pepper update, Monday 8/1/16

[edenfalling]

twelve peppers, Monday, 1 August 2016



buds, yay!



the pepper with fusarium wilt, growing again!



a vicious squirrel attack, Wednesday, 27 July 2016



the mutilated leaves



signs of recovery, Monday, 1 August 2016


First, the bad news. As the bottom three photos illustrate, one of my peppers was brutally decapitated on Wednesday, 7/27/16. However, we are still early enough in the year (relatively speaking) that the plant is making a valiant effort to recover. Note the tiny leaf sprouts in the 'joints' of the plant in the final picture, taken on Monday, 8/1/16.

And now, the good news... which comes in two pieces. First, buds! Hooray for buds! My pepper should bloom within the next two weeks, after which they will begin to bear fruit. (Peppers self-pollinate.) Second, a resurrection trick! My poor zombie pepper, besieged for weeks by a nasty case of fusarium wilt, has recovered enough to put forth a new leaf! I have no idea if this presages some actual growth, but I consider it a triumph of life over adversity even if this is as far as that plant ever manages to grow. :)

In uncategorized news, last Thursday I managed to slip out my door and get within two feet of a digging squirrel before I lunged and shouted and hopefully scared it within an inch of its life. I have not had any digging incidents since then. Of course, some of that could be because Ithaca has actually gotten rain this weekend. It is very exciting! I mean, we are still in drought conditions -- we moved from 'moderate' to 'severe' a week or two ago, Ithaca has instituted voluntary water restriction guidelines and may yet have to issue mandatory restrictions -- but I will take what we can get.

I think the squirrels are worse this year because of the drought as well as because I have an inferior repellent spray. The berry crops are very light because plants don't have the resources to devote to fruiting, which means animals are getting a lot more desperate/bold about invading people's gardens.

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