About Bluewater Pepper Farm Archives

Autumn update from Bluewater Pepper Farm

With Fall comes harvest season and so I’ve been busy processing the beautiful peppers grown by Masse’s Fruit and Vegetable farm in nearby St. Joseph. Between smoking and drying batches of jalapeños and shepherds and starting the mash for fermented pepper sauce, it’s been a busy time.

I’d like to thank everyone who’s purchased my products for the first time as well as many who have come back for second and third orders. In a few posts this summer, I told you about 3 stores in Bluewater where you can buy my products. I’m pleased to say it’s been an encouraging success. Between retail sales on online sales, Hellfire Habanero sauce and Jerk Chipotle Seasoning are currently sold out (though more is on the way). There’s still plenty of Hot Smokey Chipotle, Chili Powder and Whole Leaf Oregano, plus a few whole Ancho and Guajillo chilies.

In addition to the fantastic jalapeños This year’s pepper crop includes sweet shepherd peppers (upper right in the photo). Watch for a couple of new products in the coming weeks that will show off the natural sweetness and delicious flavour of these field-grown shepherds.

I spent 2 solid weeks in October smoking this year’s peppers. Aided by some glorious fall weather I was able to process few hundred pounds! Oh, and there’s another batch of my Hellfire Habanero hot sauce fermenting away. Watch for it in the next couple of months – I don’t want to rush the fermentation.

All Canadian Sauce!

After a lot of trial and error, I created a new sauce recipe that will nicely complement the Hellfire. It’s a savoury ferment of sweet and hot peppers, cranberries and spices. The acidity of the cranberries and fermentation is balanced with maple syrup – I think of it as the All-Canadian sauce. The heat will be mild, so if you can’t handle the hot stuff, this one’s for you. Watch for it to be available some time in November in time for the holidays.

Picking up fresh cranberries was a great excuse for a road trip to Muskoka Lakes Farm and Winery. It turned out to be a perfect Fall day for taking a hike through their sugar bush and exploring the cranberry bog where they’re grown.

Muskoka cranberry farm — Clockwise from top: The cranberry “plunge”; The “test kitchen”; Path through the Muskoka woods in full Fall glory

A couple more things

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Bluewater Pepper Farm is open for business!

Buy spices from Bluewater Pepper Farm’s online shop

I’m excited to announce the opening of my online shop! Buy my Hot Smokey Chipotle and (new!) Jerk Chipotle right here. Just click “Shop” from the main menu.

Payments are securely processed via PayPal. You can choose to pay from your PayPal account or, just use your credit card with no need for an account. No payment details are shared with this website.

Your purchase will be shipped to you via Canada Post. For now, I can only send to customers within Canada, but I’m working on expanding coverage to the US and other countries. With the eco-friendly packaging, I’m able to reduce plastic significantly plus ship to you by regular letter post. This provides reliable shipping at low cost with delivery typically 1 to 3 days. The trade off is you will not be able to track your purchase.

Mid summer update

As always, August brings a rich harvest in Huron County – everything seems to peak at the same time. Our vegetable garden has been slow to start, but is now producing a surplus of beans, cabbage, carrots and onions. Fortunately I’m not reliant on my own peppers as they’re somewhat of a disappointment this year. More about that in a later post. Meantime, I’ve been busy with a few other projects.

I picked up some nice slabs of apple and cherry wood for the smoker. I felt kinda bad about cutting the big apple piece up for chips as it would have made a beautiful tabletop. However, I think these are better than buying the bags of chips and definitely cheaper. Tested them with a hunk of brisket on the smoker.

Fruit wood chips deliver a sweet smoke flavour

My Bluewater Pepper Farm Chipotle powder is for sale at Masse’s Fruit and Vegetable Market during the summer months. It sold well this past year, so be sure to drop by Masse’s when they re-open in late May. While you’re there, pick up outstanding sweet corn, strawberries, peaches and all kinds of other fresh local fruits and vegetables. If you can’t wait, I’m now pleased to offer an online shop too.

Raised beds

It was time to rebuild a couple of my raised beds. They served well for a decade, but I confess they weren’t very well built to begin with

I used some salvaged 2×8 lumber from the deck we replaced last year. I know many will tell you to avoid pressure treated lumber for garden boxes, but these are well aged. They do not contain arsenic which hasn’t been used in a few decades. Best of all, it was already stacked behind the shed, looking for a purpose.

A couple of hours later, I’m happy with the end result. I decided to build it up higher this time – the 2×8’s made that easy to do. I prefer the height because it allows me to add more soil, plus it’s just plain easier to reach. Another option would be to use it as a cold frame. I could add a hinged plastic window on top to grow greens and such in early Spring.