No Peter Piper jokes, unless they are funny, the yo have dispensation.
I have a Sandia plant (Chimayo or Mew Mexico Red) that is about 12" all and now has two, three inch peppers hanging from it.
I am concerned that
1) I pick it too soon and miss a larger fruit
2) I do not realize the peppers are as big as they are going to get on a 12" tall plant and the plant will think it is "finished" with its cycle and stop producing
When is it time to pick a pepper?
Many thanks,
-T
The other Sandia plant now has a lot of new leaves and "seems" to be recovering.
Well, if it's a _Sandia_ pepper, you wait for a dark night, and go out to see if it's softly glowing blue.
(Spent a little too much time in a lab wearing a dosage badge a long time ago - that's a joke, I say a joke, son, and I neither like nor grow peppers so I'm otherwise useless for your question) - I suppose there is the question of whether this particular sort of pepper turns color (probably not blue, nor glowing in the dark) when ripe.
Used to grow them and I am not an expert but there is nobody answering. I recall you can pick them anytime but they might tend to get "woody" if too old. It is nice to see color though just not go too long.
my lack of knowledge aside... you can sometimes tell by heft if the pepper has much meat in it or not (to avoid picking too early). yet this does require at least some familiarity with the peppers how they should be normally and the end goal (are they for dry storage, pickling, etc.).
Okay you two. I know you are pulling my leg. I know that hots pepper grow "red" in the dark. The "blue" ones are those yukky sweet pepper those folks above the Mason/Dixon line cook with. The green glowers are the really gross ones and are the color of, well I will stop here as it is a family group.
So, fellows, I am not tricked. Ha! I AM NOT FOOLED!
:-)
-T
Too bad I can't use my horse s*** for fertilizer. My plants would be 20 feet tall!
You CAN use horse manure for fertilizer , but it needs to be "hot composted" first to kill whatever seeds make it thru the horse's digestive tract . Cow manure on the other hand can be applied directly as it comes from the cow ...
DO NOT use race horse manure, they get more drugs than humans, can cause problems when humans eat the produce that grows in it. Found that out many years ago.
The best animal manure is rabbit, doesn't need composting, goes straight into the garden row and is pretty rich too. We once had a commercial rabbitry and we used everything but the squeal. Chicken, pigeon, pig, etc. definitely need composting to completion.
i've never grown any dried pepper, not sure how i would finish them.
George might know, he has mentioned before that he's grown a lot of hot peppers. but maybe he was only growing them to make pepper sauces or something? hmm...
Before my throat burned out I used to make a lot of pepper sauce, also hot pepper flakes for sprinkling on. Nowadays it's only sweet peppers and we eat them raw, cooked in many sorts of dishes, and many bags of chopped peppers in vacuum bags for ease in finding them for cooking.
I may have mentioned this before but I used to swap Chile seeds all over the world by postal. One of my best trades was a guy in Bucharest who traded some really hot Chile's that I can't remember the name of. I then grew the !@#$% hot ones, traded seeds off all over North America, and finally just quit eating the things at all. Then all the terrorism stuff started and no mo' swapping peppers. I made some really good hot sauces back then that were very tasty.
Here's a hint, but not about chillies, grow some New Zealand spinach, very tasty leaves when cooked or raw. In temperate climates they will reseed for years. At each leaf junction the plant makes its seeds, not round nor square but almost square. I need to get another start as they finally gave up trying to grow. I see online that the seed packets run from $US3 to $US 1+.
Miss Tilly Dawg Shirley had a growth removed from her nose yesterday and is happily recovering at home. The vets around Houston are very expensive, a little over two grand on this one, but she's worth it all, best dog we've ever had.
Nope, have you seen those drying peppers on the tv shows? Some folks pull the entire plant and hang it upside down to dry, I never did that one as the peppers sometimes keep producing for a year or more in our climate. Basically I put them in an old produce bag, one of those red jobs, fill it with peppers, hang in a dry place with little moisture, wait until they dry completely then strip the goodies from the useless stuff. You can also weave a line of string and tie the chilies into a line on it to dry.
Well, she's not snoring anymore for one thing, the other is that she is healing rapidly. She's lying on the couch behind my desk chair sleeping peacefully. She finally got a real meal this morning plus a very small, lean treat just for being a good girl. Her two main things to love are eating and pooping, typical dog. She's a good watch dog too, she starts growling before anyone ever steps on the porch, when they knock or ring the doorbell, she goes berserk, hair standing up, etc. When they get inside she tries to lick the skin off their ankles if she knows them, if she doesn't she walks around watching them closely and growling very low but ready to leap at their throats. I really don't think she could get a throat unless they trip and fall on the floor, she's not much of a jumper with both hind legs rebuilt.
no, i hardly ever watch tv these days. most time i might listen if that, but usually i tune it out. not my type of thing. i do like a good movie or documentary once in a while.
i will be eating ours or making pepper sauce of some kind out of them. sweet and sour is likely since i need some acid in there (i don't pressure can anything here). just mainly want a good red pepper sauce to replace tomato sauce for pasta or some other common dishes.
...Tilly :) ...
...
heheh, some doggies are quite the characters, i like a lot of them, but we can't have any here, so i have to like other people's doggies when i can visit them. same with kitties or other animals.
just worms here as pets. that is as far as i go for indoor critters at the moment. and a few house- plants. good enough. :)
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