pepper update, Monday 12/26/16

I only have two pepper plants left at this point: the Lazarus pepper and the decapitated pepper. The former seems to have lost its buds (three of them are definitely gone; I am not quite sure about the fourth) while I was away for Christmas. I suspect it was a combination of low humidity and lack of light -- I left the curtains open and water in both halves of my kitchen sink, but when I'm home I've been turning the dim, supplementary ceiling light on every morning (it is right over what has become my de facto gardening table) and also I soak towels and hang them over my clothes drying rack to act as a no-electricity-required humidifier.

The decapitated pepper's fruits went a little squishy again during my absence, but I have watered the plant a bunch so hopefully that problem will once again fix itself. Textural issues aside, its two fruits, though small, both seem on track to ripen within the next week or two. The 'big' one was already just starting to turn brownish-red at the base of one lobe last Wednesday, and as you can see from the picture below, the red has continued to spread. Meanwhile, the tinier secondary pepper is also starting to shade brownish-red, but too faintly to show up in photographs yet.



1) two peppers, Monday, 26 December 2016


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2) the Lazarus pepper, probably not going to flower after all
3) the decapitated pepper, ripening at last!


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narcissus update, Monday 12/26/16

So my narcissus bulb from last year, which began sprouting with such promise in November, turned out to be kind of a bust. Not only did it fail to bloom, it also couldn't properly support its own leaves and is just very sad. :(


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1) old narcissus, Monday, 21 November 2016
2) old narcissus, Monday, 19 December 2016


However!

I went to this year's solstice ceremony on Tuesday the 20th, and the narcissus bulbs seem to have become a tradition because I got a new one. In fact, I got six; there were a bunch left over and the organizers started encouraging people to grab extras as the service broke up into general socializing. :)

I left my new bulbs in a shallow, water-filled dish over the weekend while I was away, and they responded by enthusiastically sprouting roots. So when I arrived home this afternoon, I went to Agway and bought two bags of potting soil (I didn't actually need both now, but I will need a bunch of dirt in March or April for my next batch of peppers and I figured I might as well stock up now) and duly potted them.


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3) new bulbs after a weekend in water, Monday, 26 December 2016
4) new bulbs potted, Monday, 26 December 2016


My ultimate plan is to move the bulbs out to the back yard -- probably between my porch/deck and the scraggly raspberry canes that Upstairs Neighbor E planted last summer (they lived! barely, though, and they produced, I think, one berry between the three of them. drought, you know?) -- after they finish blooming this winter. And then perhaps I will have OUTDOOR narcissuses (narcissi? narcissus? argh, whatever) in April 2018. :D


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