So, it’s definitely apparent that our garden is predominantly made of peppers. We have far more peppers than anything else. We started the garden in mid-May with six different types: red chili, cayenne, banana, Hungarian hot yellow, habanero, and jalapeño.

We had 3 extra pots waiting to be filled once we settled in our new place; so before it got too late in the season we went to Adams and Son’s garden shop again to see what we could add. It was June 25th 2010. I picked out 3 types of peppers, 4 sprouts of each which means 12 more pepper sprouts – and I have to mention it cost me under $3.50! Are you kidding me? What a steal, I simply could not resist. This time I chose three very different varieties from what we already had (also from each other) – chocolate beauty, pepperoncini, and manzano orange chilies. This make 9!

I was happy to find pepperoncinies because I have never seen them at a garden shop before. I love eating them pickled but I can’t recall a time that I have ever eaten them fresh or even seen them available fresh in the market. The pepperoncini sprouts were already pretty tall, they came with a few peppers already formed and lots of flowers.

In just one week, the pepperoncini plants near doubled in size and continued to produce many more peppers. We still have not picked any but I’m thinking we should some time soon. Not sure what to do with them yet. I know they’ll be good in salad, so I think I’ll try eating them fresh first and then take it from there. If we can get enough peppers towards the end of the season I would love to try pickling them.

The Chocolate Beauty peppers are supposed to turn into a deep chocolaty purplish. Yes! That will be great, I hope they’ll grow to be fairly large. We don’t have any other pepper with that coloring or that have the bell pepper shape. When we first got the sprouts there were 2 tall and two short. No peppers but lots of flowers. This plant flowers in clusters, little bunches.

Within a week we began to see the peppers form and a week after that they were about an inch fat! And now they’re obviously even bigger. Can’t wait to see the color seep in.

The manzano orange chili pepper plant looks a bit different than the rest of our peppers. The leaves are large, furry & textured; the flowers are a beautiful purple. The pepper will be an apple-like shape and even more exciting… the seeds will be black! Very cool, I don’t think I have never eaten or even seen one of these – this is why I wanted to grow them. There’s something exciting about growing and caring for something you have no particular expectations for. There were red and yellow manzano peppers available as well but I though orange would look nice among the rest of the peppers.

Big news for the Hungarian hot yellow peppers! They’re huge! They’ve been growing like mad.  Take a look at what they’ve been up to…

We’ve already harvested our first batch. Pictured below are four Hungarian hot yellow peppers and two sweet banana peppers. You can see how similar they look – the banana peppers are the two resting on top, the only difference in appearance is that they’re slightly more slender and have a little more point in the tip. Looks aside, these peppers do not taste the same! Holy oh my the Hungarian hot peppers are way spicy! Delicious and even better when spliced with sweet banana peppers (helps ease the spice). We made a pita pizza with sauteed garden pickings the other night. Hope to share it with you sometime.

The Banana Peppers are growing just as well as the Hungarian hots. Apparently they are related – not so surprising based on the looks. Banana peppers are sweet and Hungarian hot peppers are uh… hot. Spicy. I’m happy to be growing both because I love the spice but the sweeter peppers are a perfect compliment to offset the heat. Lots of banana peppers still ready for picking as well…

Our habanero peppers have been looking pretty sad this season. But things are looking up for the little guys, although we have yet to spot any peppers or even any flowers. The habanero pot is finally perking up and showing much improvement. It actually looks healthy now!

Cayenne Peppers were early to show up and have not stopped producing since the last update. We’ve had some great shapes come from these little babies. Little curls and witch fingers. I can’t wait until they turn red! I’m already getting impatient ;) What can we do with all of these? A powder… maybe a cayenne paste?

The jalapeños… I barely even want to talk about them. Ever since the move and well, quite frankly even before the move, the jalapeños just haven’t been doing great. They’re not dead and not even dying but they’re not doing their best. At the old place something was munching on their leaves and once moved to the new place the sun kind of burnt them up a bit… worse than any of the other peppers and I don’t know why they were singled out by the bugs. Tasty leaves I suppose.

The good news is that they are not doing worse at this point, in fact I have spotted a few little flowers which means they are really trying to be their best and I expect them to make it big after all. One little jalapeño has made his first appearance. By the next time I share the progress I hope we will all see a whole bunch of little jalapeños.

Last but not least – the red chili peppers. No problems here, they’re growing quite tall and I see lots of little peppers hanging. I can’t wait to harvest them, we seriously had an abundance last year and I think it’s not less than every day that I think about making that damn chili sauce ;)

Oh peppers… I love you!

I’ll leave you with a few non-pepper images of some beautiful found in the yard…

Until next time….

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