Peppers love fall

Jalapeño

Sunday, September 15, 2024

My peppers kick into high gear come September and keep right on producing through October.  They seem to love the lower humidity and cooler nights.  

This time of year, I back off fertilizer.  Nitrogen promotes new greenery which can make the plant more susceptible to a hard frost.  Typically, peppers do fine up until a hard freeze.  I have had good success with bringing cayenne, Jigsaw and my Chiltepin pepper plants indoors for the winter.  They keep producing into January and then start flowering as soon as I take them outside in the spring.

Right now, I have Poblano Anaheim peppers, California bell peppers, burgundy sweet peppers from seed I have saved, a Chiltepin wild hot pepper native to the Southwest, Habanada sweet pepper, Jigsaw purple hot pepper and Tunisian Baklouti hot pepper plants.  They are all happy in their pots.

The Poblano I am drying for chili powder.  The sweet peppers I eat fresh and rough slice and freeze for salsa and tomato sauce.  The larger hot peppers I freeze whole and use for salsa and homemade hot sauce.  At the end of summer, I will take all the hot peppers frozen from last year and make hot sauce.  It is super easy.  Make your own hot sauce!  A I use the hot sauce to make wings for football games.  Homemade hot sauce wings with homegrown celery

Sweet pepper 

Poblano

Yum!  Yum!

Here's my easy recipe for fresh salsa.  Quick and fresh homemade salsa

In my garden, my peppers seem to do the best in pots.  It's a great space saver too if you are growing all your edibles in the garden bed.  You can put your potted peppers interplanted with petunias along your side walk or patio for decoration as well as food. 

The veggies I grow every year that seem to favor or do at least as well in pots are peppers, eggplant, bay laurel, bush cucumbers, Egyptian walking onion and all greens.  I try to find room in the garden bed for tomatoes, okra, garlic and pole beans.  I only need one trellis of pole beans to grow everything we need.  

It doesn't take much garden space to grow lots for your family to eat year round.  You can garden year round in small space  If you have limited space for storing extras, focus on veggies that are easy to keep without a freezer.  21 no tech storage crops