pepper update, Mondays 9/19, 9/26, and 10/3

Now that I have a semi-functional computer and have downloaded approximately fifty pictures after emailing them to myself (because my computer can't read files off my phone, grr argh), I'm going to spam you with pepper photos for a while.

These are just the wide shots from the past three weeks -- 9/19, 9/26, and 10/3. As you can see, there aren't a lot of obvious changes at this phase of the growing game. The pepper fruits are growing a little, the Lazarus pepper is growing a little, two plants have budded and/or started to bloom, and squirrels attacked between each set of photos, but you really need closeups to tell most of those things.

So this is mainly just a sea of cheerful green. :)

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Monday, 19 September 2016


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And now my Lazarus pepper, continuing to grow. :)

It may be preparing to put out buds. I am not sure; flower buds and leaf buds look deceptively similar when they're still tiny. Anyway, it was starting to lean a bit sideways (we have had a bunch of rain -- some of it very hard -- over the past few days) so I tied it to a stake after taking today's photo.

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my Lazarus pepper, in time-lapse progression


Development of buds! The three pictures in the first row show the decapitated pepper. The two pictures in the second row show a pepper that never suffered a single really dramatic squirrel attack, but which was nibbled at a few times and which also had some disagreements with the animal repellent spray, and consequently grew only a very few, very late buds. But I may get peppers from it yet... *crosses fingers*

(You can also see some of my back yard in the last photo. The blue thing is the compost bin my house shares with the house dimly visible in the background, which is also owned and managed by Landlord Dude. The picnic table is likewise shared, though in practice it's used more by residents of the other house.)

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the decapitated pepper, in time-lapse progression


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Now for some records of squirrel vandalism.

The first photo is from Saturday 9/24, when squirrels knocked over several of my pots and utterly ruined at least three pepper fruits.

The rest are from Thursday 9/29, when a squirrel attacked a single plant with great prejudice, ripping off an entire branch of leaves and chewing its single pepper fruit off. This time the pepper itself was salvageable, and I duly salvaged it. I also salvaged another pepper on Saturday 10/1, which was still attached to its plants but had so many toothmarks that it was starting to develop an internal infection of some sort. (I forgot to photograph that one. Sorry!)

I used the two salvaged peppers as part of my latest batch of veggie sidedish.


Saturday, 24 September 2016 - aftermath of a squirrel attack


( 5 more pictures under the cut )

And last but certainly not least, my early pepper!

It was tragically infected by a fungus sometime this past week, so I harvested it today, cut off the nasty part, chopped it up, and stuck the pieces in the freezer for later. :)

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my early pepper, in time-lapse progression


( 5 more pictures under the cut )

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