Plant and fic progress

[igenlode]

Really nippy this morning. I still only have *one* half-ripe chilli that is orange at one end, plus a couple more on the same plant that are slightly tinged; it looks as if we are going to be in the position of the dark-leaf chillies this time last year, which were eventually harvested at the start of November with only three fully-ripe fruit.

Oddly enough I did get a single self-sown pink Swan River daisy -- in the wildflower trough! So the genetic material is still out there, although I doubt I'm likely to get any viable seed off that miserable little late-flowering specimen, and I'm not confident that even the big blue ones are going to set ripe seed this year after being so horribly late to germinate. (I wonder if that was why the pink seed was all apparently non-viable this year, since last year's pink Swan River daisies were extremely late to flower...)

I have attempted to save some basil seed, or at least picked the seed-spikes and put them in a brown paper bag, and we shall see if I can replicate the unexpected success of last year.

The 'new' parsley after an initial rush back to health is not doing any better than the old parsley when sharing the same pot (zero fresh growth, and if anything dying back) and I wonder if the soil there is exhausted or unsuitable. I can't remember if my 'repotting' involved fresh compost or not.

I pulled out my first dead tomato plant today, but they really all need to go. I thought there were some green fruits left on the Roma tomato but worryingly they all seem to have disappeared!

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I have worked my way through the sticky bit in the de Brencourt story, have finished all the planned material, and should now, so far as I can judge, be on the final paragraph or two. I just need to find the wording to end it.

I don't think it is as good as "The Remorse of Others", but it is what it is. And on rereading I'm a lot happier with the start than with the current section, so perhaps I shall warm to the rest with further detachment...

Comments

[watervole]

I've got three chillies on my plant in the kitchen and I think they will all successfully turn to yellow which is their target color.

[igenlode]

I've been told that I should try bringing the plant[s] inside and waiting for the fruit to ripen on the branch even if the plant dies, as with tomatoes. (The main problem indoors is lack of light, as I don't have sunny windowsills or indeed any interior windowsills to speak of!)

It's worth a try, but my concern would be that while the fruit might change colour it wouldn't actually ripen its seed to the point of being fertile, which is what I'm interested in -- I just need a couple of ripened chillies to harvest the seed from. For culinary purposes even the green ones are pretty hot :-)

Even last year's seed appears to have been severely sub-fertile, with all the young plants eventually dying off; these two are survivors from seed saved from 2022, though I don't know if that was just a blip, late ripening, or reduced viability after several generations...