Spring 2016 Garden — What’s Growing?

I think I’ve got my lineup set for this year, pepper-wise.  I am probably growing far more than I should, and will be overloaded with fruit, but I have neighbors who wouldn’t mind a few peppers from time to time.  So what’s in store for 2016?

Fear the Reaper

I have a post where I describe my showdown with the Ghost, Scorpion and Reaper peppers.  This is a showdown that will last all year, so subscribe for email updates to keep up with what’s going on with them.  But, I don’t just have them growing — let’s take a look at what else is in the garden.

Already Planted

I have the following already planted out in the garden:

• Red Bell: As the name suggests, a red bell pepper — no special variety.  It’s a nice compact plant that already has rather large peppers on it!  I’ll actually have to pick the largest this week or next, to give the plant a chance to grow some more.

• Orange Bell: I have two of these plants, which are tall and lanky.  They both have peppers on them, but I may have to give one of them a pruning, just to compare a pruned plant against an un-pruned.  Seems like an interesting comparison.

• Big Bertha: Another bell pepper, and this one supposedly has huge fruit.  It will be interesting to see how the fruit compares to the other bells I have growing.

• Shishito: Somewhere  between a mild (no heat) and a hot.  I hear that most of the fruits have no heat to them, but then every once in awhile, one of the peppers has some kick to it.  It also has a pepper already — doesn’t look anything like the bells — it’s more of a small pepperonici as far as general shape goes.

  Baby Shishito Pepper

• Havasu: I had no idea what it might be like when I bought the plant start, but I figured with a name like Havasu, it was bound to be at least a little on the spicy side.  I finally got around to looking it up, and it’s kind of a stubby banana pepper in shape, and a mild heat.  The plant was looking kind of spindly, so I gave it a pruning and it’s coming back beautifully!

• Cowbell:  I believe this is supposed to be like a thicker cayenne, along the size of my Yellow Cayenne from the last season I grew peppers.  I imagine it’s probably along the same hot-ness as most cayenne fruits.  I already gave this one a pruning as well, because it was really lanky.  It’s coming back fine, but not as quickly as Havasu (which I pruned at the same time).

From Seed, Waiting to Sprout

Of course I have my “Showdown”  peppers that I am  growing from seed, but I have a few others as well:

• Jimmy Nardello:  A big, sweet pepper.  I grew this several years back and thought it was time that I tried it again.

• Mama Mia Giallo:  The variety I am growing ripens to yellow, and is supposed to be very sweet.  And also quite large!

• Fooled You:  This is the no-heat jalapeno I grew in the greenhouse, that succumbed to the black mildrew (or whatever it was).  Since I am growing it with better air circulation this year, it should be fine.  The peppers were tasty!

• Trinidad Perfume:  This one is a no-heat habanero!  I figure I have enough Scoville growing this year, with the showdown plants, that I will need some respite!  😉

I might also grow Giant Aconcagua; still trying to decide.  I grew that one a few years back as well and it really does produce extremely large peppers for me.  I guess it depends on if I have enough space in the garden.  I still have a lot of tomatoes, not to mention some strawberries, cukes, summer squash, bush beans, peas, collards and honeydew.

Tri-Fetti is also on the list; it’s an ornamental pepper that I grow mostly for the foliage, which is lovely.  That I know I have room for, at the edge of the garden where I have the flowers.  The changing leaf colors are pretty by themselves, but the purple (and then red) peppers add more of an interest.  They don’t grow very large, so I can keep them in a 3 gallon pot without an issue.  (At any rate, it’s smaller than the Pretty Purple Pepper that I grew a few years back, pictured on the right.)

Now that I think of it — I won’t have a ton of room!  But one of the tomatoes is a determinate, so that space should be available by the time the peppers I’ve planted from seed are ready to move outside.  The container with the peas (which is 25 gallons) will also be available – I can easily put two pepper plants in there.  The collards will also be done, so two more containers!

Anyway, I’ll be providing updates, so stay tuned.  As more of the peppers start producing, I’ll start doing some video walk-throughs as well.

Catch up more with you later!