mediaOrganic » Peppers

bountiful august harvest redux

john — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 11:27:55 +0000

As I walked through my kitchen it popped into my brain that I should post a photo of my counter top as it looks today. What this doesn’t show you are the additional tomatoes sitting off to the side in a basket, the many pounds of vegetables stuffed into my refrigerator, not to mention what remains in the garden waiting to be harvested. My greatest concern these days is conjuring up new ways to share this bounty with others before it decays into chicken feed. Especially since I know that in December and January I’m going to be pining for these heady August harvests.

thai chili pepper

john — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 18:22:35 +0000

Who can object to a plant that is both so prolific and so beautiful? In the spring, my wife had expressed a desire to grow one of these as a container plant. I ran across this particular plant at Lowes. Given how hot this summer has been, the poor thing has wilted on numerous occasions but always seems to revive after a good watering. Obviously the stress didn’t hold down production much. Now all we have to do is to find a use for all of these lovely little incendiaries.

first peppers planted

john — Sun, 03 May 2009 18:50:16 +0000

The dear wife is behind on her seed starting this year so I’m trying to hedge my bets a little bit and get an early jump on this warm weather by supplementing our efforts with commercially grown seedlings. There’s not yet much variety at any of the local garden centers but I took a flyer on a couple six packs of peppers – jalapenos and purple bell. Since she has designs on the raised beds I had to find a new location to plant them so I decided to dig a trench a few feet in front of my new grape trellis. It’s a perfect south-facing location that gets a solid 7-8 hours of sun. The soil is all sand so I amended heavily with composted cow manure and peat moss. The grapes are already going strong and will be well along before the peppers are large enough to cast any shade across them. Let’s just hope the bunnies don’t eat them.