End of season Mandala

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, we got rid of the peppers recently in preparation of the winter garden vegetables (lucky southerners, I know). We had a lot of peppers to pick as some of the plants had grown over six feet tall.

Some lessons learned:

A family of two only needs one serrano plant, not six.

Sometimes the worst soil might be too rich for peppers. We had some bells out in the vegescape and maybe got two fruits off of five plants, too much nitrogen from the nearby bunny poop mulched rose bush, which rocked it this year. They looked beautiful though, huge green leaves, tall as your faithful writer, etc. Just no fruit. We had set them in on a bed of rock phosphate but that didn't get the balance right.

Ladybugs like pepper plants, Yippee!

Peppers handle the heat far better than tomatoes and tomatillos, neither of which did anything for us after June.

You cannot live off of peppers, though the garden may try and convince you of this.

Friends are a great help with a pepper surfeit.

Japanese cucumbers look suspiciously like sex toys.