[CH] Re: Off the grid
The Geissmans (jgeissman@socal.rr.com)
Fri, 25 Jul 2008 22:56:45 -0700
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I was rooting through the refrigerator looking for old food on trash
pickup day, and in the vegetable bin I found some (still good)
store-bought jalapenos. But on the countertop I had a bowl of my own
jals from the garden. I realized, that's the end of buying jalapenos
for the season, I'll be getting them out of my own garden now. Still
waiting for the bells, though.
The Super Chiles and Thai are starting to bear nicely, and for some
reason the Garden Salsa peppers are freaky hot this year. The Kung
Pao are laden with green pods, I think those might be the most
elegant looking plants of all.
>>
I have a couple of odd results this year. The habanero looked a
bit odd, so around july 1 I tried the big fat green pepper it had
created, and discovered it's a bell. A good one, but zero heat.
So I immediately planted 2 more habs in some spare space. They
look good, although I won't have any for a while yet. Also, the
Anaheim has turned out to be a jalapeno, although the Big
Jim Anaheim is making up the difference, tall and covered with
chiles from head to foot. Another interesting result is the so-called
ancho and poblano. I would expect them to be the same, ancho
being a dried poblano as I understand it. But the poblano looks
like a poblano while the other, while still pretty small, looks like
yet another jalapeno, although the peppers are pretty late to
get started considering that the plant is pretty big and has had
flowers for a while. I'm hoping the Ortega and New Mexico that
I planted only in the past month will make up the Anaheim-type
shortage -- I use lots of those in salsa. I'm assuming an Ortega
is like an Anaheim/New Mexico; is that true?
I get mine from the nursery in 4" pots, so I attribute surprises
to pots or labels getting switched at the nursery, and mix-ups or
hybridization at the grower.
The jalapenos and Hungarian wax (yellow) among the hot ones, and
Marconi and gypsy from the sweet side, have been pickable for
a while now and are great. Serrano will be ready in a week, I
reckon.
Jim G