Growing peppers seems to come naturally for some gardeners, while others always seem to struggle. Sometimes this stems from easily-avoided mistakes or accepting certain myths or misinformation as correct.
Today we’re looking at the basics of growing peppers in your home garden and some mistakes and myths to be aware of and avoid. You might look at this as a how-not-to guide because occasionally it’s just easier showing what not to do than describing and explaining the right way. Plus, seeing other’s mistakes sometimes sinks in faster.
These are our observations from our 20+ years of gardening combined with the past 10 years of gardening questions we’ve answered.
The initial conditions you choose are critical to sprouting, transplanting and growing success, no matter what seed you are planting. Here are some things to consider as you grow your peppers this season.
Chocolate Mini Bell Peppers
Starting Seeds
Pepper seed germination – even under optimum conditions – is often slow and erratic. Don’t compare your tomato seed germination with peppers and think they aren’t performing as they should.
Tomatoes can sprout in 3 – 5 days in ideal conditions, while peppers might take 14 to 21 days. This is normal, be patient, and don’t worry!
The two most common problems in pepper seed germination for home gardeners is soil that is too cool and not moist enough.
Use any readily available thermometer that will accurately read in the 60° to 100°F range and insert it an inch into the soil. If it’s 80° or above, you should have good success. Soil temperature below 75°F can delay seed germination by 3 weeks or more!
An easy way to determine soil moisture is by touching the surface of the soil with your finger – it should be damp to slightly wet where you touched the soil, and you can feel the moisture when you rub your fingers together. If not, it’s a little too dry.
A good rule of thumb for germinating pepper seeds is warm, moist soil – meaning 80° – 90°F – watered from above with warm water.
This will consistently give you better germination on all pepper seeds – sweet or hot. Maintain the soil temperature with heat mats or placing the seedling flats in a consistently warm area such as on top of a freezer or refrigerator. Warm water from above minimizes the cooling effect on the soil as opposed to bottom watering during sprouting. Once the seedlings have sprouted, switch to bottom watering to minimize mold and fungus issues.
Alma Paprika Pepper
Transplanting
Young seedlings need to be conditioned or prepared for the outside garden environment, or they will suffer greatly or die. Seedlings are tender with soft tissues, sensitive leaves, and small root systems. They aren’t ready to be plopped into the early spring garden without hardening off, sort of like a boot camp or physical conditioning program. This usually takes about 2 weeks of setting the seedlings outside for short periods and going longer as they toughen up.
The ideal transplanting day is warm soil with cloud cover and little to no breeze. Seedlings need warm and moist soil, much like they have before transplanting. Give them a drink of water immediately after transplanting to help avoid shock.
The biggest issues with transplanting are soil that is too cold, too dry (or too wet) or the seedlings are still too tender and need more hardening off. It’s better to wait a few days to a week than jump the gun, transplant too early and lose your hard work.
Peppers like to be close, but not too close. 18 inch spacing between plants is a good start – smaller plants can be planted a foot apart, while larger ones will need 18-24 inches. You want the plants to grow a good leaf canopy that shades the fruit from sunscald while not competing with each other and becoming leggy or spindly.
Serrano Peppers
Growing
To keep your sweet peppers sweet, don’t plant them close to your hot ones; they will readily cross-pollinate and you’ll have extremely hot sweet peppers! We learned this one summer when we had Jalapenos upwind of our bell peppers. The unexpected bite of a fiery bell shocked us; we later taste-tested and found the bell peppers were hotter than the Jalapenos.
Giving your peppers some space is the best solution – distance minimizes the chance of hot pepper pollen finding your sweet pepper’s flower, either by wind or pollinators. Seed growers isolate peppers by 1,500 feet, but if we’ve found planting sweets 50 feet or more upwind of the prevailing breeze is pretty dependable. Peppers also grow well in containers or large pots, so you can grow them well away from the garden if needed.
Peppers produce best with moderate temperatures, although they can tolerate warmer days if it cools off at night.
Much like tomatoes, the key to getting big harvests is night-time temperatures. Peppers set the most flowers – thus the most fruit – between 65° and 80°F at night. Above about 85°F the blossoms drop off, costing you precious peppers. High winds, lack of pollinators and excessive nitrogen – such as with synthetic fertilizers – also cause blossom drop.
Sustained daytime temperatures above 95°F causes the pollen to become sterile with lower harvests. Shading the peppers also reduces sunscald and the loss of immature pods from heat stress. Sunscald happens when leaves don’t protect ripening peppers from the sun and they get a sunburned appearance.
Pod drop happens when immature pepper pods drop off the plant, most often caused by high heat combined with water stress or excessive nitrogen fertilizer. Shade cloth reduces the heat, and a drip system on a timer moderates the moisture and avoids large swings that stress the plant, causing it to shed pepper pods. Consistent moisture is best for healthy growth – not just with peppers – and avoids the soil getting too dry between waterings.
A good layer of straw mulch also maintains soil moisture levels between watering. We’ve found mulch reduces the amount of time our drip system is on, by cutting down the amount of water that is lost to evaporation.
Peppers, along with most vegetables, like rich, well-balanced, and fertile soil to grow in. Too much of any one thing can be detrimental, and too much nitrogen leads to exuberant leaf and flower growth with little to no fruit set – most often seen in peppers and tomatoes. There aren’t enough other nutrients to support the fruit growth from all of those flowers.
Rotating beds where you grow peppers every year helps prevent many diseases and over-wintered bugs from attacking. Good soil fertility is the best prevention.
Blossom end rot in peppers is much the same as in tomatoes, caused mainly by a lack of available calcium in the plant as it starts setting fruit – often large amounts of fruit at the same time. It can also be caused by large fluctuations in soil moisture, such as forgetting to water or a rain after it’s gotten dry. The usual suspect – excess nitrogen – also plays a part here.
Feeding the plants with a 20% solution of milk – 2 cups of milk in 8 cups of water – with a teaspoon of molasses gives the plants a boost in calcium and much-needed sugars for fruit production. Give each plant a cup of the solution once a week until the new fruit starts setting, then twice a month during heavy production.
Line of Capsaicin
Harvesting and Handling
Almost all peppers go through several colors before ripening to maturity – both in color and flavor. The green stage is usually the least flavorful and sweet, but sometimes the spiciest and a bit bitter. As it ripens through yellow, orange and into red, the flavors become richer and deeper, with the sweetness developing and the heat mellowing. Try picking your peppers at all of the stages to see what you like best!
A good rule of thumb for picking is if the pepper is easily removed from the stem, it’s ready. If you have to pull or tug on the pod, it’s still too early.
This changes, of course, if you are harvesting continuously to increase the harvest – you’ll be removing slightly young peppers. In this case, it’s best to cut the peppers off the stem to avoid damaging the plant by pulling, as the stem will usually break before the stem does.
Capsaicin – the “heat” in peppers – is located on the ribs and seeds. If you look closely, you’ll see tiny yellow dots on the ribs – this is the pure form and is concentrated. If you prick one of these dots, you’ll feel it’s effects – sneezing, runny nose and itchy, watery eyes. Avoid touching it with bare skin to prevent spreading it to your face, eyes, etc.
Some otherwise sweet peppers have a hot streak on the ribs and seeds, so now you know how to handle them.
Some people are simply extremely sensitive, no matter how mild!
Red and Yellow Bell Peppers
Myths
One of the biggest myths we’ve seen is the one that the different number of lobes on a bell pepper determines it’s sex – such as “3 lobes means it’s female and sweeter, 4 lobes is male and hotter”…
First – peppers, like tomatoes, are “perfect” flowers, meaning they have both male and female organs in the same flower and can self-pollinate.
Second off – and this is common sense – if this was true, you would need to buy “male” and “female” pepper seeds for reproduction, right? After all, if 3 lobes are “female” and 4 lobes are “male”, it stands to reason they would produce the same sex seeds, thus the need for male and female seeds to be planted close to each other.
So, where have you seen “male” or “female” pepper seeds for sale? Or maybe we should capture that market share?
Another myth is that all red peppers are hot, while green peppers are sweet.
This most likely arises from people only seeing green bell peppers in the supermarket, and not realizing that they ripen into different shades of yellow, orange, or red and are still sweet.
The fallacy is easily seen with both bell peppers and Jalapeños are both green on store shelves!
Your Tips?
What are your proven, never-fail tips for growing the best peppers? Share your experiences below so we can all grow better peppers!
All over the world, working folks have eaten hand-held lunches of meat or vegetables wrapped in dough. Not sandwiches, but delicious and filling sealed, portable, savory pies – bringing energy for the afternoon work they faced.
Many of these international specialties have found a welcome home in this country, and this example comes from the 18th-century Russian Mennonite farms by way of south-central Kansas, where they emigrated to. Traditionally tucked into a basket or hamper and brought to the farmers at their mid-day lunch break, they are a hearty and delicious way to enjoy a good meal on the go today.
They are great fresh, but also keep in the refrigerator and freeze well. Let them thaw before reheating to get a taste of fresh, homemade goodness anytime!
Danish Ballhead cabbage before chopping.
Bierocks perfectly showcase fresh, home-grown cabbage as a foil for the richness of seasoned ground meat or other roasted, savory vegetables like mushrooms or beets. We used a freshly harvested head of Danish Ballhead cabbage that was sweet, tangy and crunchy!
It starts with the dough, which has been mixed, kneaded and risen twice. These balls are rolled out…
Filling the bierock.
…and filled with the savory filling. Equal parts ground beef mixed with cabbage is traditional, but any seasoned ground meat is just as tasty, or use portobello mushrooms sauteed in Worcestershire sauce for a meatless variation.
Sealing the bierock.
Seal the bierock by folding the edges together around the filling and pinch tightly to seal the dough together. To make a nicer, easier to handle pastry…
Bierock with the ends folded underneath.
…fold the “tails” or ends underneath and seal them with a strong pinch.
Bierocks rising before baking.
Arrange them onto a baking sheet – we used parchment paper instead of oiling the pan. Let them rise for 20 – 25 minutes…
Freshly baked bierocks.
…then pop them into a hot oven for 15 – 20 minutes, or until golden or golden-brown on top.
They are ready to serve after sitting for a few minutes, or you can make them ahead of time for a party or trip. Bierocks re-heat well and make a satisfying field lunch when spending the day outdoors.
These hand-held working lunches were traditionally served in the field and stuffed with meat and cabbage fillings. Today they're enjoyed anytime and can easily be made vegetarian.
Servings: 12bierocks
Ingredients
For dough:
1tspactive dry yeast
5cupsbread flour
1/2cupsugar
1/2tspsalt
1 1/2cupsmilk- lukewarm
10tbspbutter- melted
2eggs- lightly beaten
For filling:
3tbspoil- coconut or olive
1yellow onion- peeled and finely chopped
1lbground beef
4cupsgreen cabbage- shredded
1/4lbchedder cheese- grated
2tbspdijon mustard
black pepper- freshly ground to taste
Instructions
For the dough:
Dissolve yeast in 2tbs warm water in a small bowl.
Mix together flour, sugar, and 1/2 tsp salt in a large bowl.
Add milk, 8 tbs butter and eggs to yeast, mix well then stir into flour. If the flour is too dry and crumbly, add water 1tbs at a time until a dough ball is formed.
Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until elastic - about 5 minutes. If using a stand mixer, use the dough hook to knead, then turn out and test elasticity by hand kneading.
Put dough into an oiled bowl, turn it to coat with oil, cover with a cloth and set aside in a warm place to rise for about 30 minutes. Once the dough has doubled in size, punch down, cover and let rise for additional 30 minutes.
While dough is rising, make the filling.
For the filling:
Heat 2tbs oil in a large skillet over medium-low heat. Add onions and cook until soft and starting to brown - about 15 minutes.
Increase heat to medium-high, add beef, and brown for 8 minutes.
Stir in cabbage, cook for 10 minutes, then add cheese and mustard and season to taste with salt and pepper.
Simmer for 5 minutes more, then set aside to cool.
To assemble:
Preheat oven to 350°F. Return dough to a floured surface and divide into 12 equal balls. Roll out into 6" rounds and spoon about 1/3 cup of filling into the center, then fold edges together and pinch closed. Fold tips together and pinch to seal, then place seam side down on an oiled or parchment-lined baking sheet. Let rise for 20 minutes after all bierocks are made, then bake until tops are golden, about 15 - 20 minutes.
Serve either hot out of the oven, warmed up or cold depending on your need.
Let us know how you like them, and what fillings you use in yours!
In a handful of soil from your garden, you hold potentially billions of different living organisms hard at work making your soil a better place for your plants to live. Most of these team players are microscopic – too small to see with the eye, but a few are large enough to observe. Bacteria, fungi, mycorrhizae, protozoa and possibly algae are on the microscopic side while earthworms, pillbugs, arthropods and some nematodes are big enough to see in your hand.
We pay lots of attention to improving soil, for good reason. Healthy, fertile soil grows stronger, healthier, more productive plants while reducing insect and disease damages. You see and taste the difference in richer, brighter colors and sweeter or more flavorful vegetables and fruits.
Most attention focuses on the structure and chemistry of the soil – is the soil made up of sand, loam, clay or some mixture? The chemistry shows what nutrients are present and in what amounts. This is the common approach but leaves out one of the biggest components of soil improvement – the biological community.
It’s easy to overlook them because they can’t easily be measured – like determining soil structure or reading a soil analysis for nutrient deficiency.
There’s a saying among soil consultants that,”You must build a house for the biology.” That means that soil structure and chemistry must be aligned before the beneficial organisms can fully go to work. It also recognizes the critical but often overlooked role they play. Beneficial soil organisms release tied up nutrients in the soil and move them into the reach of plant roots, improve soil structure and increase nutrient retention, among many other things.
Now that you understand a bit more about them, let’s introduce you to your team!
The Big Boys
Starting with the larger, more visible players-
Earthworms – An acre of good garden soil can have between 2 and 3 million of these black gold producing workers, constantly processing organic matter into readily available nutrients your plants absolutely love.
That means each square foot of good soil in your garden can have up to 45 – 70 earthworms. You won’t be able to see all of them, as they can range a few feet deep.
Arthropods – are ants, mites, and springtails who voracious shred decomposing plant leaves, stems, and mulch. They do the heavy lifting, getting the plant organic matter into bite-sized pieces for the smaller team members.
Pillbugs– are land-based crustaceans, distant cousins to lobsters, crabs, and shrimp. They are scavengers, mainly feeding on moist, decaying plant materials – very useful in shredding dead plant matter so it can be fully decomposed.
If you see these guys in your handful of soil or in your garden, you are doing several things right. They won’t stick around in dead soil with little or no organic matter, or in soils that are heavily contaminated with pesticides.
The Little Guys
Now, on to the smaller and less visible players that are no less important –
Fungi – More common in woodland soils or in areas where woodchips have been laid down. They can appear as mushrooms with stems and caps – especially after a rain – but are more often seen as a whitish growth on moist and decomposing parts of the woody material. They send out hyphae or long, thin strands to decompose organic materials, transport nutrients, and improve soil structure while stabilizing it.
Protozoa – Single-celled animals that are always busily feeding on bacteria, soluble organic matter, and sometimes fungi. As the feed, they release nitrogen that is used by plant roots and other players on the team.
Actinomycetes – (pronounced act-in-o-my-seetees), are special beneficial bacteria that are responsible for the rich, earthy smell of freshly turned soil. Their specialty is digesting the high carbon cellulose in wood and the chitin of shed pillbug shells and insect bodies.
Beneficial bacteria – These microorganisms are more common in the nutrient-rich garden soils, forming associations with annual vegetables and grasses.
Beneficial nematodes – Not all nematodes are destructive, and these guys search out, infect, and kill targeted destructive insects. Different nematode species attack different pests.
Mycorrhizae – A very specialized fungi that bond with the tiny, hair-like roots of plants in a mutually beneficial relationship. The fungi send out hyphae into the soil to bring back specific nutrients needed by the plant, in return for a sugar-based plant sap that feeds the mycorrhizae. In essence, they feed each other what they can’t get for themselves. Mycorrhizae can only survive on living plant roots, and about 95% of our garden plants depend on their fungi friends to thrive.
Help Your Team Out
Now that you’ve met the team working tirelessly for you in the garden, help them out with making sure they’ve got food, water, and shelter – which compost provides almost everything for them!
When you hear someone talk about “beneficial soil organisms“, you will know exactly what they mean!
If we are peaceful, if we are happy, we can blossom like a flower, and everyone in our family, our entire society, will benefit from our peace.
Life is filled with suffering, but it is also filled with many wonders, like the blue sky, the sunshine, the eyes of a baby.
To suffer is not enough.
We must also be in touch with the wonders of life. They are within us and around us, everywhere, any time.
– Thich Nhat Hanh
The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature.
To nurture a garden is to feed not just the body, but the soul.
– Alfred Austin
Gardening simply does not allow one to be mentally old, because too many hopes and dreams are yet to be realized.
– Allan Armitage
A garden is a grand teacher.
It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all it teaches entire trust.
– Gertrude Jekyll
Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help.
Gardening is an instrument of grace.
– May Sarton
Eden is that old-fashioned house
we dwell in everyday
without suspecting our abode
until we drive away.
– Emily Dickinson
He who plants a garden plants happiness.
If you want to be happy for a lifetime, plant a garden.
Chinese proverb
We have the world to live in on the condition that we will take good care of it.
And to take good care of it, we have to know it.
And to know it and to be willing to take care of it, we have to love it.
– Wendell Berry
The single greatest lesson the garden teaches is that our relationship to the planet need not be zero-sum,
and that as long as the sun still shines and people still can plan and plant, think and do,
we can, if we bother to try, find ways to provide for ourselves without diminishing the world.
– Michael Pollan
A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.
– Greek proverb
The greatest fine art of the future will be the making of a comfortable living from a small piece of land.
– Abraham Lincoln
I like gardening – it’s a place where I find myself when I need to lose myself.
– Alice Sebold
But always, to her, red and green cabbages were to be jade and burgundy, chrysoprase and prophyry.
Life has no weapons against a woman like that.
– Edna Ferber
We are exploring together.
We are cultivating a garden together, backs to the sun.
The question is a hoe in our hands and we are digging beneath the hard and crusty surface to the rich humus of our lives.
– Parker J. Palmer
Plants want to grow; they are on your side as long as you are reasonably sensible.
– Anne Wareham
You can spend your whole life traveling around the world searching for the Garden of Eden, or you can create it in your backyard.
– Khang Kijarro Nguyen
I don’t want to return to the world outside these Gardens.
All I want is to notice the dew on a leaf.
The holy busyness of worms in the soil.
– Tor Udall
The garden is a kind of sanctuary.
– John Berger
I’d love to see a new form of social security … everyone taught how to grow their own; fruit and nut trees planted along every street, parks planted out to edibles, every high rise with a roof garden, every school with at least one fruit tree for every kid enrolled.
– Jackie French
These photos are the result of a leisurely, late afternoon spent wandering through the Denver Botanical Garden in early September.
Many of you know we are avid gardeners and own an heirloom seed company, but you may not know we also have a small farm. Gardening or working with our horses, ducks, and pigs always leaves our hands and body dirty.
We’ve searched for a good, all around soap, but it didn’t seem to exist. All of the bars we tried – and we tried a bunch – either cleaned well while stripping all of the moisture from our hands or left an unsettling film after rinsing. Almost none lasted very long and we had just about given up hope of a non-chemical, non-commercial soap we could use and really enjoy.
Researching what goes into soap opened our eyes – especially commonly used ingredients and processes used to make it. We began to understand why most soaps irritated our skin, didn’t clean well or melted too quickly.
The more we learned, the more we knew we wanted a natural and organic soap – something made entirely from plant-based, unrefined ingredients.
When we found and tried this particular soap, we knew our search was a success. We use and love this soap daily, so it made sense to offer it to our customers!
Just like our seeds, we contract with a small family company to produce the absolute best soap possible. Join us as we explore what goes into a great bar of soap!
A bar of soap appears simple sitting in your hand, but it must balance and maximize its best qualities – creamy fluffy lather that cleans while moisturizing, feels good and lasts well – all in one bar.
This takes work – research, experimenting, and testing – to accomplish. A perfect bar soap is a result of carefully choosing and balancing the various ingredients to boost the bar’s hardness, lather quality, cleaning, and moisturizing ability. For example – moisturizing ingredients don’t contribute much to lather quality, and what makes great lather often dries our skin out.
All soap is made through a chemical reaction where part of an oil molecule attaches to a sodium ion from sodium hydroxide, commonly called lye. This is called saponification.
A properly produced soap consumes all of the lye during the saponification process, eliminating any chance of skin irritation. Superfatting assures that all lye is consumed. This process retains extra skin-nourishing oils in the finished soap. Superfatting won’t make your skin oily, it helps it to maintain natural moisture levels.
Lemongrass Tea Soap
Can Soap be Certified Organic?
The USDA’s National Organic Program (NOP) sets the standard for organic production. Soap falls under the “Made with Organic” section – Products made from a minimum of 70% organic content up to 95%. The USDA has set 70% as the minimum percentage a product can have and still use “organic” in its labels and marketing.
So, what does this mean for you?
Organic certification guarantees there are no synthetic fragrances, colors, or preservatives in the soap, as well as that all the oils and herbs were grown and processed according to organic standards (no pesticides, no radiation, and environmentally friendly methods).
To us, this means a soap whose ingredients are plant-based with no artificial substances such as synthetic fragrances, dyes, and preservatives. Our pure herbal soap is scented with essential oils and colored exclusively with organic herbs and plant extracts. 100% certified organic oils make up the soap base recipe.
We feel it’s worth the extra time and effort to meet organic standards and make truly organic products. Your skin will know the difference!
Gardener’s Hand Soap
Why Essential Oils are Better
Essential oils are concentrated plant extracts from the roots, bark, and plant leaves.
Fragrance oils are always synthetic, even though they have perfectly natural names and might contain natural ingredients.
Fragrances smell great initially but quickly overwhelm your nose once you get it home, then it’s not so nice or enjoyable.
Essential oils are less “pushy” up front but retain their appealing qualities throughout the life of the bar, never overwhelming your nose.
Peppermint Soap
How Organic Soaps Get Their Colors
Natural colors can be bright and lively, creating a beautiful bar of soap.
Some essential oils, like citrus oils, have their own color that can be just what certain soaps need.
The easiest way to add or control soap color is with herbs or clays. The desired colors are created near the end of the mixing process by adding herbs, clays or a combination.
Steeping herbs in oil create richer and more vivid colors.
Citrus Lavender Soap
Why Exotic Ingredients Aren’t Included
Don’t be fooled by trendy or exotic ingredients on a label. If you don’t start with a well-formulated base, exotic ingredients won’t produce the soap you’re looking for. For example – palm kernel oil can be a great enhancement, but it can’t fix a poor formulation. Specialty ingredients are most commonly used as advertising hooks or as recipe magic in the hopes of creating a great soap from a poor-quality base. Glamorous ingredients or celebrity endorsements don’t produce extraordinary soap.
Lavender Soap
Try the Most Natural Soap Available
There’s virtue in products as natural as your skin. There are also practical benefits to using essential oils in skincare products.
Read labels carefully. If you see any variation or combination of the words fragrance, fragrance oil, or natural fragrance, don’t be fooled. There’s nothing natural about them.
Purchasing our handmade, organic soap gives you much more than just a great soap that leaves your skin clean. You support our small company and our soapmaker.
They, in turn, support growers for the ingredients of your bar of soap – ethical, sustainable and environmentally friendly methods that increase the soils over time and improves the communities where they are grown.
It turns out that a simple bar of soap can do some real good for many people!
The Shea tree – botanical name Butyrospermum parkii or Vitellaria paradoxa – grows in the dry Savannah belt of West Africa, stretching from Senegal in the west to Sudan in the east.
It has been an irreplaceable natural cosmetic pharmaceutical for people in Western Africa for millennia. Over the past few decades, it has become increasingly important in the skincare industries.
Most Americans know Shea butter as a highly touted skin care ingredient in a variety of soaps, lotions, balms, and butters.
Few realize the Shea advertised in the majority of cosmetic products in the US is nothing more than another highly refined food grade oil churned out of an industrial plant, regarded as just another commodity.
Pure hand-crafted Grade A Shea butter is a world apart from this!
Real Shea butter is wild-crafted, hand harvested and handmade
Shea butter has been known as “women’s gold”for centuries for its light golden color but also because it’s historically been the work of women to harvest and produce Shea butter.
Millions of women across Western Africamake their own incomes and are improving their lives producing traditional Shea butter.
Women-owned and organized cooperatives harvest the ripe Shea fruits from wild growing Shea tree forests. Fermentation removes the fruit, then the nuts are sun-dried, crushed and lightly roasted, concentrating the Shea butter.
Finely ground Shea nut powder is mixed with warm water and constantly stirred until it thickens. Warm, liquid Shea oil is collected from the surface, then strained and slowly cooled to form Shea butter. After packaging it is sold at the local markets or exported.
It takes approximately 44 pounds of fresh Shea fruit to produce 3.3 pounds of pure Shea butter.
Fair Trade certification is awarded after meeting certain standards, similar to organic certification. There are benefits and challenges, just like with the Certified Organic label.
This adds to the overall cost, but there are benefits most consumers never know about.
Beyond Fair Trade – Partnering with the Producers
We – our supplier and ourselves – work as closely as possible with women’s cooperatives to keep the quality high, and also to pay them fairly.
Working directly with the cooperative and the Fair Trade organization, we eliminate as many profit-taking intermediate layers as possible while having a larger positive impact than we could by ourselves.
For example – currently, Shea nut harvesters earn 15 cents per pound and the women’s cooperative we work with want to pay the harvesters 25 cents per pound, only 10 cents more but a whopping 66% pay raise.
However, it isn’t as simple as just paying them more.
Regional and local politics, combined with existing laws, are making it difficult to simply give the harvesters a raise, so the Fair Trade organization is working with our women’s cooperative to change this.
A Shea nut harvester might earn $60/month, which allows her to live in a straw-thatched hut with no power in a communal village and walk up to a half mile for water at a common, communal well.
A 10 cent per pound pay raise will give her and her family a solid walled, roofed apartment with running water and a community generator for electricity.
Shea processors – who actually turn the nuts into Shea butter – make about $175/month, and the women’s cooperative is working to raise that to $225/month.
The additional income almost always paysfor schooling, whether it is getting all of their children into schools, or enrolling them in full-time private charter schools with a full curriculum.
The Virtuous Cycle
Buying your Shea butter from a company engaged in direct, positive impact on the local producers gives your purchases a much larger effect simply because much more of each dollar makes it to those producers. This is exactly how one person makes a difference!
The standard commodity approach to Shea butter has so many layers – traders, intermediaries, transportation expenses, and investors – between the Shea butter producers and the US consumer that not even one penny of each dollar spent on a commercial Shea-labeled product reaches those in Africa.
According to The New York Times, a survey of a Burkina Faso village by USAID in 2010 found that every $1,000 of Shea nuts sold generated an additional $1,580 in economic benefits, such as reinvestments in other trades for the village. Shea butter exports from West Africa bring in between $90 million and $200 million a year, according to the article.
Much like the disproportionately large positive effects of spending your money at a Farmer’s Market instead of the grocery store, purchasing pure, unrefined Grade A Shea butter from a dedicated company partnering with a small producer ensures a better life for those making it.
Ethically sourced Shea butter heals our hands and skin while healing the lives and villages who make it.
Growing Peppers 101
The More You Know – the Better You Grow
Growing peppers seems to come naturally for some gardeners, while others always seem to struggle. Sometimes this stems from easily-avoided mistakes or accepting certain myths or misinformation as correct.
Today we’re looking at the basics of growing peppers in your home garden and some mistakes and myths to be aware of and avoid. You might look at this as a how-not-to guide because occasionally it’s just easier showing what not to do than describing and explaining the right way. Plus, seeing other’s mistakes sometimes sinks in faster.
These are our observations from our 20+ years of gardening combined with the past 10 years of gardening questions we’ve answered.
Conditions
The initial conditions you choose are critical to sprouting, transplanting and growing success, no matter what seed you are planting. Here are some things to consider as you grow your peppers this season.
Chocolate Mini Bell Peppers
Starting Seeds
Alma Paprika Pepper
Transplanting
Serrano Peppers
Growing
Line of Capsaicin
Harvesting and Handling
Red and Yellow Bell Peppers
Myths
One of the biggest myths we’ve seen is the one that the different number of lobes on a bell pepper determines it’s sex – such as “3 lobes means it’s female and sweeter, 4 lobes is male and hotter”…
Another myth is that all red peppers are hot, while green peppers are sweet.
Your Tips?
What are your proven, never-fail tips for growing the best peppers? Share your experiences below so we can all grow better peppers!
Resources to learn more
Bierocks – Savory Hand-held Working Lunches
The Original Working Lunch
All over the world, working folks have eaten hand-held lunches of meat or vegetables wrapped in dough. Not sandwiches, but delicious and filling sealed, portable, savory pies – bringing energy for the afternoon work they faced.
Many of these international specialties have found a welcome home in this country, and this example comes from the 18th-century Russian Mennonite farms by way of south-central Kansas, where they emigrated to. Traditionally tucked into a basket or hamper and brought to the farmers at their mid-day lunch break, they are a hearty and delicious way to enjoy a good meal on the go today.
They are great fresh, but also keep in the refrigerator and freeze well. Let them thaw before reheating to get a taste of fresh, homemade goodness anytime!
Danish Ballhead cabbage before chopping.
Bierocks perfectly showcase fresh, home-grown cabbage as a foil for the richness of seasoned ground meat or other roasted, savory vegetables like mushrooms or beets. We used a freshly harvested head of Danish Ballhead cabbage that was sweet, tangy and crunchy!
Bierock dough, risen and proportioned out
It starts with the dough, which has been mixed, kneaded and risen twice. These balls are rolled out…
Filling the bierock.
…and filled with the savory filling. Equal parts ground beef mixed with cabbage is traditional, but any seasoned ground meat is just as tasty, or use portobello mushrooms sauteed in Worcestershire sauce for a meatless variation.
Sealing the bierock.
Seal the bierock by folding the edges together around the filling and pinch tightly to seal the dough together. To make a nicer, easier to handle pastry…
Bierock with the ends folded underneath.
…fold the “tails” or ends underneath and seal them with a strong pinch.
Bierocks rising before baking.
Arrange them onto a baking sheet – we used parchment paper instead of oiling the pan. Let them rise for 20 – 25 minutes…
Freshly baked bierocks.
…then pop them into a hot oven for 15 – 20 minutes, or until golden or golden-brown on top.
They are ready to serve after sitting for a few minutes, or you can make them ahead of time for a party or trip. Bierocks re-heat well and make a satisfying field lunch when spending the day outdoors.
Here’s the recipe –
Dissolve yeast in 2tbs warm water in a small bowl. Mix together flour, sugar, and 1/2 tsp salt in a large bowl. Add milk, 8 tbs butter and eggs to yeast, mix well then stir into flour. If the flour is too dry and crumbly, add water 1tbs at a time until a dough ball is formed. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until elastic - about 5 minutes. If using a stand mixer, use the dough hook to knead, then turn out and test elasticity by hand kneading. Put dough into an oiled bowl, turn it to coat with oil, cover with a cloth and set aside in a warm place to rise for about 30 minutes. Once the dough has doubled in size, punch down, cover and let rise for additional 30 minutes. While dough is rising, make the filling.
Heat 2tbs oil in a large skillet over medium-low heat. Add onions and cook until soft and starting to brown - about 15 minutes. Increase heat to medium-high, add beef, and brown for 8 minutes. Stir in cabbage, cook for 10 minutes, then add cheese and mustard and season to taste with salt and pepper. Simmer for 5 minutes more, then set aside to cool.
Preheat oven to 350°F. Return dough to a floured surface and divide into 12 equal balls. Roll out into 6" rounds and spoon about 1/3 cup of filling into the center, then fold edges together and pinch closed. Fold tips together and pinch to seal, then place seam side down on an oiled or parchment-lined baking sheet. Let rise for 20 minutes after all bierocks are made, then bake until tops are golden, about 15 - 20 minutes.
Let us know how you like them, and what fillings you use in yours!
Beneficial Soil Organisms – the Team Players
A Universe in Your Hand
In a handful of soil from your garden, you hold potentially billions of different living organisms hard at work making your soil a better place for your plants to live. Most of these team players are microscopic – too small to see with the eye, but a few are large enough to observe. Bacteria, fungi, mycorrhizae, protozoa and possibly algae are on the microscopic side while earthworms, pillbugs, arthropods and some nematodes are big enough to see in your hand.
We pay lots of attention to improving soil, for good reason. Healthy, fertile soil grows stronger, healthier, more productive plants while reducing insect and disease damages. You see and taste the difference in richer, brighter colors and sweeter or more flavorful vegetables and fruits.
Most attention focuses on the structure and chemistry of the soil – is the soil made up of sand, loam, clay or some mixture? The chemistry shows what nutrients are present and in what amounts. This is the common approach but leaves out one of the biggest components of soil improvement – the biological community.
It’s easy to overlook them because they can’t easily be measured – like determining soil structure or reading a soil analysis for nutrient deficiency.
There’s a saying among soil consultants that,”You must build a house for the biology.” That means that soil structure and chemistry must be aligned before the beneficial organisms can fully go to work. It also recognizes the critical but often overlooked role they play. Beneficial soil organisms release tied up nutrients in the soil and move them into the reach of plant roots, improve soil structure and increase nutrient retention, among many other things.
Now that you understand a bit more about them, let’s introduce you to your team!
The Big Boys
Starting with the larger, more visible players-
Earthworms – An acre of good garden soil can have between 2 and 3 million of these black gold producing workers, constantly processing organic matter into readily available nutrients your plants absolutely love.
That means each square foot of good soil in your garden can have up to 45 – 70 earthworms. You won’t be able to see all of them, as they can range a few feet deep.
Arthropods – are ants, mites, and springtails who voracious shred decomposing plant leaves, stems, and mulch. They do the heavy lifting, getting the plant organic matter into bite-sized pieces for the smaller team members.
Pillbugs– are land-based crustaceans, distant cousins to lobsters, crabs, and shrimp. They are scavengers, mainly feeding on moist, decaying plant materials – very useful in shredding dead plant matter so it can be fully decomposed.
If you see these guys in your handful of soil or in your garden, you are doing several things right. They won’t stick around in dead soil with little or no organic matter, or in soils that are heavily contaminated with pesticides.
The Little Guys
Now, on to the smaller and less visible players that are no less important –
Fungi – More common in woodland soils or in areas where woodchips have been laid down. They can appear as mushrooms with stems and caps – especially after a rain – but are more often seen as a whitish growth on moist and decomposing parts of the woody material. They send out hyphae or long, thin strands to decompose organic materials, transport nutrients, and improve soil structure while stabilizing it.
Protozoa – Single-celled animals that are always busily feeding on bacteria, soluble organic matter, and sometimes fungi. As the feed, they release nitrogen that is used by plant roots and other players on the team.
Actinomycetes – (pronounced act-in-o-my-seetees), are special beneficial bacteria that are responsible for the rich, earthy smell of freshly turned soil. Their specialty is digesting the high carbon cellulose in wood and the chitin of shed pillbug shells and insect bodies.
Beneficial bacteria – These microorganisms are more common in the nutrient-rich garden soils, forming associations with annual vegetables and grasses.
Beneficial nematodes – Not all nematodes are destructive, and these guys search out, infect, and kill targeted destructive insects. Different nematode species attack different pests.
Mycorrhizae – A very specialized fungi that bond with the tiny, hair-like roots of plants in a mutually beneficial relationship. The fungi send out hyphae into the soil to bring back specific nutrients needed by the plant, in return for a sugar-based plant sap that feeds the mycorrhizae. In essence, they feed each other what they can’t get for themselves. Mycorrhizae can only survive on living plant roots, and about 95% of our garden plants depend on their fungi friends to thrive.
Help Your Team Out
Now that you’ve met the team working tirelessly for you in the garden, help them out with making sure they’ve got food, water, and shelter – which compost provides almost everything for them!
When you hear someone talk about “beneficial soil organisms“, you will know exactly what they mean!
A Garden’s Beauty
If we are peaceful, if we are happy, we can blossom like a flower, and everyone in our family, our entire society, will benefit from our peace.
Life is filled with suffering, but it is also filled with many wonders, like the blue sky, the sunshine, the eyes of a baby.
To suffer is not enough.
We must also be in touch with the wonders of life. They are within us and around us, everywhere, any time.
– Thich Nhat Hanh
The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature.
To nurture a garden is to feed not just the body, but the soul.
– Alfred Austin
Gardening simply does not allow one to be mentally old, because too many hopes and dreams are yet to be realized.
– Allan Armitage
A garden is a grand teacher.
It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all it teaches entire trust.
– Gertrude Jekyll
Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help.
Gardening is an instrument of grace.
– May Sarton
Eden is that old-fashioned house
we dwell in everyday
without suspecting our abode
until we drive away.
– Emily Dickinson
He who plants a garden plants happiness.
If you want to be happy for a lifetime, plant a garden.
Chinese proverb
We have the world to live in on the condition that we will take good care of it.
And to take good care of it, we have to know it.
And to know it and to be willing to take care of it, we have to love it.
– Wendell Berry
The single greatest lesson the garden teaches is that our relationship to the planet need not be zero-sum,
and that as long as the sun still shines and people still can plan and plant, think and do,
we can, if we bother to try, find ways to provide for ourselves without diminishing the world.
– Michael Pollan
A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.
– Greek proverb
The greatest fine art of the future will be the making of a comfortable living from a small piece of land.
– Abraham Lincoln
I like gardening – it’s a place where I find myself when I need to lose myself.
– Alice Sebold
But always, to her, red and green cabbages were to be jade and burgundy, chrysoprase and prophyry.
Life has no weapons against a woman like that.
– Edna Ferber
We are exploring together.
We are cultivating a garden together, backs to the sun.
The question is a hoe in our hands and we are digging beneath the hard and crusty surface to the rich humus of our lives.
– Parker J. Palmer
Plants want to grow; they are on your side as long as you are reasonably sensible.
– Anne Wareham
You can spend your whole life traveling around the world searching for the Garden of Eden, or you can create it in your backyard.
– Khang Kijarro Nguyen
I don’t want to return to the world outside these Gardens.
All I want is to notice the dew on a leaf.
The holy busyness of worms in the soil.
– Tor Udall
The garden is a kind of sanctuary.
– John Berger
I’d love to see a new form of social security … everyone taught how to grow their own; fruit and nut trees planted along every street, parks planted out to edibles, every high rise with a roof garden, every school with at least one fruit tree for every kid enrolled.
– Jackie French
These photos are the result of a leisurely, late afternoon spent wandering through the Denver Botanical Garden in early September.
Handmade Organic Soap
How We Clean Up After a Hard Day’s Work
Many of you know we are avid gardeners and own an heirloom seed company, but you may not know we also have a small farm. Gardening or working with our horses, ducks, and pigs always leaves our hands and body dirty.
We’ve searched for a good, all around soap, but it didn’t seem to exist. All of the bars we tried – and we tried a bunch – either cleaned well while stripping all of the moisture from our hands or left an unsettling film after rinsing. Almost none lasted very long and we had just about given up hope of a non-chemical, non-commercial soap we could use and really enjoy.
Researching what goes into soap opened our eyes – especially commonly used ingredients and processes used to make it. We began to understand why most soaps irritated our skin, didn’t clean well or melted too quickly.
The more we learned, the more we knew we wanted a natural and organic soap – something made entirely from plant-based, unrefined ingredients.
When we found and tried this particular soap, we knew our search was a success. We use and love this soap daily, so it made sense to offer it to our customers!
Just like our seeds, we contract with a small family company to produce the absolute best soap possible. Join us as we explore what goes into a great bar of soap!
Unscented Soap
What Makes a Great Bar of Soap?
A bar of soap appears simple sitting in your hand, but it must balance and maximize its best qualities – creamy fluffy lather that cleans while moisturizing, feels good and lasts well – all in one bar.
This takes work – research, experimenting, and testing – to accomplish. A perfect bar soap is a result of carefully choosing and balancing the various ingredients to boost the bar’s hardness, lather quality, cleaning, and moisturizing ability. For example – moisturizing ingredients don’t contribute much to lather quality, and what makes great lather often dries our skin out.
All soap is made through a chemical reaction where part of an oil molecule attaches to a sodium ion from sodium hydroxide, commonly called lye. This is called saponification.
A properly produced soap consumes all of the lye during the saponification process, eliminating any chance of skin irritation. Superfatting assures that all lye is consumed. This process retains extra skin-nourishing oils in the finished soap. Superfatting won’t make your skin oily, it helps it to maintain natural moisture levels.
Lemongrass Tea Soap
Can Soap be Certified Organic?
The USDA’s National Organic Program (NOP) sets the standard for organic production. Soap falls under the “Made with Organic” section – Products made from a minimum of 70% organic content up to 95%. The USDA has set 70% as the minimum percentage a product can have and still use “organic” in its labels and marketing.
So, what does this mean for you?
Organic certification guarantees there are no synthetic fragrances, colors, or preservatives in the soap, as well as that all the oils and herbs were grown and processed according to organic standards (no pesticides, no radiation, and environmentally friendly methods).
To us, this means a soap whose ingredients are plant-based with no artificial substances such as synthetic fragrances, dyes, and preservatives. Our pure herbal soap is scented with essential oils and colored exclusively with organic herbs and plant extracts. 100% certified organic oils make up the soap base recipe.
We feel it’s worth the extra time and effort to meet organic standards and make truly organic products. Your skin will know the difference!
Gardener’s Hand Soap
Why Essential Oils are Better
Essential oils are concentrated plant extracts from the roots, bark, and plant leaves.
Fragrance oils are always synthetic, even though they have perfectly natural names and might contain natural ingredients.
Fragrances smell great initially but quickly overwhelm your nose once you get it home, then it’s not so nice or enjoyable.
Essential oils are less “pushy” up front but retain their appealing qualities throughout the life of the bar, never overwhelming your nose.
Peppermint Soap
How Organic Soaps Get Their Colors
Natural colors can be bright and lively, creating a beautiful bar of soap.
Some essential oils, like citrus oils, have their own color that can be just what certain soaps need.
The easiest way to add or control soap color is with herbs or clays. The desired colors are created near the end of the mixing process by adding herbs, clays or a combination.
Steeping herbs in oil create richer and more vivid colors.
Citrus Lavender Soap
Why Exotic Ingredients Aren’t Included
Don’t be fooled by trendy or exotic ingredients on a label. If you don’t start with a well-formulated base, exotic ingredients won’t produce the soap you’re looking for. For example – palm kernel oil can be a great enhancement, but it can’t fix a poor formulation. Specialty ingredients are most commonly used as advertising hooks or as recipe magic in the hopes of creating a great soap from a poor-quality base. Glamorous ingredients or celebrity endorsements don’t produce extraordinary soap.
Lavender Soap
Try the Most Natural Soap Available
There’s virtue in products as natural as your skin. There are also practical benefits to using essential oils in skincare products.
Read labels carefully. If you see any variation or combination of the words fragrance, fragrance oil, or natural fragrance, don’t be fooled. There’s nothing natural about them.
Purchasing our handmade, organic soap gives you much more than just a great soap that leaves your skin clean. You support our small company and our soapmaker.
They, in turn, support growers for the ingredients of your bar of soap – ethical, sustainable and environmentally friendly methods that increase the soils over time and improves the communities where they are grown.
It turns out that a simple bar of soap can do some real good for many people!
Shea Butter Heals Hands While Healing Lives
A Short history of Shea Butter
The Shea tree – botanical name Butyrospermum parkii or Vitellaria paradoxa – grows in the dry Savannah belt of West Africa, stretching from Senegal in the west to Sudan in the east.
It has been an irreplaceable natural cosmetic pharmaceutical for people in Western Africa for millennia. Over the past few decades, it has become increasingly important in the skincare industries.
Most Americans know Shea butter as a highly touted skin care ingredient in a variety of soaps, lotions, balms, and butters.
Few realize the Shea advertised in the majority of cosmetic products in the US is nothing more than another highly refined food grade oil churned out of an industrial plant, regarded as just another commodity.
Pure hand-crafted Grade A Shea butter is a world apart from this!
Real Shea butter is wild-crafted, hand harvested and handmade
Shea butter has been known as “women’s gold”for centuries for its light golden color but also because it’s historically been the work of women to harvest and produce Shea butter.
Millions of women across Western Africamake their own incomes and are improving their lives producing traditional Shea butter.
Women-owned and organized cooperatives harvest the ripe Shea fruits from wild growing Shea tree forests. Fermentation removes the fruit, then the nuts are sun-dried, crushed and lightly roasted, concentrating the Shea butter.
Finely ground Shea nut powder is mixed with warm water and constantly stirred until it thickens. Warm, liquid Shea oil is collected from the surface, then strained and slowly cooled to form Shea butter. After packaging it is sold at the local markets or exported.
It takes approximately 44 pounds of fresh Shea fruit to produce 3.3 pounds of pure Shea butter.
Shea Tree Flowers
What is Fair Trade?
Fair Trade certification is awarded after meeting certain standards, similar to organic certification. There are benefits and challenges, just like with the Certified Organic label.
This adds to the overall cost, but there are benefits most consumers never know about.
Beyond Fair Trade – Partnering with the Producers
We – our supplier and ourselves – work as closely as possible with women’s cooperatives to keep the quality high, and also to pay them fairly.
Working directly with the cooperative and the Fair Trade organization, we eliminate as many profit-taking intermediate layers as possible while having a larger positive impact than we could by ourselves.
For example – currently, Shea nut harvesters earn 15 cents per pound and the women’s cooperative we work with want to pay the harvesters 25 cents per pound, only 10 cents more but a whopping 66% pay raise.
However, it isn’t as simple as just paying them more.
Regional and local politics, combined with existing laws, are making it difficult to simply give the harvesters a raise, so the Fair Trade organization is working with our women’s cooperative to change this.
A Shea nut harvester might earn $60/month, which allows her to live in a straw-thatched hut with no power in a communal village and walk up to a half mile for water at a common, communal well.
A 10 cent per pound pay raise will give her and her family a solid walled, roofed apartment with running water and a community generator for electricity.
Shea processors – who actually turn the nuts into Shea butter – make about $175/month, and the women’s cooperative is working to raise that to $225/month.
The additional income almost always paysfor schooling, whether it is getting all of their children into schools, or enrolling them in full-time private charter schools with a full curriculum.
The Virtuous Cycle
Buying your Shea butter from a company engaged in direct, positive impact on the local producers gives your purchases a much larger effect simply because much more of each dollar makes it to those producers. This is exactly how one person makes a difference!
The standard commodity approach to Shea butter has so many layers – traders, intermediaries, transportation expenses, and investors – between the Shea butter producers and the US consumer that not even one penny of each dollar spent on a commercial Shea-labeled product reaches those in Africa.
According to The New York Times, a survey of a Burkina Faso village by USAID in 2010 found that every $1,000 of Shea nuts sold generated an additional $1,580 in economic benefits, such as reinvestments in other trades for the village. Shea butter exports from West Africa bring in between $90 million and $200 million a year, according to the article.
Much like the disproportionately large positive effects of spending your money at a Farmer’s Market instead of the grocery store, purchasing pure, unrefined Grade A Shea butter from a dedicated company partnering with a small producer ensures a better life for those making it.
Ethically sourced Shea butter heals our hands and skin while healing the lives and villages who make it.