Any flowers morph to fruit?
@Mikedin Making angel hair is in my list for tomorrow. I like making/growing/raising as much of my own as I can, too.
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I’ve always had issues making pasta thinner than spaghetti have any tips? For me it always breaks on the hangers/driers for me I’m thinking I let the dough rest too long and it dries too much, but when I let it rest less and it’s wetter I have too much gumming up in the rollers
But for growing I posted on my grow diary today I started setting up a scrog net for my tomato’s thought I’d try it instead of cages this year
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@Mikedin For the pasta: Are you using regular flour or semolina? I am not sure what you mean by “resting” your dough. I use 100% semolina, 2 C and 4 large eggs. I mix it together, knead it a bit, slice off a chunk to work with, and wrap the rest in plastic wrap. I only use regular flour for dusting. I take that slice, knead it a bit, and flatten it with my hands so it can fit in the widest roller (#1 on an old hand-crank Atlas machine). I run it through the rollers, fold in half, and through the rollers again–a total of 6x. Same 6x through #2 through #4. I do cut it in half after the first time through #3, and then work with the 2 pieces. I only go through #5 one time, then through the angel hair cutter. I have a rack I hang it on, but I have also just spread it out on a cookie sheet, dusting liberally with flour. I let it get a little dry-ish, and then package and freeze.
The scrog for your tomatoes: Yup! Some of the commercial tomato growers in SoCal would plant their tomatoes in a row with stakes and use twine/whatever pretty much the way you have it. Then another layer of twine farther up once they get taller.
Your garden looks great!
Meanwhile, it’s not a hot pepper, but a bell starting to flower. I also have a jalepeno and an Anaheim getting ready to flower, too.
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I pinch those first flowers off for a month or so until the plants and roots get big enough to support more than one pepper just .02.
Right now all of mine have flowers even the toothpicks and toms.
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Ok yeah I run unbleached AP flour for my dough, usually about 1 egg per cup of flour, I’ll have to try that flour out I know it’s the preferred kind for pasta making, when COVID started it was hard to find anything so when I’d find flour I’d buy 4-5 bags at a time and store it in a dry place, and use FIFO (first in first out) we go through it pretty quick between pasta / bread / fried dough etc.
As for the tomatoes that’s awesome yeah I did the midway net and left 16” holes for the plants to get up through once they are up enough I’ll close in under them then add the top net right about when they reach it. Last time I did a big mater garden my plants were 5 feet tall and we had TONS of tomorrows, and that was off about 8 plants this time with the amount of plants I have I needed an easier way to suspend them all haha
I’ll take some pepper plant pics in a bit there still small but there growing, hot pepper plants always take longer for me, my sweet banana peppers are twice as tall already
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@Mikedin I use Antimo Caputo, from Amazon. I have been buying unbleached, also, and storing it in the freezer, as I keep hearing there will be flour shortages come fall, and I always need some for bread, etc. Here is the pasta I just made.
I’m hoping to get at least some tomatoes this year; I had been growing LOTs of them in SoCal, but this clay soil here is really being a challenge. But I’m learning what to do (and NOT do) next year.
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Looks great! Yeah I usually roll through 4 times folding over then go down 1 notch, run through 2x times then go down 2 more notches and run once and yes I usually cut it in half before running through the cutter. I mean I usually do fettuccini as that’s what my wife and kids like the most, last few times we didn’t even froze any we just ate it for 2 days haha. I like to use white clam sauce, then switch to pasta sauce the next day once we run out lol.
How’s your water situation in so-cal? The compost makes a hell of a difference if you can get it delivered in bulk and till it in could also do some peat moss to loosen it up a bit. When I do normal gardens without the compost only style I dig down about 8-10” and move all that dirt to one side then dig down another 10” and flip, then till the high side before I move it back over if you do that with the compost and peat moss mixed in I’m sure it would make a hell of a difference in your garden… that’s what I did where I planted the fruit trees and I water deep once every 7-10 days about 6 gallons minimum on each one and they aren’t even dry completely when I water again the compost I use has some wood chips in it and they hold moisture by the roots awesome. Plus I tip dress the holes with natural un-dyed mulch to hold in moisture as well that and use only organic neuts so you don’t kill the microbes in the soil so far I haven’t used anything in the garden besides water and hopefully I won’t need to, might top dress with some happy frog dry amendments down the road just to give them that boost
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I miss the soil I had in SoCal–I moved back to my home state of NE Ohio last August. In CA I had sand that I added a boatload of sheep manure from many, many years of raising a commercial flock of sheep. It was great soil for growing anything. I was on a large ranch (not mine), so had a well. The issues there were the ground squirrels and gophers. The ground squirrels would take my corn seed out of the ground before it could germinate. Ugh.
Here in Ohio it’s just nasty clay. I tried adding as much organic material as I could starting last fall and tilling it in, but my tomatoes (that I started from seed in March and were nice, big healthy plants until they went into the garden) were trying to die. I’m finding out that I need to do the amend my soil one hole at a time thing. I’m learning.
But interestingly, the trees I put in last fall are doing great, and so far, other than the tomatoes, everything else in the garden seems to be coming up well. The issue here seems to be too darn much rain. It’s an issue I have never dealt with all of those decades in SoCal.
Sounds like you have a good system going. Do you can your tomatoes?
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Yes will be canning tomatoes, I’m right in the other side of the Great Lakes from ya but I’ve had maybe 2 days where we got a few hours of rain in the past 3 weeks so I turn on the sprinklers at about 730am and run them for 35-40 minutes every morning we’ve been between 60-85f every day here it’s all over the place still (good ol northeast weather haha) but my mater plants are already 12-14” tall and growing like crazy, pepper plants are lagging behind a bit. pulled off all the suckers on the mater plants and pepper plants and pulled off all flower sites on the peppers too, I want them at least a foot tall before they are allowed to flower out haha
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You’re way ahead of me. I’m still not sure these tomatoes are going to survive. I have backups in the greenhouse, and will just let those grow there. It’s all a real crapshoot at this point.
I usually can lots of tomatoes: whole, sauce, and paste. And dehydrate some, too. At this point I’m just hoping I get something.
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Can hot pepper pasta be made ?
Just for some extra zing
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Spicy sauce can be made for sure! When stewing the tomatoes throw a half a habanero in with them and then fish it out at the end little bit of oil infusion, I also like to dehydrate the habaneros and then finely grind it up in a coffee grinder, I use this to spice up chili etc wife and kids don’t care for the super heat as much as I do
I also like to take habaneros and slice them about 1/4” wide, get a bottle of olives and pull out the pimentos and roll up the habanero slices and stuff them back into the olives and toss them back into the brine for a week or so, great snack 
Jalapeños I like to grab them fresh off the vine, slice them in half when I have the grill going and just drop a chunk of cheddar into the halves and put them in the grill (my own chef snack while cooking everyone’s food)
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Yeah I never did paste before I’ll have to try that this year, when I make chili I use diced tomatoes, crushed tomatoes and paste so I’ll need to make some of each, already pulling my French breakfast radishes and eating them when working in the garden and have been pulling lettuce for 3 days (we’ve been having tacos )
Daughters ritual is waking up and going to the garden and pulling 2 leaves of lettuce to eat every morning, she can’t wait for her strawberries and sweet banana peppers lol
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My wife is kind of a experimental cook and adds cayenne to her cookies every now and again surprise the heck out of some people. I am used to her doing stuff like that.
One guy told her her salsa was not hot enough, big mistake. She made him a pint just for him nothing but Carolina Reaper peppers in the salsa. Needless to say he told her it was too hot to eat… 
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Haha yeah the ol zinger salsa lol. I had someone say something similar about some hot sauce at work. Brought in a bottle of not so crazy but pretty damn hot for most people hot sauce. In all reality it’s not that it’s that “hot” just feels like you’re chewing a porcupine 
someone thought it would be a good idea to douse their taco with it… we had a good laugh haha still a respectable 321,000 scoville
@Cantgetnosatisfaction Sure. You can put in a sauce, as @Mikedin says, but you could also dehydrate, grind and put directly into the pasta dough. I’ve never done it, but sure.
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@Mikedin Yup–that early morning trip to the garden is the best! Right now, it’s just to check on things, but hoping soon it will be to do some harvesting.
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I cheat. I use basically the same recipe at @stockdogranch with a bit of olive oil. Then i put in my old ‘ron popiel’ pasta machine…lol…still works like a dream. I can make meal-size batches whenever i want, in any size. I even make lasagna and gnocchi. I just toss with flour and let it sit on counter for about an hour then toss in the pot.
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