Aren’t those teenie little peppers just the cutest things?
No, actually, they’re not. If this were May, than they’d be cute. But in October, in Cleveland? Not so much. I’m just about ready to pull them all up and be done with it.
My back yard is too well shaded to do a garden back there. But next to the driveway there’s a little space that gets good sun, and it’s too small to do anythinge else. So I’ve done some herbs there, and it worked pretty well. (Too well, in the case of the basil. I’ve still got frozen pesto from two years ago.)
So this year, I decided to do some peppers.
I won’t say it’s been a complete loss. After all, I’ve got this nice one in there.
And down low there’s this.
And underneath in the shade there’s this little one, and one that the squirrels knocked down.
I think they decided they don’t like peppers, because they’ve left the rest of them alone.
But all three of those are from the two plants on the end. The other five have almost nothing down low. And up top all we’ve got is this.
There shouldn’t still be new buds at this point, but that’s about all I’ve got on five of the seven plants.
I’ve been leaving them in, hoping at least one of them would go red. But yesterday I kept track of where the sun was all day. It’s shifted, and now the peppers stay in the shade from the pine tree all day. So I don’t think anything’s going to ripen past what it is now.
I think next year I’ll stick with herbs, and steal the veggies from Lou.
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8 Comments
Your peppers look like my tomato plant. I bought 2 at the beginning of the season, one promptly died, and I’ve had a total of 2 from the plant that survived. I have a few little green tomatoes on the plant, and a few flowers, but these are the most expensive tomatoes I’ve ever had!
They were good, though!
I do enjoy your blog.
I, too, live by Cleveland. Is it just me or has Northeast Ohio have not had a good growing season? The farmer’s markets I’ve been didn’t have very much to offer as opposed to last year. I’m a little sad about that. Also, my tomatoes have done a measly job of growing.
Oh, don’t get me started on the tomatoes. I ripped those out two or three weeks ago. Got exactly one edible tomato off of them. Five or six plants, and one lousy tomato stayed on the vine long enough to turn red.
It’s probably too late for this this year, but conventional wisdom says to remove the new flowers and tiny peppers at the end of the season, a few weeks before you think you might get frost, to allow the maturing peppers to ripen in time.
Or just buy 5 pounds of seconds at the farmers market for 5 bucks. That works too.
you can never have enough home-made pesto
use it in place of pizza sauce
work it into burger meat
mix with ricotta and put it in raviollis
heck, mix some vinegar into it, and have it on a hot dog!
the possibilities are endless!
I feel your frustration, my tomatoes produced crap. I guess when you live somewhere that doesn’t get summer until September…
Good luck next year! Pilfering vegetables is always more fun anyways!
Those are some nice looking peppers! I love stuffed green peppers.
Kim in AK
I’ll eat them, but I’ve never been a huge fan of stuffed peppers. On paper it seems like the kind of thing I should really like, but it hasn’t worked that way. Can’t explain it.