In the Pink
8 October 2023 12:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeThe first of the pink Swan River daisies has finally made it into flower; it took about three and a half months! Plenty more flower buds to come, and at least having this 'late second sowing' has prolonged the flowering season considerably -- the self-sown blue ones have been flowering vigorously and are now starting to go over, and the original sowing has now set seed (or attempted to, with dubious success), died and been mostly cut down. The Cumbrian poppy appears to be dying back without ever having put on any vigorous growth, but that may just be the end of the season.
I have pruned back the buddleia drastically -- I had been allowing it to put out further shoots to see if any of them would turn out to be flower spikes, but they didn't :-(
And I have cut back the bonsai birch and another self-sown plant that survived in a neglected pot and which looks like a little tree or shrub seedling of some sort. (I ought to get rid of it, since I have no room for shrubs, but it is quite elegant and has survived a great deal of neglect...)
I have acquired a pot of seedling chives, since my two attempts at germinating chives this year both failed (I should dispose of that seed). I still have two stumps of towel-tomatoes (I overlooked one!), which are both currently in flower, although not so far as I can tell setting fruit. I also have some very thriving mesembryanthemums which germinated underneath the tomatoes and clearly love it in the pots which have received liquid feed -- one pot of white and one of pink with yellow centres. I still haven't had any yellow mesembryanthemums at all this year.
The Demon Red chillies are continuing to ripen, and may eventually make it to the 50% mark that they had reached this time last year. It is just such a nerve-racking process wondering each time if they are going to do it!
The dark-leaf chilli plant now has three bright orange fruit on it, and is still flowering in purple profusion (the Demon Red has pretty much finished flowering and is covered in fruit). The runt is flowering and has I think four tiny purple fruit on it :-p It was a complete waste of time, but it is alive.
The pak choi are still being eaten bare by an apparently endless supply of caterpillars, to the degree that out of eight or so plants there really is almost nothing worth picking. So we shall never learn how these weird crossbreed/reverted cabbages would have looked in maturity.
I have pruned back the buddleia drastically -- I had been allowing it to put out further shoots to see if any of them would turn out to be flower spikes, but they didn't :-(
And I have cut back the bonsai birch and another self-sown plant that survived in a neglected pot and which looks like a little tree or shrub seedling of some sort. (I ought to get rid of it, since I have no room for shrubs, but it is quite elegant and has survived a great deal of neglect...)
I have acquired a pot of seedling chives, since my two attempts at germinating chives this year both failed (I should dispose of that seed). I still have two stumps of towel-tomatoes (I overlooked one!), which are both currently in flower, although not so far as I can tell setting fruit. I also have some very thriving mesembryanthemums which germinated underneath the tomatoes and clearly love it in the pots which have received liquid feed -- one pot of white and one of pink with yellow centres. I still haven't had any yellow mesembryanthemums at all this year.
The Demon Red chillies are continuing to ripen, and may eventually make it to the 50% mark that they had reached this time last year. It is just such a nerve-racking process wondering each time if they are going to do it!
The dark-leaf chilli plant now has three bright orange fruit on it, and is still flowering in purple profusion (the Demon Red has pretty much finished flowering and is covered in fruit). The runt is flowering and has I think four tiny purple fruit on it :-p It was a complete waste of time, but it is alive.
The pak choi are still being eaten bare by an apparently endless supply of caterpillars, to the degree that out of eight or so plants there really is almost nothing worth picking. So we shall never learn how these weird crossbreed/reverted cabbages would have looked in maturity.
no subject
Date: 2023-10-08 02:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-10-08 03:33 pm (UTC)I don't like hot chillies, so I normally'dilute the effect by using a single miniature chilli to a whole pot of curry, for example, or by chopping up larger varieties and using only a quarter at a time. But if you're a connoisseur and want a specific 'fruity' flavour as opposed to just the hot sensation (I can't really judge the difference!) then it might be worth paying for specialised seed.
I do get the impression they are pretty much at the extreme edge of their range when grown outdoors in Britain, and would probably be more reliable in a greenhouse or a well-lit window sill if at all possible -- not an option for me, unfortunately, as my windows have next to no sill to speak of (enough for a single yoghurt pot's width on the uncurtained kitchen window...)
(Apparently people have now developed *grafted* chilli seedlings for sale, so that you get an earlier, more vigorous crop that grows under less favourable conditions... but of course those qualities definitely can't be propagated on to the next generation by simply saving seed! https://hub.suttons.co.uk/gardening-advice/how-to-grow-grafted-pepper-and-chilli-plants )