Four Week Outdoor Update for the 2021 Pepper Season
It’s been roughly two weeks since the last pepper update and things have been, for the most part, going extremely well. We’ve had a recent bout of monsoon-like rains this past week, but things should be sunny and dry the coming few days which will be great for the plants. They haven’t seen consistent sun in a handful of days.
Let’s start with the potted peppers. As you can see by the Thai Dragon in the photo above, these plants have grown quite a bit. I decided not to top my seedlings this year just to see if the developed any differently than years past. Thus far, the potted plants have started to get nice and bushy, displaying a solid amount of internal growth and not a one that is just a single stem. We’ve even got some good looking pods on the Mako Akokosrade, Blue Christmas, and Chupetinho White.
The superhot bed is the slowest moving of the bunch so far this season, but, given the varieties here, that’s to be expected. All but the damaged Lava Scorpion have buds on them that should be opening up this week. That poor little scorpion was essentially chopped in half after the second week update due to a worm burrowing into its stem. The plant is a fraction of the size of its siblings in this raised bed, but it has shown a determination to grow – so we’ll keep it around this season. The really exciting news for this bed is that I finally – after years of trying – have a Fatallii that not only germinated earlier this season, but is not putting out flowers! Pretty stoked about that development.
This bed holds two plants that are just going absolutely bonkers with their growth and fruit development. The Buena Mulata has been the front runner in pod growth all season long, but as of this update the short plant is packed with 20 or so unripe pods, while the Thunder Cacho Brown is slowly catching up with it long and twisty unripe fruit. This coming week may also see the first blossom on one of the Rocotos finally opening up to the sunshine. The small Aji Benito and Aji Mochero both are staring to ramp up their pod production, as well.
The above bed houses the annual Hatch and Jalapeno varieties – and both are doing well – along with some miscellaneous fun. The Peppapeach is sporting a couple of pods and the Testanera, for as small as it is, is currently lugging a dozen small pods around. The Brazilian Starfish – the super tall one in this bed – is the only plant so far this season that shows that it was not topped earlier on. It’s almost two feet tall and has just recently branched at the tippy top.
And finally, the small handful of plants in the self-watering buckets – along with a couple experiments with a zucchini and cucumber here, as well. The peppers here are all doing pretty well, though not nearly on pace with plants that have been in these setups in past seasons. They aren’t as big as I have had at this point in prior years, but due to not topping them, they all have small pods that will eventually ripen into tasty goodness.
That’s it for this update. Hope your seasons are going great, as well.