Pepper Sickness?

Mr. Stripey wasn't the only thing that suffered in the garden. I had some nice peppers finally develop out there as well. I didn't show you much of them. It took forever for them to grow, and I mean FOREVER. Maybe next year I will plant the bell pepper plants over by where I have that crazy jalapeno planted.

(POP QUIZ: how many different things can you put jalapenos in? Homemade salsa, tuna salad, tacos, chickpea salad, potato salad, tortilla soup, chicken enchilada casserole . . . and now I am drawing a blank. A little help here? comment section below.)

The peppers refused and refused to grow- i complained about it at length here, such as in this post entitled "My Little Peppers and How They Grow." The photos in that post were so cute and tiny as the bell peppers began their journey toward adulthood:

They quickly grew to a large size but hovered in their green state for weeks upon weeks


Now, one plant was an orange bell pepper plant, and therefore should have turned orange, and the other plant was a red bell pepper plant. So, I knew when they were ripe they would turn colors, then I could pick and eat them. Meanwhile, I was preoccupied with Mr. Stripey, the death of zucchini, the confounded beans which never really produced, and the sugar snap peas which sort of but never really gave me anything. (I did get about seven pea pods and we ate them in a yummy salad! I WISH i had gotten tons of those peas!)

But, finally, one day, color appeared:



This color appeared after a couple of days of rain, which suggests that perhaps the peppers needed a bit more water in order to really ripen and move the process along.

Unfortunately, after this, I didn't get a photo for a couple of days because I was out of town. When I came back in town, however, they were BRIGHT orange and red and ready to pick. They had slight abnormalities on their skins but no big deal, right?

So, I picked them and prepared to use them in dishes. First, I picked the red pepper. It wasn't totally red but as soon as I touched it, it fell off of the plant. It had a bit of brownish/green at the bottom. I left it on the counter, thinking it would finish ripening. It didn't. It turned mushy. That was a disappointment. Disappointment No. 1, as it turned out.

Disappointment No. 2, as it turned out, was this:

The "abnormalities" on the skin of the orange pepper, after it was left on my counter for a day or two, got worse and worse and worse, until it ended up looking like this! Now, what the hell is this all about? Should I have washed it with antibacterial soap as soon as I brought it in? Is this caused by bacteria or by insects or what? THey are just, spots that sort of sunk into the pepper itself. I really, really don't get it. I never used any pesticides or chemicals in the garden. I'm trying to eat fresh and get free food here, darnit!



I carved off the unusable portions, just like I did with the tomatoes, and got some usable parts diced up.

And . .. i ended up adding it to a chickpea salad, and it was fresh and tasty. The above shots are what the inside of the pepper looked like. I am just at a loss as to what is the deal with the produce from the garden. Something similar happened to the last zucchini we brought in, before the zucchini plants died. It had a little break in the skin, and we left it in the fruit basket, and two days later - the entire zucchini had sunken in on itself like it had a worm or something. Yuck.

I bring produce home from the supermarket all the time and leave it out on the counter . . . should I be putting my veggies in the fridge or something? Not the tomatoes, surely . . . but they are having problems too! Help! thanks.

My Little Peppers and How They Grow

Coming up with titles for these posts is often an inside joke for myself. Today the title is patterned after a children's book called "Five Little Peppers and How They Grew," written by Margaret Sidney. The Peppers are a family of six, five children and their widowed mother, at the turn of the century. Extremely poor, starving, on the brink of death, and remarkably cheerful. I love books.

Anyway, this post is about MY peppers, which I have not posted about in awhile.

I've been lackadaisacal about posting updates on the pepper plants. I have three: a jalapeno, and an orange and yellow bell pepper. Or is one of them red? I can't remember. One is definitely orange. Anyway, since i posted a long time ago about the pest eating holes in the leaves, i've just left the subject alone. The plants were kind of wimpy and have been slow to develop.

The jalapeno had one lone pepper and that was it for awhile:
But all of a sudden the rest of the flowers dropped off and developed quickly into peppers:
That photo was taken on June 15. Now pay attention to the top of the plant where the newest peppers are developing.

Look at those hot peppers! Aiy-yai-yai! They're growing like hotcakes. whatever that means. Like the comics in the background?


Then we have the bell peppers. FINALLY they are growing
These are the orange bell peppers, I think. I can see five peppers beginning to grow - the really visible one by my hand and some other myriad tiny baby ones around the plant. I wonder how long it is going to take for them to grow and ripen?

Here is the red or yellow one, whichever it is:
And about four visible peppers developing on this plant so far. I wonder what tripped the development of the veggies on these plants? We have only begun having really hot days, and I know that the peppers are supposed to love sun and heat , , ,

The great thing about this is that soon I can make salsa from my own garden. Some of the cilantro has not completely bolted, the jalapenos are looking great, i can cheat with onions and garlic from the store, and if the tomatoes would just cooperate and ripen!
Because pretty soon we are going to just have green tomato salsa! My brother comes this weekend and i want to serve from the garden!