Week 22: End of the Peppers is Near

Pepper harvesting slowed this week with only 14 red peppers. There are only a handful of peppers left on plants #1 and #2 which I am waiting for to ripen. One trend the past week or two has been ripening of very small immature peppers. Andy and I think this is likely due to the bacterial disease. Plant #3 has been removed and placed in waiting to go where all diseased plants must eventually go. I have been storing the red peppers in the freezer and they have now been passed on to Andy who will take care of the drying process to create red pepper flakes. I did eat a pepper on a cheeseburger this week and it was quite delicious! (See photos below) Last night I took just a single bite of a red pepper and it was like an erupting volcano! Here is the official pepper count:

Pepper Plant #1:    62
Pepper Plant #2:    72
Pepper PLant #3:    9

Total Peppers Harvested: 143

Prepping to cut up.

Look at all the seeds.

Garnish for a grilled cheeseburger. The heat was very manageable on the burger. It actually seemed quite tame until I finished the burger - THEN the hotness really kicked in. 

Last photo of the three amigos. Plant #3 (middle) has been removed from the grow operation.

Spearmint "vines".

Herbs all continue to do well and now have a little more breathing room.

Week 21 at the Baines Farm

Pepper harvest continues and may be over by next week's blog. I harvested 32 peppers this week and there are about 16 I'm waiting for to turn red. Here is the latest numbers for total pepper harvest broken down by plant:

Pepper Plant #1:    59
Pepper Plant #2:    62
Pepper Plant #3:    5

Total Peppers Harvested: 126

The two top peppers were the first harvested from the poor performing plant #3.

Sage

Cilantro making some progress (3 weeks old).

Rosemary slow but steady.

Oregano

Garlic Chives.

Thyme is a prolific grower!

Parsley dried out and slumped over, but I think it will recover.

Not much red left on the pepper plants - kind of sad.

The bottom three from plant #3. If you look closely you can see a black spot on the largest one.

Spearmint gone wild. It doesn't take much!

Week 20 (Dixon)

Well my week 20 story is not as glorious as Shaun's. The 90ish mature red peppers he has now stocked up compare to about 85 or so green one's I picked after vacation, plus about 30 red ones I have picked since then. This week I put my "green" crushed pepper flakes into some Chili and it was delicious, though!! I can't wait to dry out the red ones and start using them!

Not much to report new this week other than some additional growth of the existing chilis that are on the plants. For the first time I chopped off some of the tops since I didn't see a need to let them get taller only to have to lift the light again. Besides, the light is getting so far above the herbs, now, I wonder if they are suffering at all...??? They don't look like it, as you can see from the pictures below. The thyme is still just a crazy mess, but I've been steadily drying it and the other herbs out (air drying) and collecting them. I think this week I will finally put them into jars :)

The adopted Rosemary plant is doing very good....arguably bigger than it's "sibling" over at Shaun's garden!

Week 20: Cayenne Peppers Galore!

This week has been all about the pepper harvest. I harvested 79 peppers from two plants in the past week! Yippee! Here is the total count thus far:

Pepper Plant #1:   59 Peppers Harvested
Pepper Plant #2:   35 Peppers Harvested
Pepper Plant #3:   0 Peppers Harvested

Total Peppers Harvested:   94

The entire top row of peppers are from plant #1. As soon as ripening kicked into high gear I started to get lots of peppers softening and wrinkling up at the bottom. Therefore, I have picked some of these before they were entirely bright red. The bacterial leaf spot disease is likely the cause of this.

Pepper plant #1 - almost done with the first harvest. Plant will then be destroyed!

Pepper plant #3 - waiting for its 5 peppers to turn red.

Pepper plant #2 - ripening in full gear.

Herbs all doing well out in front of the peppers. I'll be looking to add new things to the garden as the pepper plants finish their first harvest over the next week or two.