Category: Garden

Back in December when I threw random seeds into peat pots to see what would grow, a pepper plant did especially well.  It was a random choice, of the seed vault.  It was a Chocolate Habanero.  You can see it in my March post.  I had no idea what this pepper was, but my sister assured me that they were good.  And it wasn’t as if I had a lack of space.

The plant grew slowly but steadily, until I re-potted it and set it out on the deck.  Then, a late frost killed the growing bud, and it became bushier.  But despite this, the tenacious plant soon outgrew its pot, got re-potted, then relocated out to a barren patch by the kid’s garden.

Then the plant exploded into bloom.  Currently, I have about 80 peppers drying in the kitchen.  So the question now is: What do I do with these?  A quick search revealed their Scoville rating to be about 350,000–well beyond most practical culinary uses.  So naturally, I experimented.

1 garlic clove, 1 tomato, 3 chocolate habaneros, olive oil, vinegar, and salt…and bam!  I call it “Habanero Death Sauce”.  Straight, it’s almost unbearable.  But mixed in small quantities with other mediums, it adds a nice bite.  I’m not sure what to do with the remaining peppers, though.  I’m thinking ninja powder to escape work meetings.

–Simon

The pumpkins have grown, and after much discussion regarding their ripeness, I decided to harvest the first one.

It was partially out of fear that the neighbor’s kids would smash them, and I wanted at least one for carving.

Now my observations about pumpkin-growing:

Pumpkins are incredibly resource-hungry.  They want a lot of light, space, and nutrients.

Carving pumpkins are pretty pointless from a gardening standpoint.  They don’t taste good, and only serve as decorations for a few days.

Regardless, they were fun to grow and I should have more than enough for everyone’s carving needs–provided they escape a more violent and premature fate.  They also survived the vine borer plague, so yay–harvest win.

–Simon

I was picking tomatoes, as I’ve been know to do, and recoiled at this unpleasant sight:

It looks like it had an aborted twin.  Yuck.  Naturally, I took to the Internet for information.  Unfortunately, the seconds I spent on this avenue of research did not yield any scientific articles on this phenomenon (Google thought I wanted to know about tomatoes being used in cancer research), but I did successfully establish the commonality of this scenario among gardeners.  One gentleman had posted this:

He even went so far as to make it an annual event, and posts the winning tomato’s picture from his self-hosted contest.  Funny people, bloggers.

But all I could think about was the “I’m a tumor I’m a tumor” song.

–Simon