Peppers, Sunflowers & Elderberries

This week's post is all about plants. Peter Piper could have picked his peck of peppers this week in my garden. I planted 8 pepper plants, 4 Jalapeno and 4 mystery peppers (they were supposed to be bell peppers).  You can tell from the pictures these are not bell peppers. I think they are banana peppers. Whatever they are they are really productive.

I picked 34 off of one plant. I still have plenty of pickled Jalapeno's from last year so I researched how to dry them on strings and this is the result.

I thought they look really pretty. They should dry within just a few weeks and then can be ground into powder.

We had a 3 volunteer sunflowers come up in the garden this year from some we planted last year. They were all 3 different. One had a lot flowers on it, one is just 1 smaller flower, and the other one was huge.

That is my 6 foot 2 inch son holding it and as you can tell it covers quite a bit of him. It has to be at least 1 1/2 feet across. I haven't measured it yet but I am going to. I think it must weight a couple of pounds. I am drying it now so that we can toast the seeds. The seeds are really large.

We have also been picking elderberries. I am making a tincture from them for the cold & flu season. This is the first time I have done this so I am not comfortable telling anyone how to do it and how it works. If you Google Elderberry tincture there are a lot of people who are willing to tell you how and how it works. I will have to test it out to see, but for now mine is brewing and I am shaking it everyday. The basics are to soak some elderberries in Vodka. Some people say only use 100 proof some say 80 proof will do. I am trying 80 proof.

I have also used the juicer attachment on my Kitchen Aid to juice enough to make elderberry jelly. And still have a whole bag to do something else with. I am thinking about elderberry syrup. I just have to buy some ginger to get this done. It sounds like it may taste better than the tincture.

Have you ever made anything with elderberries? I would love to hear how you liked it and if it worked as well as you thought it would.

Have a great day!
Mae
Linking with the Homestead Barn Hop