What is it?

[ksmith]

Is this a jalapeño? Is it ready to pick? This plant was buried by the squash, so it wasn't getting enough sun. That could explain the pale green color.



In other news, I pulled out the squash. It was flowering all over the place, but most of the squash fruits were rotting before they reached more than a few inches in length. I harvested one large squash before I did the deed, but even that one looks problematic. I will admit that I didn't plant the thing properly. I didn't build the mound and plant seeds in the middle. I just stuck the seeds in the ground.

By the way, are all varieties of squash covered with glassy filaments that hurt like hell when they stick into your skin? I didn't know the damned things were dangerous.

I moved the What is it? into the old squash spot. Now that it has room and sun, I am hoping that it takes off.

The burning bush remains are cut up and bagged. Seven lawn bags full of branches.

Comments

[e-moon60.livejournal.com]

Did you plant any banana peppers? It looks more like the banana peppers we had. A jalapeno that size should be dark green--darker than Bell peppers, usually, but at least that dark.

There may be another pepper that stays pale green and then turns yellow, that I don't know about. One way to find out is to smell it. The hot peppers will give you a mild sting of the nose when you get right up to them and sniff.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I hunted around after I posted--I think it's a banana pepper. The pot didn't have a tag, and I assumed it was a bell pepper. The color is more in keeping with a banana pepper, too. I looked up some pictures of jalapeños, and they are a much darker green.

[trolleypup.livejournal.com]

Many squash varieties have spines and nasties to prevent nibbling by predators, gloves are a good idea. It sounds like your squash was having poor or no pollination...next time, plant two or more...they don't have to be the same variety, they will cross pollinate fine.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I only planted one because I didn't want to be buried in squash. Mistake.

This explains why the singleton zucchini failed to thrive as well.

[trolleypup.livejournal.com]

Yeah...plant sex. Going solo *just doesn't work* for them.

In general, pretty much anything that is squash should cross pollinate: zucchini, yellow crookneck, any of the soft squashes. Probably the hard squashes would work well enough (and will certainly work within their group).

The other thing to do is not worry about composting fruit...you *don't* have to eat or give away all the produce.