19.5 Weeks Peppers / 17 Weeks Tomatoes

Well I have lost my cord to charge the iPod where all the pictures are located that I put on this blog. So, until I can rectify that situation, we're going old-school with all text. Sorry, all you in the ADHD generation will probably want to stop reading right now.

This will be a 2 week joint post, and it's been a very eventful two week period. The first tomato plant starting to show some red shortly after my last entry....and within a week we had eaten 2 BEAUTIFUL and delicious (even for me who doesn't like the taste!) tomatoes. Now the 2nd plant is ripening up nicely, and within a week or two I should be able to get rid of the 2nd tomato plant just like the first. Soon it will be time to begin the starts for the outdoor garden...and I also have a surprise in the works for you FAITHFUL READERS if I ever am able to charge up my iPod again.

As for the peppers, the steady harvest continues. I also had a few turn red on me...and when I sampled one it was a bit hotter than the others, but not absurdly hotter. We picked another 12 in the last 2 weeks, so that brings our total Jalapeno Harvest to 44 peppers, with probably 20-30 mostly matured on the plants, and another 15-25 blossoms that have now set.

Harvest continues...

Three tomatoes eaten this week! Three left on the plant. In addition to salt, I added some of my home grown dried oregano. I can't fully express the amazing flavor of these tomatoes. If only tomato plants didn't take up so much room, I'd grow them year round with a constant harvest. Meanwhile, the reddening of peppers has taken off. Still need to work on finding some good recipes to use them in. Lastly, Andy didn't want his Rosemary plant anymore, so he gave it to me. Yay!

Freshly picked tomatoes with salt and oregano.

Look at all the red jalapeno peppers.

Three tomatoes left on the plant.

Return of Rosemary to the garden.

The big picture. 

Tomatoes...You taste sooo good!

Despite all the disease and blossom drop on the tomato plants, one perfectly ripe tomato makes it all worth it. I harvested the first one on Saturday March 15th and shared with A&K. Sliced with just a few sprinkles of salt and I was in heaven! The flavor I remember from growing tomatoes in NJ those many years ago. Ohhh, the sacrifices we make by living in Alaska. I picked two more tomatoes today (March 23rd). The skin is pretty rough and scarred, but I'm guessing the flesh is still packed with flavor. I then destroyed the plant that these two came from. The other plant (from which I harvested tomato #1 still has four tomatoes, two of which will be harvested very soon. 

Meanwhile, I've only harvested 7 total Jalapenos. I was beginning to doubt Andy who calimed they would turn red if you let them hang on the plant long enough. Sure enough I now have two reddening peppers. Will be interesting to compare the hotness of a red and green Jalapeno. 

With one tomato plant down, the three remaining plants now have some room to breathe. I'll be placing an order from Territorial Seed Company and the next adventure will soon begin...

What a wonderful sight!

Ready for the first cut!

Look at that wonderfully vine-ripened red flesh. This tomato was picked about 40 minutes prior to this.

Yum!

There is enjoyment going on in there!

The two latest tomatoes. Scarred, but I'm sure still quite flavorful.

The four remaining tomatoes.

Red Jalapenos!

The two Jalapeno plants, now with plenty of room to grow.

17.5 Weeks Peppers / 15 Weeks Tomatoes

Well really not much happened this week. The tomatoes presumably grew/developed internally, but showed no sign of color change or size change. I didn't pick any Jalapenos...so they are becoming almost ready to pick some more. The Harvest Count is still at: 32.

I have noticed the weaker of the two pepper plants is showing some browning around the bottom leaves. Doesn't appear to be a leaf spot or similar disease (at this point), but rather just a deprivation of sun at the lower layers and stress on the plant as a result of carrying all the weight.

16.5 Weeks Peppers / 14 Weeks Tomatoes

There is no compelling reason to even include picture here this week, as there as been no appreciable change in the garden at all. Peppers still doing their thing, and in fact we picked 11 more this week. That brings our Total Jalapeno Harvest to 32 Peppers!

The tomatoes might be getting a little bigger, it's hard to say, but definitely no orange or red color yet. Hopefully soon!

Tropical Canopy of Peppers :)

I'm seeing RED!

There hasn't been much change over the past week, EXCEPT for one very exciting, nearly tear inducing color change! Early in the week I thought that one of my tomatoes had a slightly different shade of green - with perhaps just a hint of orange. On Thursday it became very evident that the top of the tomato was starting to change orange. I'm thinking in another week I may have a red tomato! I can't wait. Who knew at the beginning of this latest grow adventure I'd be so excited by the prospects of single red tomato. With all of the problems I've had with disease and having struggled trying to grow tomatoes outdoors (or in a greenhouse) over the past 12 years in Alaska, it will be soooo nice to have a fresh vine-ripened tomato. The taste better live up to my expectations!   

One tomato is starting to change color. Note the tomato on the far left is just a reflection on the mylar of the real tomato.

It's gonna be a beauty!

Peppers keep on keepin' on.

Holding Steady

Not much change in the tomato plants this week. After trimming the tomato plants to death a week ago it appeared the tomatoes had stopped growing. Perhaps I cut a little too much green off? Anyway, they definitely have increased in size (a little) the past 2 or 3 days. I'm pretty sure the largest tomatoes are near full size, so I'm watching closely for the first sign of color change. Another week with no blossom end rot, so I think we can safely say the Calcium deficiency was the problem. 

Meanwhile, the peppers look great, although one plant is much larger and productive than the other. The plant in front grew noticeably larger this week with branches headed out and up. This plant has around 25 ripe Jalapenos with additional smaller ones and quite a few blossoms! The one behind it is smaller, has only 12 mature peppers, and only a few blossoms at the moment. There isn't much difference in light availability. In fact the larger plant has branches hanging out the front which don't get any direct light. 

Since I haven't been harvesting the Jalapenos I may be limiting the amount of new growth and fruit set, so I need to get busy finding some recipes to make. Andy found a couple articles which indicate the stippling I noted on the skin is apparently a normal part of pepper aging. They call it "stretch marks". The one article claimed that the peppers with stretch marks are hotter than those without. I'll have to do an experiment sometime. Some of these peppers have been ripe for 2 to 3 weeks, but so far no sign of color change - they appear the same shade of green as they always were. 

On to the photos. Note, I did play with camera settings and image editing to try and eliminate the harsh light/reflections from the florescent bulbs. So parts of the images may look artificial. 

So many peppers!

This plant is really taking off.

Think red thoughts!

The disease on this plant is really spreading along one of the main stems. I'm just hoping I can vine ripen a couple of the large tomatoes before the plant fully dies.

15.5 Weeks Peppers / 13 Weeks Tomatoes

Jalapeno Harvest Count: 21

Well it was a fairly uneventful week of steady growing in the garden. The most exciting developments were 1) Harvested 12 more peppers for attempt #2 at the "Jalapeno Chicken" dish. Yeah baby!
2) One of the Jalapeno plants is starting to look like a trailing or hanging plant, possibly because it is SO laden with growing peppers. It's kind of wierd looking, and I don't know what to do about it, other than take drastic actions staking it? Most of the peppers are not full grown, so I don't want to harvest them.
3) The tomatoes grew, I think. Here is a comparison with a regular (now illegal) incandescent bulb.

Here is an example of how one of the pepper plants is hanging low down the side of the pot.

14.5 weeks Peppers / 12 weeks Tomatoes

Updated text, but original post from Feb 23...

Jalapeno Harvest Count: 9

Well, we decided to replicate the "Jalapeno Chicken" dish from our favorite Thai restaurant (Siam Cuisine on Dimond, for all you Anchorage-ites). I even asked the waitress for the ingredient list, and she gave it to me! Regardless, here is a picture of the 5 beautiful mature peppers we used. Note that there was some other camera setting activated on my Ipod for many of these pictures this week.

Yummmm

All sliced up and ready to cook :)

The finished product...DELICIOUS!

OK, on with the show. I decided to follow Shaun's lead and give the Tomatoes a serious haircut. I am tired of how out of control and space-consuming these plants are in my limited 8 sq. ft grow space. Also, in the sad but realistic hope of getting just ONE or TWO tomatoes to ripen, I killed all the other flowers and buds. Here is the before shot:

As you can see, much of the plant was not even under the lights and obviously not going to photosynthesis optimally.

Pepper plants doing awesome, as always. TONS of peppers. I mean dozens, literally!

Here is after the tomato haircut. Much more manageable.

So I left 2 tomatoes on each plant to grow and HOPEFULLY turn red. We'll see!!!