This is the last in a series of updates on the state of my summer crops as at the end of November (which already seems a long time ago….).
This year I’m growing 3 varieties of eggplant – it would have been four except for the slugs/snails that ate the only two Thai green eggplant seedlings that germinated. I will try these again next year as I still have some seed that Bek sent me. What I am growing this year, and that are looking reasonably happy in the garden are:
2 plants of Bonica – which now have a couple of flowers on them.
2 plants of Lebanese eggplant and one plant of Listada de Gandia (also coutesy of Bek). The Listada de Gandia was sown about a month later (in August rather than July) than the other two and is about a quarter of the size.
And that is about it for eggplants – they are growing well, are a long way off fruiting but I don’t usually get eggplants until the end of summer at the earliest and most of them come in Autumn so their development is absolutely fine for this time of the year.
As you will have noticed I am growing my eggplants in the ground. My peppers however I am growing in pots. This is partially for reasons of space and partially because I want to overwinter them and it saves the hassle of transplanting them. I have gotten a little excited with the number of pepper varieties I am growing this year.
From last (and previous) year/s I have 2 mature Scotch Bonnet chilli (known by different names outside Australia – cardinels cap being one such name) plants which are now in their 3rd year. 1 mature long cayene chilli also in its third year.
Incidentally I thought this plant was dead it took so long to come back in Spring but it definitely came back which I thinks justifies a lazy approach to clearing out my pots. Finally, in its second year I have a mini Mama capsicum. The mini Mama has flowers all over it and fruits developing as of mid December.
I also have a large range of capsicums and chillies that I sowed this year:
- Birdseye
- Alma Paprika
- Tobago Seasoning
- Cayenne
- Hungarian Yellow Wax
- Californian Wonder
- Golden Californian Wonder
- Capsicum Cherrytime
- Purple Beauty
- Marconi Red
- Sweet Mama (which I bought as a seedling)
- Peperone Topepo Rosso
- Poblano/Ancho
- Pimientos de Padron
- Tree chilli/Rocoto (capsicum pubescens) (which is perennial and frost tolerant – or so the packet says. It also says it grows to 2m so goodness knows where I’m going to put it but still….)
The first three are all courtesy of L at 500m2 in Sydney. The Cherrytime & Golden Californian Wonder seed were from Diana. Thankyou to both of you, as well as Bek for the eggplants.
Now the number of peppers I’m growing is entirely ridiculous of course. I have nowhere to put all these plants, and I’ve been banned from adding any more pots (do you think he counts them????) so goodness knows what I’m going to do when they need potting up again. I currently have them all (except for a couple of well developed ones) in 15cm pots which is way too small to expect them to crop in so I will have to do something else with them soon.
For the moment I’m watching them happily develop a flower or two and I’m dreaming up chilli and capsicum dishes to use them all in.
