Totally Tabascos!

Jack Frost's handiwork cooled
down our hot peppers!

Ready to plant!

Peppers seem to grow well in our boiling-hot but dry summers, and every year I look for new varieties to try in the garden.  Last year the new variety was orange habaneros which produced prolifically through frost.

Yes, I fell out of this trailer!

This year's experiment was tabasco peppers.  I hadn't thought about tabascos until I saw the seed at, oddly enough, the wonderful Totally Tomato site.  I started the seeds on Valentine's day but, due to my cold garage and inadequate sunlight, the plants were not ready to set out until late May.

Tabasco peppers point up, not down!

Our soil is quite poor, so we added several trailer-loads of leaves last fall and this year's soil was a bit more friable.  I created two garden strips:  sweet peppers and hot.  I lay soaker hoses under mulch and fertilized about every other week.  The tobasco plants grew nicely.  They were lush.  They were green.  But, when all the other peppers started blooming, they did not.  They waited, and waited.  I was picking baskets of poblanos, jalapenos, serranos, even pepperoncini, but the tabasco swayed bloomless in the breeze.

Finally, finally, they began blooming in July.

Fortunately, they ripened at the same time!

Tiny fruits formed.  Slowly.

Tiny fruits grew larger.  Slowly.

They grew larger.  Slowly.

Until, finally, finally, finally, most were ready.

This year, we're making a standard sweet hot sauce.  Next year, maybe we'll ferment a sauce!  But, in any case, tabascos are tops on our crop list!

Our tabascos were not large, but they were potent!

We cut the plant to harvest the peppers.

Tedious, but tasty!

What's growing in your garden????