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!! 🍂🍁

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Mortgage Lifter: I always got a bunch of HUGE fruits late in the season, then enough green ones, but smaller, to ripen inside well into the fall and sometimes the winter.

Zone 5 - my growing season is shorter than yours. Our first freeze is mid-October. You may end up with actual vine-ripened fruits from your Mortgage Lifter.

[MomwithHope]

Sounds good, post a pic when its done!

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

End of the September Garden Thread!

To link to the new The Garden Thread -October 2025 click below!

[Paul R.]

I bought new headlight assemblies for our ‘09 Outback off Amazon, maybe 3(?) years back, but I don’t recall the brand. OEM Subaru headlamp assemblies have the reflective surface inside eventually go bad. The plastic “lenses” yellow too, as well as oxidize - one can refinish them but never to new functionality. F’ing weight reduction — glass would last practically forever. (The deterioration accelerates, as once said surface begins to deteriorate, it absorbs more heat from the bulb, which speeds up the deterioration, which causes more heat buildup, which causes...)

I ended up taking a chance on a sort of no-name company (would have to look it up) that had good reviews, including some for other assy’s for other vehicles, going back a few years, except the bulbs burning out early. Not a problem — I had / have spare bulbs including the bulbs out of the old headlight assemblies.

These ended up being good. Everything fit ok. Disassembly and especially reassembly was a pain, as can often be the case with Subies (and most “modern” cars too), but “doable” for most any “backyard mechanic”. Low beam performance is better and tighter than OEM. High beam has a pretty wanky pattern well off axis, but is very good (again, better than OEM) down the road. It looks to me as if somebody re-engineered the reflective “angles” and compromised big time on the high beam @ 60 deg. or more off axis. Fine by me. So far, there seems to be little or no deterioration of the reflective surfaces or the lense(s). (Cross my fingers!!)

[Paul R.]

November?

Nice map. Although the times seem off (too late for peak color) in my area for the last few years. But, we have tended to have atypically warm and dry / drought) Septembers & well into October the last few years, then we “snap” cold sometime around mid-late October.

There are a few anomalies, too. Jackson County IL is shown “turning” very early. That “could” be localized drought, but, the drought maps don’t show that.

Driving back here several nights ago, when we got a little (too little!) rain, a LOT of those drought afflicted brown leaves were down. The highway was completely covered with wet leaves in forested areas. It was almost like driving on ice - maybe worse, in some ways. :-(

[Paul R.]

Thanks for the reply!

Everything about Mortgage Lifters seems “slowed down”, but apparently they eventually “get there” (and how!)

I still have 3 ML plants in little 2” starter pots, inside, and they seem fine, even healthy, just “Bonsai-like”! Like little 6” tall bushes.

If I like the taste, I may try either over-wintering these 3, or (and?) starting a few plants from seed very early, and then be sure to get them transplanted as early as I dare. The 6-pack ML’s seem more “Bonsai-able” than the ones I started from seed.

Bizarrely, ONE of the weaker ML’s planted in soil (not in a pot) outside has produced smallish fruits already ripening. They are kinda bland, so, they can’t be a “got mixed up” Cherry Falls — those are always pretty zippy tasting for me. Plants in that spot never do well - I suspect something in the soil from before I owned this place. Since I bought 16 cu. ft. of nutrient enhanced garden soil on clearance at Wally World, next spring I may dig a large hole in that spot and dump in some mixed compost and garden soil.

Our space to ripen fruits inside is very limited, but, the long range weather forecast still looks warm, so, yes, I may get lucky with the vine-ripening. I look forward to giving away a couple huge fruits to each of our friends. :-)

[Paul R.]

Understood far too well!

[Pollard]

05 Focus - have to remove the front bumper cover and some components hiding up behind it and the inner fender well. Quite a pita if you don't have a lift which I don't. I managed to do it without taking off the bumper cover but my arms were bruised by the time I got done.

These are one piece that wraps down and includes the turn signal. Just watched a youtube video and it looks pretty easy to replace them.

Headlight assemblies are both yellowed and hazy. I wet sanded and then buffed a pair years ago but had to repeat the buffing on occasion because there was no longer UV protection.

Check Engine light was on so I checked the codes and it had O2 sensor code and cooling fan 1 circuit. Looked under the hood and saw a regular clutch fan that's bolted to and spins with the waterpump. No electric fan(s). Searched a trailblazer discussion forum and found out it has a hybrid fan. Electronic version of the clutch fan.

The temp sensor remains stationary while the clutch with fan bolted to it spin. In my repair software, I saw a TSB that says the wires can chafe inside the plastic tubing and create an issue so I'll look into that but I'm tempted to just replace it. There must be some little bearing in there to allow it to not spin while the clutch does. If it's original, that bearing's 20 years old with 192,000 miles. If that bearing ever froze or fell apart, it's apt to sling around and punch holes in the radiator.

Not cheap though and you can't buy just the sensor. Can only get it as pictured. No name China, $80 - US Motorworks, $140 - Hayden, $170 - Genuine GM, $200.

US Motorworks is a newcomer but the waterpump with fan clutch of theirs that I got for the truck seemed good quality, Hayden has been around a long time or for $200, get the OEM GM part and be good for another 20 years. They were only used on Trailblazer/Envoy 4.2 liter which were only made for 6-7 years so someday, those fan clutches will be hard to find.

I'm going to unbolt the radiator shroud and slide it back so I can reach the sensor. See if it wobbles at all and see if there's anything I can do with the wires without cutting them to pull them out of the tubing. Looking at all the pics of the different brand names, I don't see a slit in the tubing like wire loom has. About all I'll be able to do is wiggle it while checking continuity between wires and from one end of a single wire to the other end. For that matter, I can check to make sure the fan clutch doesn't wobble because that's definitely a radiator killer if it comes loose.

The code P0480 means the computer is commanding the fan to engage but not seeing a return signal verifying that is has. I know the fan engages because it's loud when it does. Seems to come on at weird times though. Had it come on one morning when I had just barely made it out of the driveway and the engine wasn't even at full temp yet. Have also had it disengage when it was hot out and I had turned on the AC a minute earlier. Seems like a short or bad sensor.

Got my two new tires put on the front yesterday and was going to order the other two tomorrow morning but might be getting a fan clutch and O2 sensor instead. Back tires aren't bald and can wait a while. Just need to replace them before winter weather kicks in. Same with the headlights. I can see just fine but would see better with clear lenses and it would make it look a whole lot better.

O2 sensor is the upstream sensor meaning pre-catalytic converter. In this case, it screws into the exhaust manifold. It's more expensive than the downstream of course. $50 for Delphi/Bosch or $80 for Genuine GM so I might was well spend the extra $30. Wouldn't hurt to get the downstream as well and have them both reading right. Probably pay for themselves in improved fuel mileage. It has a shudder when maintaining a speed. Give it a tiny bit of gas or take foot off accelerator and it goes away. Makes cruise control kind of useless and makes me either be accelerating or decelerating all the time. The O2 sensor(s) will probably fix that. Just looked again and GM downstream is also $80 and both sensors in Bosch would be $80 so I might get Bosch.

Gonna pull a spark plug or two and see what those look like. Air filter looks good. Fuel filter has probably never been replaced. Need to do an oil change and tranny filter/fluid change. Need to drain a little coolant and see what color it is. It's too low in the expansion tank to see it. If it has the orange GM coolant, I'll get that. If it's green, I'll get that. Hate to mix them. Not a fan of the orange GM stuff because it looks like rusty water so hopefully it's been swapped over to green. Draining a little will also allow me to check the strength.

All these parts are adding up so I'm getting a little less picky about the brand and more concerned with price as I go. It is a 20 year old rig with 200k on it after all. Fan clutch I'll do GM but everything else is likely getting downgraded but not to no-name China. Why get top of the line headlight assemblies when I drive a critter crowded road every morning at 4:30? I've seen well over a dozen deer in one spot on that road. Been t-boned by a few. Nothing like driving at 4am and having something slam into the driver's door at 30-40 mph. They hit me more often than I hit them and new headlights and extra bright bulbs will help reduce me hitting them. Next cool spell we have, they'll be out in large numbers.

Need to build a heavy duty brush guard type of thing -- A DEERFLECTOR Most of the ones you can buy are pretty thin metal. Not much help when you're going 50-60 mph and hit a 300 lb deer.

• Fan Clutch
• O2 Sensors
• Tires (x2)
• Liftgate Cylinders
• Headlight Assemblies
• Right Taillight Assembly (was cracked when I bought it)
• Headlight Bulbs
• Oil and Filter
• Tranny Fluid and Filter
• Spark Plugs - maybe
• Coolant
• Windshield Washer Fluid
• Wiper Blades (x3)

Looks like the next 2-3 paychecks are going into the Trailblazer. Needs to be right for winter. That pushes high tunnel spending out to the first of November.

Speaking of November, yes that map does seem a bit off. Has this area in full color well into November when in reality, everything will be brown by then.