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.