Late, but not really

Memorial Day weekend is the traditional planting time for warm-weather crops like tomatoes and peppers, so the nursery was almost out of plants when I went today. Except it's not really late; it's just that Memorial Day was early. It's probably better to say that these plants can safely go into the ground the last weekend of May, which is the next two days. So I'm right on schedule.

Or I would be if I'd done any bed prep before now. The weeds have pretty much taken over.

I'm not planning a big garden this year. Just half a dozen each of grape tomatoes and banana peppers, some lettuce and swiss chard and herbs (in containers), plus some yellow squash if the critters don't get to them, and maybe some butternuts (ditto on being subject to critters). I've also got, for the first year since planting 3 years ago, lush rhubarb plants. (Forgot to get a pic; will try to remember and edit tomorrow.) I'm also experimenting with some potatoes that sprouted in the kitchen. I remember reading that they're treated to prevent growing, so I'm about to find out if it's true. They're planted in a bucket, so I can keep topping it off as (if) they grow, and, in theory, have a whole bucket full of potatoes in the fall.

So, yesterday I got some dill seeds, since it's been a while since they self-seeded, and planted them in a bucket with some pre-existing thyme. Today I bought six-packs of grape tomatoes, banana peppers, and yellow squash, for a total of a little less than ten bucks.

I'm expecting rain over the next 24 hours (ridiculously humid weather since yesterday), so no watering yet. I'm hoping to plant the banana peppers (the only seedlings left) tomorrow in between showers.

It should be a cheap growing year, since I already had two bags of compost. I bought some potting soil for the outdoor containers, so that's another five bucks or so. I've already got copper fungicide for the tomatoes. Oh, but I bought a new lopper and a new rake, so that's another fifty bucks or so, but they need to be amortized for the next ten years or so. I may also decide to get some mulch, but I'm not sure I'll need it. There's a pile of grass clippings I can grab, and that may be enough for the small beds I've planted this year.

THIS is why I garden

Okay, it's not the only reason I garden, but I really do love this time of  year when the peppers are at their peak.

Tomorrow, we're having banana peppers stuffed with rice pilaf and topped with cheese and a sprinkling of bacon, all served on a bed of wilted swiss chard.

The green peppers are going to be chopped up and placed on drying screens in my car so I'll have peppers during the winter (without paying ridiculous prices for inferior produce).

Peck of peppers (unpickled)

I picked eight peppers yesterday! Very early in the season, at least for me. They were small, about half the size they could be, but I wanted to encourage the plants to set more fruits, and remove the fruits that were touching the ground (and therefore most likely to get bruised and rot). There are at least a dozen more approaching the same size, to be picked in the coming week. Plus at least three banana peppers.

They're so CRUNCHY. The store peppers, and the larger varieties in general, tend to be so much mushier than fresh-from-the-garden, slightly smaller varieties like Ace.

I finally got a zucchini seed to germinate. I was starting to think I'd gotten a defective packet, perhaps stored badly or something, but now it looks like the poor germination was likely due to drowing in the recent deluges.

Rhubarb!

I was driving past a nursery on the way home from an event in Vermont, and it's a place I'd always wanted to check out, but I'd always been on a deadline. This past weekend, though, I actually had some time to use up, so I didn't arrive at my destination too early.

I'm so glad I stopped in. I found Chipman's Canada Red rhubarb, which I can't get locally, and thought I'd have to wait until next year to order. Now we'll get it going this year, and perhaps be able to harvest some next year, instead of losing a whole growing season.

Plus, they had a patio-sized container with a Purple Passion pepper plant in it, complete with the passionately purple (sort of eggplant colored) fruits, nearing maturity. Sure, I had 30 sweet pepper plants already growing in the garden, but I needed this variety. So now we've got 34 sweet pepper plents growing. (Except one of the Aces was beheaded by some critter -- snapped the plant in half, presumably to eat the top half, and then apparently spit it out, because pepper plants are yukky. I'm hoping he's learned his lesson and won't check the others, in case they taste better. I'm not sure if that plant will recover, but I've seen peppers come back from worse damage.)

So, we've got $15 to add to this year's expenses.

Skewed expectations

When I was getting our plants at the local nursery, I convinced someone to get Ace peppers instead of a more standard bell pepper. She mentioned that she'd never had any luck with peppers in the past, but was planning to give it one more try.

It sounded like her past problems were twofold: the wrong variety and skewed expectations. She'd been growing something like Cal Wonder (there's a reason it's called California Wonder, not New England Wonder), and was expecting it to grow as thick-walled as the ones in the grocery store.

I did warn her that Ace isn't intended to be thick-walled, but that it's prolific, and, when eaten fresh, has an absolutely amazing crunch that the thicker-walled ones lack. I do hope she likes them. If she can learn to love the smaller, crisper, thinner-walled varieties that grow well here, she'll have better success.

NPR's Science Friday had a segment on flavorless commercial tomatoes, and how the scientists think that, after extensively taste-testing heirloom varieties, they may have a better handle on the genetic traits that contribute to flavor (instead of the usual traits winter tomatoes are bred for: perfectly round shape, heavy production and the ability to travel undamaged). He's hoping to be able to breed commercial varieties that have both flavor and the commercially valuable traits.

I'm not as optimistic as the scientist seemed. Among other things, he mentioned that if a home grower planted one of the commercial varieties in a good soil, and let it ripen fully on the vine, she'd end up with a "good tomato, but not a great tomato." A lot of the flavor, he admits, has to do with the quality of the soil and, particularly, letting it ripen on the vine. I'm not sure how developing a more flavorful variety is going to help all that much, if the plants are still being grown hydroponically (or in depleted soil), and picked green for traveling long distances.

One comment he made, that really stuck with me and does give me some hope, was something to the effect of "There's no financial incentive for major growers to produce a more flavorful winter tomato; the financial incentive is to produce more quantity, regardless of the flavor quality."

And we, as consumers, are essentially doing exactly that. We're buying the ghastly, flavorless winter tomatoes, despite complaining. (I suppose a lot of home gardeners aren't buying them, actually, but are doing what I do, which is to eat fresh tomatoes only in the summer.) Why are they being bought, when everyone knows they taste horrible?

If consumers stopped buying the flavorless tomatoes and stopped expecting visual perfection (instead of culinary perfection), that might create a financial incentive for the major growers to grow better winter tomatoes. Or maybe our expectations would become more realistic, and we would do most of our fresh tomato eating during the warmer six months of the year, and skip them during the colder six months of the year.

Brief bit of sunshine

We've had rain or heavy clouds almost non-stop since my last post. The broccoli has become leggy from lack of sun, even though it's in what should be the sunniest part of the garden. I cut back the main head on each of the plants, hoping to inspire some side shoots.

I'm a little worried that we're in for a repeat of the 2009 season -- rainy and wet, with tomato blight. I FINALLY picked up plants (another $18 spent) today, a couple weeks later than I would in a normal year. Decided to get kale (5 plants, one of which is a bit puny), since cool-weather crops may be the only ones that prosper this year!

Also got: 6 Corno di Toro sweet peppers (since the generic banana peppers were sold out), 24 Ace sweet peppers, 6 yellow pear tomatoes and 6 Jetstar tomatoes. And a thyme plant, because last year's plant is really thriving in a corner of a small whiskey barrel, and I like thyme a lot, so the plan is to fill that whiskey barrel completely with thyme.

I'd like perhaps 6 more tomatoes in a variety that's better for cooking, but I thought I'd experiment this year, perhaps with an oxheart, except I haven't found them. I've also got some Matt's Wild Cherry seedlings to add to the tomato collection.

Highest priority (except that I ran out of energy in the sudden heat) now is to prepare the bed for the sweet potatoes (dig up the weeds, lay down black plastic, heat up the soil) and get them planted by the end of the weekend.

Pepper season

We've picked about fifty banana peppers so far, and pickled just a fraction of them, about 1 1/2 quarts. Most are being eaten raw. They really are excellent, and they tend to ripen a couple weeks before the Ace peppers hit full size.

The Aces have set quite heavily, and the plants are falling over. Usually, I stick cages around them, but of course I had to skip it this year, when it looks like we're going to have a record-breakingly heavy crop. We've picked several, but not enough to get the plants to stand on their own (more than two) roots again.

This is the first year in quite a while that we've planted hot peppers. Habanero. Which I didn't realize were among the hottest of the hot when we bought the plants. We're growing them for our co-gardener's husband. I hope he's ready for the deluge -- no one else I know eats them, so he's on his own with what looks to be a substantial crop. We don't always get the really hot weather that peppers prefer, but that hasn't been a problem, at least during the last month or so.

More behinder

The traditional planting weekend for this area is over, and the tomatoes still aren't in the ground.

On the plus side, the peppers are all planted -- 6 hot, 6 banana and 23 (there were 24, but one seedling croaked) Ace. And the alliums (onions and garlic) got some serious weeding, thanks to my co-gardener.

The new-to-us variety of garlic that ripens in June is, in fact, showing signs of being almost ready for harvest. The green tops stopped growing a couple weeks ago, and now they're sending up scapes.

The green beans are being eaten by the bunnies as soon as the seeds sprout (and my co-gardener, not a green-bean eater, rejoices). Unfortunately, the critters are also nibbling on the sugar snap peas.

First frost

We had several days with frost last week, and not just frost but a freeze too, with overnight temperatures in the twenties.

I went out afterwards to pull up what I was sure would be shriveled-up pepper plants (we'd harvested most of the fruit before the frost, and covered them with light plastic in case the frost was minor), and was stunned to find that most of the plants were thriving. Sure, there was some damage along the edges of the bed, where some branches had been fully exposed to the cold, but most of the plants were in great shape.

And there were several good-sized peppers that we'd missed during the rushed pre-frost harvest!

Pickled peppers

Despite the cold weather, we've had excellent peppers this year.

In the past, the banana peppers have been ignored once the bell peppers started maturing, but this year we found a recipe for pickled banana peppers that everyone likes and is incredibly simple.

Start by putting a bay leaf and a couple chopped cloves of garlic in a quart jar. Fill it up with slices of banana peppers (or, as in the photo, mixed with strips of other peppers). Generally, about a dozen peppers will fill the jar.

Combine a cup of white vinegar, 1 1/2 cups of water and about 1 1/2 Tablespoons of pickling (or kosher) salt. Mix until the salt is dissolved and then pour into the quart jar (adding a little extra water if necessary to top off the jar).

Crumple up a piece of plastic wrap and stick it on top of the jar to keep the peppers submerged. Cover the jar and refrigerate for at least a week to let the flavors develop. Reportedly, they'll keep in the fridge for 6 to 8 weeks, but ours have been eaten long before that.

This recipe was inspired by one in Linda Ziedrich's book, Joy of Pickling.

Pepper varieties

This year is proving to be an excellent one for sweet peppers.

Bob Thomson, in his book, The New Victory Garden (1987, but still my favorite basic resource) quoted two gardening experts on peppers, one saying that peppers were among the greatest challenges for home growers, and the other saying that peppers were so popular for home growers because they were so easy.

There are two factors that can make peppers harder or easier: weather and choice of variety.

You can't do much about the weather. We lucked out this year, and the too-cold-for setting temperatures increased just in time for the first cycle of blossoms. Banana peppers (in the background of the picture) always tend to set in bunches like real bananas, so I'm not surprised by how many we have already, but regular green pepper plants can be a little stingy with their fruits. Not this year, though. I counted at least eight little peppers on the Ace plant in the foreground.

Even when the weather doesn't cooperate, the choice of varieties can improve the odds of getting a good pepper crop. Banana peppers, with their smaller size and commensurately shorter time between setting and harvesting, offer the impatient gardener an early crop of peppers in good years, and guarantee at least some mature peppers in a bad year, although their flavor isn't as intense as regular green peppers. Last year, a critter (woodchuck, probably) got into the garden and ate the banana pepper seedlings down to the ground, while mostly leaving the other peppers alone. (That's another good reason to plant more than one variety.)

For the main crop, I've found Ace peppers to be the most reliable here in the Northeast U.S. The fruits of this variety are generally smaller and less thick-walled than the varieties found in grocery stores. As a result, the Aces mature more quickly, and more of the peppers can reach full size in an area with a relatively short growing season. Some years, they're uniformly small, but in other years, they can be large enough to use for stuffed peppers.

I've never had any luck with pepper varieties specifically grown for the colors they eventually turn, and I've tried them all (red, yellow, chocolate). I don't bother with them any longer, since I'm aiming to lower my blood pressure in the Recovery Garden, not raise it with frustration!

Sweet, sweet peppers

As far as obsessions go, mine is pretty tame. I love peppers. Especially the green ones, fresh from the garden.

We have about thirty pepper plants in the Recovery Garden. Six are banana peppers, and the rest are Ace green peppers (which will turn red if the season is hot and long enough, but are usually picked before that happens).

My obsession with peppers spills over into other areas of my life besides gardening. Friends gave me a pepper print fabric, which I turned into a quilted table runner. And, of course, the only soda I drink is Dr. Pepper!