A Spicy Farewell

I'm sorry to announce the failure of the 2020 pepper crop.

Almost three weeks after my germinated seeds were planted, I haven't seen a single leaf, shoot, or sprout. They've had plenty of sun, plenty of rain, and a rich bed of fertilized soil to flourish in. In which to flourish. Whatever.

I give up.

Not gonna lie, I needed those plants to grow. I needed to see, more than ever before, that life goes on and nature takes its course, no matter what else is going on in the world. That would have been more stimulating than a stimulus check. I'm not saying that I would have traded the continued health of my family and friends for a couple of lousy pepper plants - I wouldn't, no way, no how. But I do feel a bit as if some karmic horticulturist decided to be an asshole and give me only one and not the other.

Looking something like this,
I imagine.

I guess a little bit of lousy hope in our current trying circumstances was too much to ask.

And since seeds are one of the items that everybody has arbitrarily decided to hoard during the pandemic, I doubt if I'll get to plant another crop this year.

In the grand scheme of things, this is not a huge tragedy. It's not a tragedy of any size.

Or maybe it's a tragedy exactly the size of the tiny space in my heart reserved for the joy of helping green things grow.

Also, now what the fuck am I going to write about all summer?

Peppers in the Ground

Shit's getting real in Pepperland, guys. We are where the seeds hit the dirt.

After about 10 days gestating in their damp baggie of wet towels (which I think is also a Slipknot album), my salsa seeds looked like this.

Rooty-tooty-pepper-shooties.

Lil squirmy roots, like delightful tiny snakes in a bag. You know what that means, other than I might need professional help? That means it's plantin' time.

I c...a...r...e...f...u...l...l...y extracted all of my seeds from the paper towels. They had grown through the paper in many places, and I couldn't risk damaging the tender roots.  Here's what they looked like when I had successfully freed them all.

Out with the sprouts.

Here's what I found most interesting. The roots are the first part to poke out of the seed, with the leafy bits coming out last. Seems bass-ackwards to me, but I'm not an ancho chile, so what do I know?

Anyway, while my seeds were a-sprouting, my planters had arrived. They're adorable, and they fit perfectly on my teeny-weeny balconeeny.

They look like wooden casks, but they're actually
lightweight resin, because no way was I hauling
wood from my car to the balcony.

Yea verily, I did filleth them with loamy fertilizer-enriched soil. As one does.

Which I did haul from my car to the balcony.
Lightweight resin dirt is not a thing.

In each planter I made about a dozen dirt-holes, using a sophisticated gardening tool I call the pokerizer. This is a name I freely stole from a character in Stephen King's The Stand, which I'm currently reading for the umpteenth time. What the hell else would I be reading in the middle of a global pandemic except an 800-page novel about a global pandemic? Real life hasn't gotten to the epic battle between the Walkin Dude and the Army of the Corn Lady yet, but I'm sure we'll catch up soon.

The pokerizer is otherwise know as my salad fork,
but don't tell the garden club. Or the people
who come over and eat my salads.

Into two dozen dirt-holes went two dozen pepper-babies. And then I watered them gently.

And then we proceeded to get four straight days of Texas Spring rain. Those bitches are watered.

And now I wait. Wait for those wonderful green leafy bastards to pop out of the soil as if to say, "Hi, Mama! I'm a Pepper, he's a Pepper, she's a Pepper, we're a Pepper!"

Maybe I do need professional help.

Stay tuned. At the rate we're going, these damn pepper plants may live longer than any of us.

I'm a Pepper Prepper

The Great Pepper Grow of 2020 is on. Part 1 of the saga is here, if you want the background.

Hot-cha-cha.

Last weekend, I began the process of sprouting my peck of pepper seeds so I can eventually plant them in pots on my porch.

OK, it's a balcony. But that's not alliterative.

I could have said veranda, but I said porch.

As an aside, it turns out the best time to shop for outdoor planters may not be just after you discover you're getting a healthy tax refund this year. I had practically an entire commercial nursery in my Amazon cart before common sense prevailed. Instead I've ordered two cute resin planters that will fit snugly on one end of the balcony. I understand that Amazon may end up prioritizing other people's orders for things like medical supplies and food over my pepper pots. But I'm hopeful that they'll arrive before my seeds are ready to plant.

Hope is just about all we have, now that assholes have taken all the toilet paper.

But more on that in another post.

So, per the internet, the best way to sprout pepper seeds is to fold them up in a damp paper towel and seal them up in a plastic bag. All righty then, I thought. I've done baby-sitting, not that much different.

NO! Bad Chuck. Drunkards: Do NOT fold babies or children into damp paper towels and seal them up in a plastic bag. Not even if they sass. People on Nextdoor will talk badly about you. But pepper seeds? Perfectly OK. And that's just what I did.

Seeds, water, Bounty...we good.

My packet of Burpee seeds contained five different pepper varieties. I was hopeful that I'd be able to sort them by type so I could eventually plant my little container garden in neat groups of anchos, jalapenos, etc. Alas, that was not to be.

Shown here: Homogeny, pepper edition.

It's entirely possible that there are pepperologists out there who can spot the subtle differences among various types of pepper seeds. I'm not one. Oh, well. Maybe the sprouts will have distinctive appearances? Who knows?

Anyway, onto the damp paper towel they went, one big happy capsaicin-containing bunch. And then I folded the towel in half:

And in half again:

And slid the whole thing into a zipper bag, which I sealed to hold in the life-giving damp.

Et voila.

That's French for "ignore my man hands."

This evening I took a peek at how my pepper boys are doing. I removed and carefully unfolded the paper towel (which is still as damp as it was five days ago - impressive!). Guys...I have a few tiny sprouts! They're small and verrrry pale, so I didn't attempt to photograph them. But my seeds are definitely beginning to come to life. Honestly, I was afraid that after five days I'd find nothing but a bunch of waterlogged, rotten husks, so I'm thrilled.

I guess I'll check on my proto-peppers in another five days to see how they're making out. In the meantime, I'll prepare my balcony for its new residents. It's been rainy here in Texas, and I hope that will condition the soil I'll be putting out. I also hope that the Spring rains don't turn into the Summer drought the day I plant my peppers.

Peppers, you guys. They're coming.

Spicy.

We're Growing Peppers, Bitches

I'm not sure how it happened, but here we are, only like six days into 2020, and it's about to be the first day of Spring.

Among the things about me that are not improving with age,
my temporal sensibilities rank highly.

I don't understand how I can sometimes lie in bed unable to get to sleep for approximately 22 hours a night, yet we've managed to get to the middle of March with barely a blip on my radar. Perhaps there's something wrong with my brain, which frankly is a reasonable explanation for a great many things about me.

Anyway, regardless of my flawed perception of the passage of time, Spring is indeed just around the corner. And that means it's time to grow shit in a pot.

The opposite may not be as good an idea.

You may recall that a few years back I successfully grew beans on my apartment balcony. Oh, how happy I was to grow those beans.

They were so beautiful.
And honestly, "Here We Are Now, Blanch and Drain Us"
is one of my favorite post titles ever.

But it's been a couple of years since I've attempted any small-scale gardening. Like other things in my life - OK, many other things - OK, way too many other things - I put it on hold while I devoted myself to other pursuits. Like drinking too much, feeling sorry for myself, and surrendering to the inertia that eventually hastens death.

I'm kidding. Kidding! Mostly.

The part of me that has allowed me to distance myself from fully enjoying life...well, that part sucks. And has exerted too much control over me for too long. So I've decided it's time to get back to the soil. Or at least the quantity of soil that will fit on my 25 square feet of outdoor space.

In 2020, we're growing peppers, baby!

We're growing these motherfuckers right here.

Here we have your Anaheim peppers, your Hungarian Wax peppers, your red cayenne, your jalapenos, and your ancho peppers. The good people at Burpee call this the Hot Salsa Blend. I'll tell you what: I don't even like salsa. But we're growing peppers! Look how cute they are! Think of how amusing it will be if some unsuspecting pigeon decides it wants to peck at the fruits of my labor!

I'm thinking these spicy boys should be reasonably easy to grow. And I'm sure I can find good uses for them in soups and dips and martinis (why not?) And I just want something fun to do, and to write about. Because the part of me that misses writing regularly really wants to kick the other part's ass. Figuratively. The various components of my personality don't actually have physical body parts.

As an aside, if you're looking for a whimsical image to illustrate how the parts of your personality might look if they all had their own bodies, do NOT Google "multiple buttocks."

Just don't.

So get ready for pepper posts. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll wonder how many photos a person can take of a goddamn pot of pepper plants, anyway.

We're gonna find out.