The price of pepper success

One of my Napoleon Sweet bell pepper plants has been really loading up for a big late season harvest. Mrs cohutt and I counted 13 or 14 peppers set on this one plant over the weekend and were smugly discussing how we might prep them for long term storage and winter consumption.

I had put the “tomato” cage around this plant earlier; it was certainly not capable of holding up any respectable tomato plant but seemed appropriate for pepper propping. One large branch was listing a bit but I didn’t see the need to tie it off; after all the overall plant was being supported fairly well in its laden state by the wire.

Bad decision. I last night I discovered that the branch had snapped at the juncture with the main plant stem and was hanging by a thread. The peppers were toast as it must have happened Monday – 48 hours of Georgia August sun with no water supply does not firm up a pepper.

Oh well. I will evaluate the other plants and make sure I don’t have any more potential snappers.