Saturday, May 26, 2007

Lilies and Peppers

This is Saturday morning in Chacala, and it’s slightly overcast. It’s too soon for the rainy season, which usually arrives on the summer solstice. At least, that’s what’s happened for the past three summers. Anyway.

I have a hot pepper plant in the garden. I started it from a seed packet that just said “Chili”, so I don’t know what it is. It seems to be very popular around here. When people visit me and my little garden, they are very interested in the peppers, and I tell them to take some.They don’t usually take them that time, but I notice people seem to come back later and pick a few. People don’t generally notice me looking down from my second story perch, my little kitchen-patio.

So sometimes I get to observe people picking peppers without knowing I am watching. I love it that I can grow something people want to eat.

I started some more peppers from seed this week, and some tomatoes too. I haven’t had much luck with tomatoes before here in Chacala, but I’m going to give it another try. Tomatoes are my very favorite vegetable, and I normally eat them everyday. It would be nice to have some that haven’t been sprayed, etc. This will be about my sixth trial with tomatoes since I came to Chacala.

The main difference this time, is that it’s almost the start of the rainy season, and some people have told me that’s a good time to plant time.

When I first moved back to this house, my lovely landlady gave me a bucket full of water lilies. I don’t know what they are exactly, but they have pretty blue blossoms every six weeks or so.
The lilies are multiplying quickly, and now I have six buckets of lilies, and three buckets are blossoming right now. I am running out of shade to tuck the buckets under.

2 comments:

Christa said...

Those are beautiful peppers you have. How nice that you invite people to come by and pick some. I think one of the great pleasures of gardening is sharing with others.

Anonymous said...

Those water lilies are actually water hyacinth. I use them in my Koi pond as a natural water filter. They reproduce quickly and use a lot of the nutrients that would poison my fish. They will compost very quickly so don't try to keep them all as you'll run out of buckets! Last year I started with 6 plants and my pond was covered (300 sq. ft.) in one month.

None of my plants ever bloomed more than once.