After several years of vegetable disasters (mostly at the hands of late blight and hungry chipmunks), I decided not to sprout any peppers or tomatoes from seed this year. But when I was picking up some herbs at the garden center this spring, some pepper and tomato plants grabbed onto me and wouldn’t let go, so I had to purchase them.
The ‘King Arthur’ peppers have thrived in the hot weather. I can’t remember a year when I had full-sized peppers before the end of July. Now I’m just waiting for them to turn red. Hopefully I can keep the neighborhood varmints preoccupied in the mean time.
I haven’t been as lucky with the tomatoes. It’s not a good summer to grow tomatoes in pots. I faithfully watered them every day through the heat and drought, but it wasn’t enough to avoid blossom end rot on ‘Early Girl’. The tomatoes have been ripening in the last couple of weeks, but unfortunately the rot covered almost half of all of the fruits.
I gave ‘Early Girl’ some higher-in-phosphorous fertilizer, and I’m even more diligent about watering, and it appears to be helping. The plant is still cranking out new fruits and so far they are blemish-free:
I also planted a ‘Cherokee Purple’ tomato in a barrel. That plant is near the home of many hungry chipmunks and the fruits have been the victim of some “sampling.” Thankfully the beasts didn’t bite all of them, and there are more fruits to come. I put some nylon deer fencing in a ball around the bottom of the plant. Hopefully that will discourage future marauders.
