Picking Peppers to Pickle....

I did not realize two weeks passed since my last garden post! I have no excuses, other than life happens! Things in the garden have slowed down at the moment, which makes no sense to me - it should be flourishing!

Since this post is about peppers...I'll get down to the nitty gritty. The green peppers were basically wiped out. There are some peppers growing, but they are so tiny they are not useful in recipes and certainly aren't going to be added to a veggie tray any time soon (or ever)!

The banana peppers are great. I already prepped one can (aka jar) of them and I've been using them on sandwiches. The jalenpenos are doing ok, what is left of them. They also didn't see the growth that we saw last year, but I am getting enough to be able to can and possibly make poppers.

Here are the picked peppers waiting to be canned:



(I will need quite a few more jalapenos, so I'm working on it!)

The serrano pepper plant and the cayenne pepper plant are also growing long, beautiful peppers. I am a little afraid to eat them...they are going to be HOT!!!

Hopefully things will pick back up, so I can have more posts!

Sad Plants = Sad Gardener

Rainfall this week has totaled close to a bazillion inches and the garden is straightup, genuine mud. It is unlikely we will get any weeding done until next week. The plants look beat down and just sad. Their leaves are turned down and not even happy to see the sun.

This results in a sad gardener. Everything was going so well. Now, it appears it is only going well for the weeds.

As I mentioned in my last post, there are things happening in the garden now. Today, I picked banana peppers off the plant. It's amazing how fast they were ready! I tried them and they are ok. May have to figure out how to use them effectively.

Here are the two peppers I picked before losing two shoes in the garden and had to forfeit my adventures. Whoops!:

Peppy Peppers

Until now, I haven't had much to report on the jalapenos and green peppers. They were growing, but nothing too exciting. Of course, they shot up this week! They really are growing fast and we should have peppers growing soon.

Here is a picture of one of the green/jalapenos from this week. I could try to guess, but it would probably be the opposite. Anyhow, here is the pepper:



A nice surprise from the banana peppers. I can see a pepper already! Here you go:



The cayenne pepper stunted early, but is recovering now:



I didn't take a picture of the serrano pepper, but it is still adjusting to the garden. Hopefully it will make the transition quickly and get growing!

Full Garden Pictures

It's been awhile since I posted full garden pictures, mostly because there was nothing to show. I didn't get the whole garden in a picture so I will show them in two stages......

The "North Side":



Hotcaps (Rows 1 and 2) are the watermelon. They were planted in hard conditions, so I left the hotcaps on this week to give them a chance.

Row 3: All Tomatoes

Row 4: First three plants are Eggplants, the rest are Tomatoes

Rows 5 & 6: Green Peppers and Jalapenos, respectively

Row 7: Banana and Chili Peppers, Onions

(See next picture for rest)

The "South Side"




Row 1: Same as Row 7 in first picture

Row 2: Zucchini

Row 3: Broccoli

Row 4: Cauliflower

Row 5: Snow Peas

Row 6: Green Beans

Row 7: Lettuce/Radishes

"Open space" Rows 8 & 9: Cantaloupe

I never counted the rows. 15 rows of fine, fresh, farm-raised produce growing! I know we will really enjoy the "fruits" of our labor this summer. It's hard to imagine right now!

EMERGENCE!

Ok, it's been almost a week since my last post - SORRY! It rained A LOT last weekend, so there isn't anything I could do in the garden...but the plants had plenty to do!

I went out today and planted zucchini. I removed the asparagus plants (RIP) and using their row for the zucchini. I'm looking forward to the assortment of squash this summer (zucchini and eggplant.)

Here is a picture of the freshly planted and watered zucchini. Please note, it's incredibly windy today. Check out the emergence of the corn next to my garden!



As a part of my blog, I plan to give regular updates on each of vegetables on a semi-regular basis. Here is your first progress report:

Tomatoes - all plants are growing, looking strong

Eggplants - great leaf growth in these plants, they really strive in our soil type

Green Peppers and Jalapenos - looking good, growing

Banana Peppers - all plants growing well

Onions - some have taken off quicker than others - hopefully this will result in a spread out growing season

Snow Peas - I fear a repeat of last year's sugar snap pea disaster, I see nothing........

Green Beans - EMERGENCE. They look great coming out of the ground!



Lettuce - I had no idea how to plant the lettuce, so I may have not spread it out enough. But, more emergence!



Radishes - The last thing planted from seed, the radishes seem to be flourishing! Glad I have a lot of friends who like Radishes!



I'm still looking for a good selection of watermelon and cantaloupe plants. I plan to check out the Macon County Extension's plant sale this weekend and see what I can find.

Confusion in Gardening

We finally found a single banana pepper plant at Farm and Fleet. It was much bigger than the one I planted Sunday, but I really wanted to get another one in the ground.

I went to plant it and realized this is a sweet banana pepper plant. The previous plant was a "hot" banana pepper plant. Variety is the spice of life, right? I had no idea there were differences in banana peppers considering the "hot" ones are only mildly hot!

After a quick google search, I'm still equally confused - it appears there may be no difference between these plants! A lot of websites use a general "banana pepper" term.

While I'm on the topic of confusion, I would like to talk about my asparagus. My mom told me it takes awhile (like years) for asparagus to grow. She said it would take more than one season for it to produce anything. I listened but disregarded her comments when my package of asparagus roots mentioned nothing of the sort!

Monday, I found aspargus plants at Farm and Fleet. Their package said they would not produce asparagus this year. FRUSTRATION. So, I turned to my friend, Google. My research concluded that asparagus does take three years to mature and grow to the vegetable we see in the stores. No wonder it is so expensive! Sorry, Mom

This research left nothing but questions for me. How old are my roots? Are they on their third year? Is that why their package didn't mention waiting years for a product?

I'm hoping that I purchased three year old roots and I will be pleasantly surprised in 72 days! I'll keep you posted.