New meaning to the term "hot breakfast."

[Clipper]

Wow! I just picked the first batch of Anaheim chili peppers. They are described as a mildly hot chili pepper. Believe me they are plenty hot enough. I cut one up and saute'd it in butter until tender and put them in an omelette with a few mushrooms. Not as hot as a jalapeno, but hot enough to get your attention and put a bead or two of sweat on a person's brow. Rather like the long hots that I used to grow when we lived up there. We always called them Italian long hots. I used to get an order of them, along with an order of sweet peppers when I went to "Spaghetti Joes" restaurant and put them on the nice crusty bread that they served. The "old" State Street Grill used to put them on kielbasa sandwiches and they were hot enough to require two beers to wash them down.

[Ralph]

   The "old" Tiny's Grill used to put hot peppers on their kielbasa sandwiches that would melt the welds off of most anything!
She grew them in their own garden at home too!  Those were the days.

[Clipper]

I meant Tiny's. I couldn't remember the name of the place before State St. Grill. We ate lunch a couple of times when I worked at the OD. I was not crazy about the place or their menu. When we had management staff meetings and then went out to lunch together we started going to the Bearded Dolphin. Their lunches were great and reasonably priced too.

[BHU]

I've been picking long hots for a few days. I've been washing them in cold water then letting them dry & then freezing them whole. The other day I made a tomato salad using Jet Star's from the garden, fresh garlic, & basil from the garden & Italian dressing & I tossed in a couple long hots & boy are those suckers hot! Holy crap! I plant them every year & it must be the weather we've had this summer because they're the hottest I've ever grown. I picked a few more this morning with more coming & all the plants have blossoms so if the weather holds up I'll be picking peppers in October.

[Clipper]

Yep BHU. It is a great year for peppers. I had trouble finding plants because I got such a late start but I have 3 colors of bells, 6 cherry pepper plants and 6 Anaheim chili plants. All of them are producing like crazy. The Anaheims are just getting started. There are probably about a dozen that will be ready to pick in a few more days, but there are tons of blossoms that are just turning into little tiny peppers. The cherry pepper plants are loaded. Probably 12 or 15 peppers on each plant so far, and they are just getting ripe enough to pick the first batch, with lots of blossoms still coming. The weeds have grown as fast as the veggies this summer. My Roma tomatoes have weeds coming all up through the plants and the plants are heavy with tomatoes. They are at a point where I pick 4 or 5 each morning while I am out with the dog. What we don't eat in salads or sandwiches Kathy will probably make into a batch of the sweet chili sauce that her mom always made to put on roast pork or beef.

I can't complain about the yield we are getting out of the downsized garden that was planted late. Usually we have planted two dozen tomato plants, two dozen bell pepper plants, six or 8 hills of cukes, and a few hills of butternut squash. Always have had cukes to give away even with Kathy making plenty of pickles. The butternut squash sometimes yields a couple of wheel barrows full of squash that we either freeze for winter or give away.

Between it getting harder each year for me to plant and take care of the garden, and the fact that Kathy is now 80 and not in the best of health, the garden has gotten smaller each year and each year we debate whether to plant one or not.

Now that you mention it, I wonder if the weather is making the peppers hotter. The Anaheims are supposed to be mild but the ones I tasted today are hotter than hell.

[BHU]

I downsized this year. Didn't plant cukes, or butternut squash & only 3 zucchini, which are done for the year, i pulled the plants up yesterday & found a zucchini over a foot long which I tossed out. Probably all seed. We are overgrown with grape tomatoes. I've been giving them away but they keep coming. Lol. The Jets are doing ok but I picked a few this morning & some are bruised. I don't know why. Every time I plant them I have issues. I've been planting Better Boy but this year the seedlings looked terrible at the stands so I didn't buy them. I won't plan Jets again.

[Clipper]

Are they bruised or are they suffering from "blossom end rot?" I had a problem a few years ago with my tomatoes rotting on the bottom before they fully ripened. It was blossom end rot, caused by a lack of calcium. I bought a spray at the nursery that was applied to and absorbed through the leaves. Since then I supplement the calcium by putting a a few tablespoons of garden lime in the hole when I put the plants in the ground. I also apply Shake and Fee Miracle Gro for vegetables a couple of times during the summer. Last year I supplemented the MIracle Gro with an organic fertilizer that I bought at the local nursery. I didn't read the label and just took the word of the nursery person. It didn't smell very good and when I watered it didn't take long for me to look at the ingredients. It contained dehydrated chicken manure, haha. It was pretty stinky for the first week or so and I didn't apply it again. When I tilled in the fall I sprinkled the remainder of it and tilled it in.

Do you think it is the Jet Star hybrid or is it maybe a soil nutrient issue?