What’s been going on!

We feel like we slipped a bullet with Irma moving so much farther west than originally forecast, under an inch of rain and just a bit breezy.  We will take that but feel for the people in Florida who now have weeks and months of clean up to do.  Thankfully it looks like Jose is going to stay out in the Atlantic.

The peak of pepper season the last few weeks, with some slowing of the ripening with all of this unusually cool weather for early September but still always an amazing amount of peppers to pick.  Peppers are our second largest and most important crop after tomatoes but the season is so much longer and less perishable that tomatoes.

The growing season unwinds slowly after the rush to get them planted and while they too require a support trellis they don’t grow overnight like tomatoes seem to do so that part of the management is more relaxed and can happen at different times and over days.  Harvest also carries less pressure because the fruit is much less fragile than a juicy tomato and they keep much longer on the plant or in the cooler.

We have to pick tomatoes twice a week and constantly be selling them within days but that intensity only lasts six or seven weeks.  Peppers on the other hand we only pick once a week, sometimes every other week, but the season is long from the first few pods to the last pick at first frost it spans over four months.  A marathon not a sprint.

We do harvest twice a week but one day is hot peppers or the small varieties and the other day is the sweet bells and Corno di Toros.  Shishitos and Padrons we have to pick three times a week to ensure just the right size fruit.  It usually takes a half a day each time between searching for the pods tucked down in the plants, cleaning up the bad fruits and sorting and grading on the tailgate of the truck into ripe, part ripe and seconds.  It is a nice crop to end the summer season with in a steady and calm way.

Picture of the Week

Long rows of Red Bells to pick

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