So How Does YOUR Garden Grow?

Kim

Last year I started growing some special miniature bell peppers from seed. I carefully planted them indoors late winter and planned to put them out when the weather improved. Unfortunately, the plants didn't last that long and soon they withered and just looked plain awful. Some shriveled into nothing, the few that “lived” were spindly and weak.

In desperation, I put the survivors out anyway, not in hopes that they would grow but primarily so I wouldn't have to look at them and have that old gardener's complaint of: FAILED AGAIN. I deliberately “forgot” about them; I didn't even bother checking for any non-existent progress.

In the run up to the holidays and already planning a garden for next year, I went out to the side yard to see what was there, what needed fixing up and the general state of my containers. And wouldn't you know it – I had Bell Peppers! A lot of bell peppers! So many miniature bell peppers I had to take a sit down to take it all in.

About 8 plants survived the ordeal and each plant had 20 or more miniature bell peppers. I wasn't sure if they were bells because they looked a lot like green jalapeños. I picked a big bucket of them just the same and brought them indoors to show Allen.

They were quite beautiful, deep green, the biggest about the size of my thumb. We looked and sniffed but we couldn't tell if they were “hot or not”. We drew straws to see who was going to do the taste test. I lost.

Carefully, I cut a teeny tiny snip off the end of one of the peppers. Allen was ready to pour me a glass of milk, just in case. Sniff, sniff, sniff.... in it went. Long Pause..... it was SWEET! It was a real bell pepper!

I left the bells that I had harvested in the bucket on the counter, as I didn't have time right then to cut them up and get them in the freezer. They sat on the counter for a few days. And then another surprise! During the few days they were on the counter, about half of them turned into bright golden-yellow bell peppers. It was a gorgeous display of Green and Gold.

I kept some of the seeds as I cut them up. I'm not sure they will grow or if I will plant them but if I do, for sure I will not be doing them indoors this time. Then again....



Miniature Bell Peppers