This is a problem that occurs with a few seedlings every year even when the soil or the air inside the humidity dome is moist. It seems to occur most frequently with hot peppers and occasionally with older tomato seed, which leads me to believe that it is related to a loss of vigor. [See …
‘Golden Nugget’ is a favourite “hot” pepper variety going way back to when I was a rooftop gardener. It’s a fruity flavoured little pepper with a bit of heat that can be used fresh or dried. I’ve found it to be very good infused in vinegar or tossed into a mixed vegetable pickle for a …
My gluttonous seed-hoarding habits seem to be behind me now, or have at least calmed for a spell. This year I have abstained from impulse buys from swollen turnstile racks and I only placed one mail order this season. Of course, I say this having bought 40 packets of seed in Tucson, Arizona last June. …
Chiltepin (Capsicum annuum var. glabriusculum) aka (Capsicum annum var. aviculare) or bird pepper is a small, pea-sized chile that grows wild on 3-4 ft-tall shrubs in parts of Texas and Northern Mexico. Coming in at 50,000-100,000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU), this pepper is ferociously hot and pungently flavoured. The heat comes on violently, yet diminishes …
You Grow Girl is celebrating 14 years online this month! As you can imagine an awful lot of articles have been posted in that time and with so much to choose from it can sometimes be tricky to find what you’re looking for. To make things easier, I have been slowly building an archive of …
Continuing in a running theme of hot peppers that aren’t hot, I present to you another exceptional variety, ‘Pimenta Biquinho’ aka Little Beak Peppers. Hailing from Brazil, these funny little peppers are round with a distinctive, tapered point or tail that resembles a birds beak (hence the name). Like ‘Trinidad Perfume’, another not hot, hot …
I love the idea of hot peppers much more than my body likes it when I eat them. For that reason I am always on the look out for what West Indians call “seasoning peppers.” That is, varieties that impart the flavour of hot peppers without the heat.* One of the best seasoning peppers that …
I elected to overwinter one pepper plant this winter, a mild “hot pepper” variety called ‘Trinidad Perfume’ (I purchased mine from Solana Seeds.) And wouldn’t you know it the darned thing up and made a little fruit. It’s a teeny, weeny jewel of a thing — barely worth a mention, really. But it is orange …
When I began this project, I set a parameter that allowed me to repeat a specific plant as long as a different stage in its development through the changing seasons was depicted. For example, I have included Columbine meadow rue (Thalictrum aquilegiifolium) twice: early in the season when it was in bloom and in August …
Again you are looking at last week’s photo, shot just before I took off for a road trip to teach a workshop at Margaret Roach’s garden in the Berkshires. The garden was fairly unruly and overgrown before I left, but nothing like it is right now. Total mayhem! I’m not exaggerating. Even the dog doesn’t …
The hot peppers are in their prime, the late season tomatoes are ripening faster than I can use them, the sun is setting earlier in the evening (no more gardening until 10pm) and even the tomatillos are not far now. All of the hallmarks of the September garden have arrived. I am trying my best …
Once again work deadlines have pushed last week’s Herbaria into this week. Still, I was sure to take the photograph last week — it just took me until this week to do the write-up. This collection marks the 8th box that I have done so far. I figured it was high time to write up …