The Garden Thread - September, 2025

September 1, 2025 | Diana in WI/Greeneyes in Memoriam

[Diana in Wisconsin]

“Want to get some new headlight assemblies because the old ones are yellow/cloudy, also, before winter.”

If you find a good source, will you let me know? My VW is in DESPERATE need of new headlights; it’s so bad that I do NOT drive her at night!

Foster Son Mick cleaned them for me a few years ago, but it’s really time to replace them. The rest of the car (2001!) is fine. She’s a little dinged up, but so is her owner! :)

Rock Auto?

[Pollard]

Yes, rockauto and if they have CAPA certified, get those because the better insurance companies/policies require that. They’re higher quality and closer to OEM.

2001 VW might be unlikely for CAPA.

I’ll be paying a little extra for CAPA, plus double shipping because left and right will ship from two different locations. CAPA vs non is only a few dollars. Shipping one CAPA from a second location is $15.

$145 vs $170, I’ll pay the extra 25 bucks.

Ebay/amazon are options but I know from experience that returns to rockauto is you email them, they respond quick with a return shipping label paid for by them and send you a new part the same day. With my one return, I received the new part before I shipped them the return.

[FamiliarFace]

Can you send me the recipe of what you do for your jalapeño pepper jelly? I’m considering using my shishito peppers that way as a substitute. I have no idea if that would be tasty or not, but something has me wondering if it could work.

[FamiliarFace]

Guess what?! We found out a couple of hours ago that TOMORROW is the day they start building the custom water feature in the meditation garden!! I have no idea what it will look like, because our guy isn’t quite sure what will work, but I trust him, that it will be beautiful in the end, and cost at least half what others would charge.

So far, the project is about 1/4 of the price of the other bid. I’ll take that all day long.

Even after the water feature is installed, there’s still a lot of work left to do. It is the piece that we will build around, other than the raccoon hole that was the first piece of this puzzle.

I can’t believe this project began, at least in my mind, the first week of April this year, when we had a powerful tornado blow through, and we dodged a bullet on our property. 5 miles away they weren’t so lucky.

Oh, and have I mentioned that we are investing in a whole house automatic generator? No more plugs and transfer switches. This should all be completed by mid October, God willing.

It seems as soon as we have one tiny piece of a project done, 3 more line up right behind it. I know all of my garden thread FReepers understand that.

[Qiviut]

Jalapeño Pepper Jelly

Adapted from
https://www.ballmasonjars.com/blog

Modified from original

Servings: 6 half pints (8 oz jelly jars)

INGREDIENTS

12 oz. [3/4 lb.] RED jalapeño peppers (about 12 med)
2 cups cider vinegar, divided
6 cups sugar
1 box powdered pectin (Sure Jell - yellow)

STEPS

FIRST, LET'S PREP!:

1) Wash peppers under cold running water, drain. Remove stems and seeds. Purée peppers in food processor or blender with 1 cup cider vinegar until tiny bits. Do not strain purée. [NOTE: To save peppers for multiple batch processing, do this step & refrigerate in glass jar - will keep a few weeks]

COOK!:

1) Combine purée with remaining 1 cup cider vinegar. Heat slightly & add box of pectin (mix with 1/4 cup sugar to prevent clumping), stirring to dissolve.

2) Bring mixture to a rolling boil that cannot be stirred down.

Add remaining sugar (5-3/4 cups)

Bring back to a rolling hard boil while dissolving sugar clumps

Boil for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat.

NEXT, LET'S CAN IT!:

1) Ladle hot jalapeño jelly into hot jars leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Wipe rim. Center lid on jar. Apply band until fit is fingertip tight.

2) Process filled jars in a boiling water canner for 10 minutes, adjusting for altitude. Turn off the heat and remove the cover. Let jars cool for 5 minutes before removing the jars from canner. Check lids for seal after 24 hours. Lid should not flex up and down when center is pressed.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Good! Glad you like them, too. We’ve used them for lots of hard-to-find parts. Thanks!

[Diana in Wisconsin]

“It seems as soon as we have one tiny piece of a project done, 3 more line up right behind it. I know all of my garden thread FReepers understand that.”

Just got off the phone with Beau - looks like Friday will be his ETA with ALL the dogs. He was wondering how my ‘Honey Do List’ was coming - I told him it’s already one side, single spaced, of a LEGAL PAD right now, LOL!

A lot of it is stuff we can BOTH work on - but I DO need him to wield the chainsaw for some things as my little Black & Decker isn’t much good for anything beyond some basic pruning.

[Qiviut]

I don’t know about shishito peppers in this recipe. Ball has some other recipes mixing fruit (apricot, mango) with jalapeños or habaneros for some spice - that might work substituting shishitos.

I think the majority of the recipe I posted is from the Ball Blue Book of Preserving, but I don’t recall exactly & the recipes on the website aren’t the one I am using. Anyway, if you go to the Ball website, go to ‘recipes’, then ‘jams & jellies’.

I’ve got my feet up for a break before I tackle the next two recipes for tomorrow. The most labor intensive part of both recipes is chopping & sautéing onions - I think I can manage to get them done in the next hour or so, if I don’t fall asleep in this recliner first!🥱😴

[FamiliarFace]

Thank you for the recipes. I’m not sure if I’m brave enough to try it. I want to bring some down to Florida when we go in a couple of weeks. My sisters don’t seem to know much about them, so if I can introduce them to shishitos, and they like them, then it would be a win.

We just finished making our air travel plans to go out to Oregon for Thanksgiving and the arrival of the angel baby. Getting real!! Since we have a big day tomorrow, I think I’ll climb out of my recliner and get my pjs on. When I start yawning, that means it’s time to call it a day!

[Paul R.]

I’ll prolly post this on the October thread too, once it’s up:

Hi, Diana! Happy October to all!

Sorry for more questions, but in particular with regard to Mortgage Lifter (”ML”) tomato plants, you are the only person I know who has experience with them. (Anyone else, please chime in!)

To the best of your recollection, once your ML’s started flowering, did they:

1) “One and done”? That is, produce one round of flowers and fruits, and then rather quickly die off?

Or,

2) Produce perhaps 3 rounds of fruits in several weeks, or maybe one surge of fruits for a month or so, and then gradually (or maybe not so gradually) die off? (Usually when I see this, the 1st or 2nd round is best.)

Or,

3) Once fruiting, produce a fairly steady but somewhat modest stream of flowers and fruits for at least a few months?

Also, once fruits are set, did they (ML fruits) seem to grow slower than many other varieties, but eventually get very large?

What I’m seeing so far, on my ML’s that have fruited, is slow growth of the fruits, and the plants seem to have ceased flowering. That last is ok, as, the better plants have quite a few fruits growing (esp. if they get close to their vaunted size potential), AND, given the slow fruit growth, I doubt fruits setting this late / after mid-September will mature by our 1st serious frost.

[Pollard]

Unless it's something I absolutely need now, I buy all my parts from rockauto. I can get a brand name for less than or the same price as the chain store's house brand.

I was looking for a bearing hub assembly for the truck and noticed O'Reilly, our local chain, and a no-name China brand on rockauto used the exact same pic which tells me they're both made in the same factory in China. Rock Auto was 1/3 the price of O'Reilly. I bought Timken and it was still cheaper than O'Reilly including shipping.

Gates - belts and hoses
Timken - bearings
National - seals
Raybestos/Wagner/Bendix - brakes
Standard - ignition/electrical
Moog - suspension
TRW - steering

All the above have been around since we were kids or before we were born in some cases. May not be made in the USA anymore but they have the experience and still keep high standards and have USA headquarters and distribution/warehouses.

VW/Porsche - Bosch for most things as it is OEM
Japanese - NGK/Denso/Hitachi

Beck-Arnley is also good for both German and Japanese as they source directly from manufacturers in each country and have for decades.

Spark plugs
NGK for Japanese
Bosch for German
OEM brand for American - AC Delco, Motorcraft and once upon a time, Autolite for Chrysler but they went out of business.

Small American cars often have Japanese engines so NGK for those. Mitsubishi=Chrysler. Toyota=GM, Mazda=Ford

The headlight assemblies that are CAPA certified are both the same brand and product line but two different prices and shipping from two locations durnit.

$15.99 shipping for one and $14.99 for the other, $170 with tax.

Oh well. It is what it is. The other brand is Dorman, non-CAPA, and they suck. Straight up cheapest China factory they can find is how they roll. They do make some stuff no one else does and you see it in the parts store under the HELP! brand. Dorman prices aren't much better in this case, $59 and $65. TYC non-CAPA is $62 ea.

Aaannd, I'm looking at other parts.

The grill is held on with bailing twine and zip ties and the chrome strip is about to fall off. Looks like $55 for that and ship from yet another location. CAPA certified grill is $110 so I'll pass on that since it's not functional like a headlamp.

The back hatch/liftgate wants to come down on my head on cool mornings which means it won't stay up at all once it really gets cold. Those lift cylinders are cheap enough at around $10 ea.

Added grill and some of the lift cylinders ship from same location so that helps. Really have to play around with parts and where they ship from on rockauto. It's nice that they have the little truck icon to show parts that ship from same location as something already in the cart.

Grand total for headlights, grill and lift cylinders $281.62. Remove grill which reduces shipping locations from three to two and it's $195 so I'll do that since the grill actually looks fine. I'll find a way to attach the chrome strip better.

Happy October!

[Qiviut]

The food for today’s lunch is Under Control!

Everything is made & either waiting in the fridge or warming in a crockpot, except for the beans which are baking in the oven.

It is a “brisk” morning, sunny & breezy. I chopped up the leaves in the front yard with the mower last night, finished around dark. The rain didn’t clear until mid-afternoon so I waited as late as I could to let the grass dry out some. A few leaves are down already, but trees have leaves, leaves fall in the Fall & it is definitely FALL.

Happy October y’all .... see you on the October thread later on!! 🍂🍁