My First Habaneros! And other garden updates.

Last year I had no success with peppers at all! I just couldn’t get the plants to produce and they were limp and weak and I just didn’t get much of anything except maybe a few Serrano Peppers. I am very excited to say that last night I picked the first orange Habanero!

This is a picture of them a couple of days ago beginning to turn orange! Feels like I have been waiting for ever, going out to the pepper garden daily, waiting for that first hint of orange. And then, it still took forever for them to turn completely.

 

I have to admit, I was ready to make some salsa today, so I didn’t wait for the second one to completely turn orange. It’s a little larger than the first one!

Today, I experimented! We’ll see how it turns out. Dh will have to try a little when he gets home. I used my own salsa recipe and used habaneros instead of serranos and added peaches, and cooked and canned it! He’ll have to tell me if it needs something or changing. Fruity salsa just doesn’t sound good to me.

Here are some more of my peppers, Kaleidoscope. I am very thrilled about these as well! There are some other varieties with peppers on the plants but these are the biggest so far. I am telling you, this is the first luck I have had with peppers. I planted early, and fertilized heavily, as well as trying them in both very sunny and partly sunny locations. All seem to be doing ok, but the ones in full sun have more peppers. I think the fertilizer is doing the trick and getting them going early and watching them closely to protect them from critters!

Ah, my first Butternut squash, I hand pollinated it myself the other day! I hope it worked! It appears to be doing well!

The large pot had my first 4 strawberry plants in it that I got last year. There are tons of runners, so I am taking advantage and potting up more plants! I have been rooting them in the pots beneath the big pot, and then separating them and putting them in smaller pots. I got one of those Topsy Turvey strawberry planters that I am going to put some in and see how that goes. But you have to keep that thing watered every single day, so I am not sure how that is going to go, cause I don’t get out there every day! But I really hope to have more edible strawberries next year!

I also found my first Ambrosia melon had fallen off the vine. It was quite small, not much bigger than a large tomato. I am not having much luck growing the cantaloupes/watermelons either. The one and only watermelon out there is about the size of a baseball and doesn’t seem to be getting any bigger!

Well, I cut this one up anyway, and it looked fine, so I gave it to the kids, and it didn’t last five minutes! I tried one bite. It was good but not great. Not as sweet as I would like. This is about the same size as the one and only one I got last year too. I wonder if I just picked varieties that don’t get very good sized.

    

I think for next year I might try ordering some new varieties of all kinds of stuff. I have been reading some of your blogs and some of the stuff just looks and sounds so cool I think I have to try it. I really want to try some White Habaneros like momma_s, and some white tomatoes like Robin. I also found some Early Purple Sprouting broccoli that looks really nice too! I think I may also try some of those Black Cherry tomatoes that Granny and a couple others have had good things to say about. Hmmm, there are just so many choices!  And only about 7 months or less to make my final choices! It isn’t even fall yet!