I got into the pepper patch after Beryl and things aren’t so bad. Lost plenty of fruit laden branches, but the pepper plants themselves remain healthy looking besides the obvious battering they received in the storm. I straightened up some of the plants and replaced or repaired the supports.

I picked a ripe Gatherer’s Gold and two ripe Calabrian Caviar and we oven roasted them along side some okra last night and the peppers were delicious. Seeded, topped, seasoned , spritzed with oil, spread out skin side down and roasted for 20 minutes, very nice.

Two or three trees that were filtering out and blocking the early and mid morning light are now on the ground and that should improve the garden in future seasons.

karstopography wrote: ↑Sat Jul 13, 2024 8:50 am ITwo or three trees that were filtering out and blocking the early and mid morning light are now on the ground and that should improve the garden in future seasons.

Now that's the way to look on the bright side of a hurricane!

Still making an effort to dry peppers. Bad year overall for drying peppers on the copper sheets outside with all the rain and extra moisture, clouds, etc. in July and parts of August. Had to throw out quite a few that got soaked in rains and spoiled.

Dehydrator takes too long so it’s been dry them outside of nothing. Even with the bad conditions, I have one gallon zip bag full of various dried peppers. Eventually, I will grind most of them up for powders. The long thin cayenne get used a lot so hopefully this recent batch of those will dry well.

Hoping for sunny and dry weather to get these dried.

The lovely and long suffering Mrs. Gotch tried the 1st Beaver Dam Pepper (a WESconsin developed variety with seed H/T to @svalli) yesterday.

A certified tongue-ticklin' ZING was detected, followed by another in a delayed reaction.

The Gotch

I didn't start peppers early this year - same as tomatoes, even late for tomatoes! Still they've done amazingly well.
I had seeds from @loulac for Piment d'Esplette Gorria and Tres Long des Landes, and I also got a few seedlings of Jimmy Nardello from Nicky's swap seeds, which is an old standard here.
Piment d'Esplette Gorria turned out to be way earlier than the 'Piment d'Esplette' we grew some years ago. In fact it set and ripened first fruit earlier than either sweet pepper. Beautiful sturdy plant with none of the slug and snail attack that was a plague on the sweet peppers. Those little brown slugs climb up and basically eat through the stems of the peppers to drop them to the ground. Don't tell me they're not clever!
Meanwhile the Piment d'Esplette Gorria are absolutely pristine. The taste is exquisite and heat, very mild to none, at least in these conditions. Just a fantastic seasoning pepper and so early and pest free, I will certainly grow it again and again. Luckily for me, the sweet peppers in smaller pots took the brunt of the attack, but two plants of Tres Long des Landes in a ten gallon container were not affected. They also got no mites or other troubles, and since they are just ripening I was able to move them into the greenhouse before the cool weather and rain which is starting today. These peppers will soon be red! Many of them are a foot or more long, and the plants are loaded. They were lashed together to protect from heavy wind earlier in the season, so I've just tried to loosen that a little while they ripen. Not too much, because they are too loaded! Again, they are about as early as Jimmy Nardello but what a crop!
Many thanks @loulac for these special seeds!