Peter Piper

I’m not.

But I did some good today; a modest start included a little fresh arugula to top off the evening’s salad and a few jalapenos that just looked ready.

We’ve had several inches or rain in the last 3 days ahead of a cold front moving in tomorrow. More of a cool front really I guess, but with the temperatures falling into the low/mid 30s it was time to pot up the pepper plants.

Before I did any digging it was obvious I needed to lighten the load some; by now all my good pepper plants had been staked and/or caged to avoid another branch shearing incident. I harvested most of the rest of the jalapenos then cut 15 good bell peppers off my largest and most productive “Napoleon Sweet” plant.

Both plants are now potted up and ready for winter in the south facing sun room window; I moved a small habanero plant in earlier and it seems to have adjusted pretty well so far.

Why? Peppers are perennials in their “native habitat” ie where it doesn’t ever get much below 40 any time of day or night in any season. Keeping some plants healthy all winter will allow for not only an earlier start to 2011’s harvest, the total harvest for the season should be substantially higher.

😉