winter despite repeated neem sprayings until I simply killed the Tricolore garda and then the Purple Calico soon thereafter (which I think got water logged and rotted too... my bad, I had a container that was spiffy and thought I'd be good at not overwatering.  Crud.)

The Black Pearl has held out pretty well out of all of them and was attacked last.  I didn't know of the infestation for quite a while I think because the new leaves on it are this lighter green the aphids hid in.  Later when they moved on to the darker purple leaves/stems did I CLEARLY see them.

Learning from my prior neem frenzy with the now dead other ornamental peppers (and there was poor light, and it's been cold in the house! They were weakened I say! Weakened!)  I just started snipping off the severely infested bits and made a good effort to check every day and squish any aphid stragglers.  Ick, that was a sticky mess.

So, as the weather appears to be more regularly now, I moved it into the sunroom and lo and behold, there was a a LADYBUG on the screen area, basking in the sunshine.

I promptly snatched it up and thought, "Haha! Now I've got you, you stinking aphids! Meet my leetle friend!"

Then placed the ladybug onto Black Pearl. AND, like all ladybugs it tried to fly away.

So I put it back on the plant.  It attempted to fly away again, but hit a leaf above it (brilliant bug, obviously).  Either ladybugs have a bad sense of smell/sight because I placed it on a plant with a veritable feast in front of it, and it didn't care.  After this long and starved winter? What gave?!

Luckily it appeared to start sniffing around and moving its mouth parts like it was really getting at stuff and began to explore the territory.

"PERFECT!  It's like my own aphid ROOMBA!" I sort of cackled in my head and rushed off to get a pic of this momentous occasion.

When I got back the ladybug had decided to fly off and thus, no pic could be got.

Then I found a small stem COVERED in aphids and got a bit huffy and chucked the Black Pearl outside in a sheltered location.  Here's where I do a little prayer hoping that the aphids will not like the weather and just melt down or something (like be discovered by smart ladybugs) and allow my Black Pearl to continue growing merrily along.

In the mean time, I've started some new Tricolore Garda and Purple Calico ornamental peppers from seed again.  Luckily for me, those things really put out little pepper fruits!

Will return to regularly scheduled programming...

... I've been feeling sort of run down and emo as of late and need a bit of a mental break and thus will be taking a short hiatus from life for a while (about a business week).

I will however be having regularly scheduled short posts to fill in the blankness and blankity-blankness of life so please, stay tuned folks.

When I return, there will be thorough goodness on companion planting and no-till gardening! Delicious!

I know that my latest posts have been of the the buggy nature rather than the plant-y one, so I will get back to my roots (pun very much intended)

Allow me to distract you with a plethora of ornamental peppers:
These are a combination of the tri-colore garda and calico ornamental peppers that I so adore. Most of them ripened up to the usually associated pepper red color, so that's a little boring as I wanted to have a bit more variety in my pepper jelly I am going to make from them, but color doesn't change their flavor (aka heat, so I'll live).

I like running the little peppers through my hands... they remind me of tiny gems, rubies, topazes, amethysts and such. Or of brightly colored jelly beans! Wouldn't that be evil to leave in a candy dish?

I am extremely idiotic when it comes to handling hot peppers though. I have a bad habit of rubbing my eyes all the time and as you can guess... yeah, ALWAYS burn my eyes when I handle peppers and I can't bring myself to wear gloves because REAL chili pepper lovers don't use gloves (*MANLY CHEST THUMP* here)!

This recent pepper foray led me to wash my hands 5 various times with dish soap after an initial vodka hand rinse (I read that vodka is good at getting oils off and can be used as a poison ivy treatment too). (I used the vodka to make a killer bloody mary btw).

Even after all that washing and vodka-ing (for Science, I say!) I still was getting some numbing burning in my eye.

CONCLUSION: Chili oil is a stubborn chemical to remove and should be utilized on younger siblings, evil neighborhors, husbands, BUGS & PLANT THIEVES.

Tricolore Garda shows its colors!

Isn't it gorgeous?! Orange, purple, cream, yellow! (Ok, so cream and yellow can nearly be the same thing, but we're making an exception here because I like more colors)

I still have yet to take a little bite from each different colored pepper (a little scared honestly) but I know, in the name of food science, I must :P

This will make an even lovelier pepper jelly than the one before, and I really, really really ought to try it the proper way... rather than the cheatin' freezer jelly method. Gotta be hardcore and all about this canning business.

Speaking of which , my pineapple sage is looking mighty overgrown and I hear that's spiffy to make into an apple jelly with....

Already I'm feeling all jelled out.

Pepper Present

Garden log -314563.48 (For you trekkie fans out there)
Experimentation of the ornamental pepper, tricolore garda, proves in the first cream-purple phase of its 4 color phase growth that the pepper is indeed quite hot. Investigation must be done as to why there is no apparent heat for the first 5 seconds of chewing and then sudden "face slap" of heat immediately thereafter.

Jelly was deemed the appropriate fate for these peppers.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I had one lone ripened red bell pepper, a couple of jalapenos and MANY ornamental peppers (the purple-black calico and tricolor ones) available, so in the name of Tasty, I decided to make pepper jelly.



I didn't even know pepper jelly existed until about 2 years ago, when my husband and his mother introduced me to the stuff (with cream cheese!) Ever since then I have been obsessed, though not the point I need a jar in the house at all times, I just savor it when it is around.

I had never made jelly/jam before and while my husband and I had talked about canning last year (buying all the lids and tongs and such), we sort of got intimidated by all the steps and worries of contamination that we ended up washing all the one-time-use lids and used the jars instead for storage.

Yesterday I went out and bought some more canning jars (wide mouth ones, baby!) and powder pectin and noticed freezer jam pectin. I decided to grab some of that as well as I heard good things about it on various websites I frequent.

When I got home I did a trial run of freezer jam using some leftover cherries that I boiled in carmenere grape wine we had from our recent foray into French desserts (FLAMING CHERRY TART!) to use for acidity versus lemon juice and dumped in half the pectin because it was a small batch.

Sat around for half an hour while it set, cutting up hot peppers and such for the pepper jelly. After the half hour set time was up I tested the jelly. 'Ce magnifique! Cherries, wine, ya!

I then contemplated for 5 minutes about doing real canning with the other pectin and reread the directions for true canning on the box before I decided that this was a little too much for a small test batch of pepper jelly and decided to use the other half of the freezer pectin instead.

Boiled all the peppers in vinegar, some sugar and decided to add a dash of the carmenere for a bit o'colore and then tossed in the pectin, before pouring the entirety of simmering liquid into my shiny new Bell canning jar. Half hour of cool time, and a little tasting...
Mwahahaha! This was the best pepper jelly ever! The ornamental peppers give a great pungent spicy bite and awesome color and it isn't too sweet. I am proud of the natural additional color that the splash of wine gave.

Dang, I could make jelly all day. I still want to learn how to can For Real so that things are stable at room temperature and I don't take up additional fridge/freezer space, but for now, I am happy.