It has been a long battle of searching, anger, and loss over these past few weeks. All the tomatoes are gone and to think possibly to a single caterpillar that caused so much damage. While I did not try to get him on camera he was so fat he left a massive trail behind him leading to his hiding spot. On top of that instead of being green, he was dark black and such a slow mover. This guy had an amazing summer at my expensive but no more!

Almost a day after catching and removing the fiend the tomato plant seemed to understand it was safe again to start flowering and producing. It already has that tinny tomato growing on it with a few more flowers that could soon be near. I just can’t believe all that damage by a single creature I’m hoping.

Red Pepper

While the camera did not pick I up some of these are starting to get a slight red tint to them. I’m hoping next week this will really be something to see. I’ve been watering them daily this week just to keep up with how massive they are growing and there ever increasing the need for more water. Even after it rains it does not take long before they the water pan below sounds empty.

I also tonight cut up the last 3 remaining green ones that I had to harvest early due to the damage they suffered last week. I cut them in half the long way. I coated some olive oil on them and put it into the oven for 10 minutes at 350 degrees. After that, I took them out flattened them since they become more pliable and put some Mozzarella cheese along with diced olives in them. Then I put back in the oven for another 18 minutes until the cheese started to golden. While I wish they were a bit bigger to put more stuffing into them they work out amazing.

Green Pepper

This guy had a single whitefly on him this week. I can’t believe it has been an entire summer of battling these things and still a lone survivor dared to enter my realm! Other than that no further leaf damage that stood out to me in any way.

I am getting a little worried now that this still has not flowered or anything else by now. It really is far behind the red pepper and soon even big bertha will be bigger than it is. It just seems like it does not want to be happy. Perhaps next week will be much better. For now more spraying and keep a lookout!

Big Bertha

Not much of a change this week for this one. It is just getting a tad bigger is all. Still, I’ll take that over it having a very bad week. Keep growing and be a Big Bertha!

Jalapeno

As of the last count, I have 10 jalapenos growing on this one. Even more shocking it is still flowering. It did get very hot this week and I think I needed to water it a fair amount more.

Other than that the leaves look more or less untouched from bugs. I am going have to start thinking up of more ways to add these in once they ripen more. I prefer the red ones and none of them seem close to that stage yet. All of them are quite small still and would not even be one I would want pick just to have a green jalapeno.

I’m still blown away at how productive and good this plant has been running all summer long. As the seasons start to slowly change as we lose hours in the day I’m hoping to help this guy survivor till next year. I’ve lost count how many Jalapenos I’ve eaten but it has been a few. This was also something I only had a couple times a year. It is a nice change when you can just grow it.

Starting Tray

I’ve dumped it out and I’m done with it for the season. Everything in it was going back down again in a slow death. The soil was just dirty looking and was starting to have an odd smell to it as well. The container itself I don’t think was made to be outdoors like it has been. The sunlight was not kind to it and it would be breaking soon anyways. Even the pad used to soak the bottom of the tray was looking rather nasty. Not to mention more mosques were starting to grow in the sitting water.

Next season I’ll have to rethink how I want to grow seeds. Perhaps I’ll just put them in bigger pots to start with and skip trying use a starting tray. Who knows how big this project could turn out one day when I get my own place and some land to set up growing beds in.

Information

Photos were taken by @enjar using a Photosmart M627.