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Chestnut Weevil Horror
A while back I posted about a morning stroll @ our mountain property; I took a few pictures along the way including these:
Nice enough….
A couple of weeks ago I picked up a few of the nuts; they were too fresh and tempting to leave behind.
When I got home and was considering roasting the harvest (don’t be silly, in a convection oven) they were diverted into a centerpiece for the table in the sunroom.
Again, nice enough….
Well, along the way I read about chestnut weevils while researching the right way to harvest and prepare fresh chestnuts. I didn’t think much about them since my chestnuts were so freshly picked up and most certainly unaffected by this little pest.
Yeah, right.
I received a text from my daughter today (taking fall break @ home for a couple of days during her last semester at Georgia Tech), and I quote:
“Bowl of chestnuts on the back porch is filled with maggots. Not cool!”
She wasn’t exaggerating
Before I post the graphic evidence of the above mentioned “not cool” bowl o’maggots, I’ll provide this link explaining the life cycle of the guilty party: The Chestnut Weevil.
The evidence (WARNING: don’t page down if you are eating or maggot- sensitive):
If you look carefully, you can see the escape holes and “saw dust” on the shells of some of the nuts in the bowl:
The freshly hatched culprits don’t have the wings of their parents yet so the larvae drop down to burrow into the ground for the winter. The only problem is these nuts were no longer lying on the soft ground of the north Georgia mountains, so the wiggly whitish maggots collect in the bottom of the bowl.
I wonder if I managed to pick up any nuts that weren’t carrying the evil weevil demon seed?
Doubtful.
Yes, definitely “not cool”.
One more thing:
What gave it away? The noise of the maggot conference wiggling away in the bottom of the bowl searching for the cool ground below.
Sometimes nature is just plain disgusting, isn’t it?
Time for garlic
OK.
This posts smells good, I promise.
Planting time:
“California Early”, a basic softneck Silverskin
Head:
Cloves:
Cloves with garden scissors for scale (these are big ones eh?)
A few ready to be planted
These are now planted 3″-4″ deep on 5 or 6″ grid all over the place. 2 full beds, several squares here and there. Come see me in July if you have vampire issues
And in closing, a kitteh:
Well house home stretch
The well house project progressed a bit more last Sunday.
Shimming the door frame is an art that I won’t ever master but managed to get done adequately in spite of myself.
Once up, I trimmed it up and caulked; this homely door swings true.
Insulation is the final task before winter.
As I left it:
Pimento and mini-me pimento
Over the weekend I messed around with some peppers and turned some healthy raw garden harvest into moderately unhealthy hors d’oeuvres.
Odd discovery: As I was prepping the pimentos, I discovered two that contained embedded embryonic mini peppers.
One looked to be partially ripened –
And one was still quite green:
You can see the split in the bottom of the larger “host” pepper above; I could see the little green one through the hole. Odd.
The larger ones were prepped and consumed but I passed on the smaller ones – those scenes from the movie “Alien” leave me cautious 25+ years later.
So what were the unhealthy final products? Cream and cheddar cheese stuffed jalapenos were covered with a nice wrap of bacon. (My theory: when flying into unfamiliar culinary territory, bacon is a great copilot.)
The poblano and pimentos got the same cheese stuffing but with crumbled cooked bacon in the mix. These were roasted in a convention oven @ 450 for 10-12 minutes.
No “after” pictures as they didn’t last long enough- tasty.
As for the healthy vs unhealthy bacon debate, I found a proponent for the healthy argument. He talks a good game and seems confident, what do you think?
It’s All About the Green
October 1.
Green
Green Lettuce & Arugula
Green Artichoke
Green Peppers
Green Broccoli, Cauliflower, Brussel Sprouts & Cabbage
Green with envy yet?
😉
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
It rained last night
It rained this morning
It rained this afternoon
It is raining now
Hallelujah
September is pepper time
We’ve enjoyed a steady supply of peppers for the last 3 months; a lot of bells, jalapeno & pimentos with a few poblanos as well.
But here in late September all the plants are covered up with peppers and continue to flower and set new fruit. I’d heard that it would take all season for them to really crank up and mine are following the script.
Pimentos, jalapenos, poblanos
A branch on the jalapeno plant staked to support a dozen green meanies
I had to do more staking to avoid another gravity induced dismemberment on the big Napoleon Bell pepper plant. This one plant is bigger than the other 2 combined.
With the possibility of rain in the next 24 hours I figured it best to tie up the two top branches, but of course the peppers turn almost invisible in the picture.
Artichoke
Artichokes – northwest Georgia’s leading cash crop.
Or was that central California?
This was the “just because” plant of this summer’s garden. I wanted to give them a shot. Just because.
Just because I would be the only person in northwest Georgia I know who has tried it
Just because they are a cool looking plant even if I don’t get any ‘chokes
Just because I found seeds for a variety alleged to be able to give chokes in zone 7 in one season
Just because Mrs cohutt thinks artichokes are tasty
Just because ……..
Well, I did something (else) stupid; I planted the two surviving seed starts (they are a finicky seed to germinate and have survive) against a fence where the mid to late afternoon sun would be filtered a bit. No big deal, except on the same fence just to the south of these I planted a single Tommie Toe cherry tomato plant.
This single tomato plant has grown to the point that it now has enough mass to affect the tides in the south pacific. I’ve never seen anything like it; one artichoke was smothered and one got a lot less of the mid day sun that I planned. I had basically written them off a few weeks ago as having any hope of producing.
So last week I see that peaceful Valley Farm Supply, my seed garlic vendor of choice these days, sells artichoke crowns. Hmm, I think, so you can lift the crowns and transplant them…… I guess I’ll try again next year with these two plants…
So as long as I’ve decided I’m going to transplant them, why not make sure they get a little water now and then?
Here is what the larger one looked like by now:
And with the view panned out a bit, you can see the smaller smothered one peeking out from under the behemoth,
See what i mean? These aren’t the gorgeous plants like the California pictures I found online..
But wait… is it? No way,
Yes- a miniature artichoke bud has appeared. Well look at that.
Behind cohutt's fence 