Bell Pepper Harvest

We harvested our first bell pepper a few days ago, after it finally settled on red as its preferred color. Marianne enjoyed it in a dish of her delicious pasta salad.

It's Red

I think we can conclude that the ripened color of our ever-changing bell pepper is red! The thing is definitely getting ripe, as it's softer to the touch everywhere that it has reddened. That wasn't the case as it turned from green to purple to dark brown to almost black and back to green before this latest change. Finally!

.

Bell Peppers of Many Hues

Our bell peppers just can't seem to settle on a color. First, the things turned from green to purple. Then, they took on a sort of a dark brown color before returning to green. Now, as you can see by the picture below, a bit of red is beginning to show. If they turn completely (or even mostly) red, I'm going to to pick them!

.

about two weeks ago

.

same pepper this morning

San Marzano and Bell Pepper Update

The stem repair to our San Marzano plant seems to be holding up. Rather than wilting above the break, the plant is green and putting on more leaves. I'll give it a few more days and take off the tape.

.

Also, while I'm doing updates, here is a look at our incredibly slow growing bell pepper plant. It's a whopping four inches tall now. I planted this thing back in July with the expectation of it having peppers by late October or early November. It looks like I missed that by several months.

.

The Color Red

One of our okra plants has started producing pods that are partially red. I know that there are strains that make red pods, but this is just regular old Clemson Spineless. Also, the plant put out standard green okra for months, from May until the last few days. Maybe it has something to do with the weather change. Whatever the reason behind the color change, I think the red okra looks pretty cool. We'll find out this evening if it tastes the same.

Concerning the color red, I've also included the latest picture of our not-so-red "red" bell pepper.

.

Not So Red

A while back I bought a bell pepper seedling at local nursery. I did this because the purple bell pepper plant that I had started from seed was obviously growing too slowly to bear anything before winter. Anyhow, I had gone looking that day for another purple pepper, as that is what Marianne wanted. Unfortunately the stores only had red ones in stock. So I picked out a healthy looking plant, brought it home, and re-potted it. Now, for over a month, I have occasionally mentioned our red bell pepper in several blog posts. This would be fine if, in fact, the pepper was red. Over the past few days, the peppers on the supposedly red-producing plant have started to ripen. To our surprise and Marianne's delight, they look suspiciously purple!

.

Bell Pepper Pest

Something decided to munch on one of our bell peppers last night. I'm assuming it was another of the dreaded hornworms. It chewed its way all the way inside the pepper. Unfortunately the culprit escaped.

.

Red Bell Peppers

The red bell pepper seedling that I bought and planted a couple of weeks ago is really coming on strong. It has put on several peppers and is growing at a very rapid pace. Unless something unforeseen happens, I think we will finally get a few to ripen.

.

Slow Growing Bell Pepper Plant

It's fairly obvious by now that out Purple Beauty Bell Pepper plant isn't going to make any peppers this year. Truth is, it's not even getting large enough to transplant outdoors. About two months have passed since I planted it. During that time, the plant has grown to a lofty height of two inches. Save a miraculous growth spurt, I just don't foresee any purple peppers.

So, not counting on a miracle, I made a trip to the local nursery yesterday. While there I picked up a healthy looking red bell pepper seedling. This plant is pretty far along, already sporting several blooms. I'll be interested to see if they make or fall off after it's transplanted. If this one fails too, it will be my third and final strike on bell peppers this year.

Growing Peppers

This certainly isn't shaping up to be the year of the pepper in our container garden. So far, our plants have produced only six small Jalapenos (four of which were on the plant when I bought it), two very small Tabascos, and one Bell that rotted before it ripened. The Tabasco and Habanero plants look great, but just aren't putting on any blooms or peppers. But at least they are still alive, which is more than I can say for the Jalapeno and Bell (granted, our Mastiff Tessa sat on the bell). Finally, the Purple Beauty Bell Pepper is the slowest growing seedling I've ever encountered. At its current rate it might be ready to set out by next March. Do any of you seem to have more trouble growing peppers than other vegetables?

.

Habanero on left, Tabasco on right

Very slow growing Purple Bell Pepper plant

Mold and Mushrooms

When I went out yesterday and pulled up our drowned bell pepper plant (see Our Mastiff Helper ) this came up along with it:

It's a clump of mushrooms that had been growing undetected under the mulch. Digging around a bit more, I noticed that the soil was very moldy and smelled mildewed. After seeing and smelling this, I decided that replacing all of the soil was probably the best thing to do. So I transplanted the Jalapeno plant to another container, and threw the Mortgage Lifter tomato plant into the compost bin. The tomato plant had turned yellow and pretty much stopped growing. Like the bell pepper plant, its roots were also completely white with mold.

This time around I enlarged the barrel's drain holes quite a bit and I think I'll leave off the mulch. If, by some future accident, it receives an overdose of water again I want it to drain quickly.

Our Mastiff Helper

I got a bit of uninvited help with our plants the other day from Tessa, the one-year-old English Mastiff. Being the curious and sometimes tired 140 lb. (63.5 kg) puppy that she is, Tessa decided to investigate a bell pepper plant. The problem is that her "investigation" seems to have focused on the comfort level of the pepper's container and was carried out via her rear end. Yes, all indications are that she sat on it.

Tessa lounging around

Tessa and John

Unfortunately the damage to the plant went beyond just the physical breaking of stems and tearing of leaves that you would expect from it having been used as a cushion by a Mastiff. It appears that somehow, during the act of sitting, one of the container's water emitters ended up adjusted to maximum flow. A few days later I got up early one morning and noticed a large puddle around the whisky barrel where the pepper is planted. A closer inspection revealed completely soaked soil and a very rough looking pepper plant. It looks like my discovery of the excess water came a little too late, as the plant has now lost almost all of its leaves. Tessa and I have managed to drown a bell pepper plant in the desert.

adjustable water emitter

over-watered pepper plant

Purple Bell Pepper Plant

Marianne's "Purple Beauty" bell pepper plant finally came up a couple of days ago. I planted the thing over two weeks ago and was just about ready to give up on it. That's yet another lesson in patience. Anyway, I'm glad to see it growing now and I hope she gets lots of purple bell peppers off of it in the Fall.

Blooming in the Heat

The past couple of days have been very nice here in Vegas. Cloud cover and the threat of rain have managed to keep high temperatures in the 95 to 100 degree range. For those of you that have never experienced Summer in America's desert Southwest, such temperatures are quite a reprieve. August in Vegas really sucks the energy out of person and plant alike.

Out in the garden this is very evident as the plants are just refusing to put on new vegetables. With the amount of blooms we've had recently on our Jalapeno, bell pepper, okra, and tomato plants we would be overwhelmed with produce if the temperature would just stay below the mid 90 (32 c) degree mark. Instead, with normal daytime highs hovering between 105 and 110 (41 to 43 c) and nightly lows in the mid to upper 80s (29-31 c), the blooms just dry up, fall off, and blow away in the hot desert wind. Even our okra (a plant that loves heat) is saying no way, as it's dropping bloom after bloom rather than producing pods. It all really makes me wonder at how people could live here before the age of air conditioning. They must have been some extraordinarily tough characters!

Jalapeno Blooms

Bell Pepper Blooms

Dried Up Okra Blooms

World's Smallest Vegetable Bed

Well maybe there is one smaller somewhere in the world, but the flower/veggie bed that I built yesterday is pretty tiny. I plan on growing a tomato plant (haven't settled on a variety yet) and perhaps one of the Purple Beauty bell peppers that I bought for Marianne (I detest bell peppers, but she loves them). The things are supposedly purple even before they ripen, and should look very cool. When I decide on a tomato plant variety, I will plant another of the same age and type in one of my containers. Then, at the end of the year, I can compare their growth and production. I'm curious to see if the tomatoes on the plant in the ground will grow larger than those on the container plant.