Better News

1938 UTC

I'm feeling more optimistic about the gardening today.  The decline I saw in the newly planted Malabar spinach hasn't continued.  It may be due to waterlogging in the the containers, it's been raining a lot lately and the soil in those pots is fairly heavy.  I have them in a sunny spot and the recent clear mornings have perked them up. 

I am losing a lot of plants around the container gardens to PPN, but that will pass eventually as the weather changes and I start rotating crops better.  I have a lot to contend with here, so it's normal to get discouraged at times.  I've had some nice meals with the Malabar spinach and the peppers.  Both have very high levels of nutrients, especially vitamins A and C.  Hot pepper fruit has more beta carotene than carrots and more vitamin C than oranges...and I've got a lot of pepper bushes maturing and bearing fruit right now.  I picked a handful of Jwala peppers just this morning.  Since I'd locked the plants away indoors during the pesticide spraying, they're contaminant-free.

My Caribbean Red plants are definitely perennial, I can't even remember when I planted them.  Right now they have loads of bright red fruit on them.  They're very pungent, but I'm well enough used to them now that I can dice them and sprinkle them on top of my food as seasoning without cooking them.  I do love the flavor and spiciness of fresh ripe peppers.  But as they used to say...don't try this at home, kids.  These peppers are extremely pungent and it takes time for the digestion to acclimate to them.  Before they fully ripen to a deep red color, the orange peppers are hot enough to strip paint off walls.  They're very closely related to the infamous Habanero pepper.

The pungency of these particular peppers is notorious for having a delayed reaction.  You can munch on a piece of one and think there's not much to them, then have it suddenly hit you with a sensation like your head is exploding.  I only eat them as a garnish with other food, not by themselves.

The rainy season will wind down soon, or at least it usually does. Lately the weather here has been filled with record-breaking extremes...like the hottest November ever recorded in Southwest Florida.  But I'm probably going to risk planting some pole beans soon.  I might hedge my bets by planting both pole beans and cowpeas.  The former can't take too much heat, and the latter enjoys the heat.  That way I'll be covered no matter what...unless of course it freezes solid in November.  That can happen too.

Gardeners always think a couple of months ahead.  We plant for the weather at harvest time, so it's always a guessing game.