Bellerophon symbol, variation 7 jonath.co.uk
Thursday 16th Jul 2009 22:19:58
 Forget about global warming, how are the chilli peppers doing?
img_1701.jpg You know, just for the record, I ought to state that I'm not a 'climate change denier', although I'm not entirely sure what that means anyway. I suppose literally a 'climate change denier' would be someone who denies there is any kind of long term change to the global climate. Denying such a thing would be craziness, in my opinion. Hell, the 20th century alone saw a 0.6°C rise in temperatures. Most of this rise occurred prior to 1950 and then dropped up until around about the late 1970's. Apparently it's been getting gradually warmer since then. It seems to me that humans like to think that we're the dominant species on this planet and, therefore, that we pretty much have control over the planet and its resources. Anthropocentrism, I believe it's called. What I believe is that the planet is gonna get hotter, get colder, get hotter, get colder, etc. . . . blah, blah, blah, regardless of what we do or don't do. Oh yes, the chilli peppers. The picture above is of the three jalapeño plants. The nearest plant had a recent brush with the wretched aphids but I've since, er . . . corrected them. The middle plant is the test plant, whilst the other two are the 'controls'. Middle plant has not suffered the aphids yet. But all of them seem to be doing very well. Middle plant slightly taller than the others. No flowering as yet and, therefore, no fruit of course. All of these plants were re-potted on Wednesday night and have all been treated in exactly the same manner . . . same light, same amount of water, same everything.

Comments received:

  • Name: Rosie
  • IP address: 91.125.192.13
  • Date/time: Sunday 19th July 2009 13:26:35
  • Comment: so how is it a test plant if they are all treated the same?
    and yes, anthropocentrism is all the rage. i agree with you.
    Hope A****** had a truly marvellous birthday.
  • Name: jonath
  • IP address: 192.168.0.1
  • Date/time: Sunday 19th July 2009 19:04:24
  • Comment: Ah, well, you see . . . the test plant has been given some kind of special treatment. Apart from that, it's been treated the same way as the other two. They all get watered at the same time, re-potted at the same time (when needed), they get the same amount of light, air, etc., as they're all on the same window sill. It's probably not a brilliant experiment as any kind of variation in growth can be put down to the randomness of plant growth. I probably should have half a dozen (or more) of these plants but I didn't have enough seeds.
  • Name: Uncle Simon
  • IP address: 83.67.49.91
  • URL: http://www.simon.*****.org.uk/allotment
  • Date/time: Tuesday 21st July 2009 19:58:48
  • Comment: These look good! You should expect flowers when they get a little bigger still. I have known Capsicum to struggle on window sills, but this is because most people omit the misting of the plants so as not to wet their window sills. This process encourages the fruit to set. If you don't mist you may see your lovely buds just drop straight off, which isn't what you want. As for helping pollination, Dr D G Hessayon recommends tapping the support to aid the pollen dispersion, once your plants are blossoming of course!
    I know you didn't ask for advice but I thought I'd give it anyway, you know I can't help myself.
  • Name: jonath
  • IP address: 192.168.0.1
  • Date/time: Tuesday 21st July 2009 23:32:28
  • Comment: Did I not ask for advice? When was that? Morecambe? That's not when, that's where. But when, still? Well, I don't know. I do actually appreciate the advice and can't imagine not asking for it. I ain't done no 'misting', whatever the hell that is. My 'purple tiger' at work, whilst in a completely different environment, also has not had any 'misting'. Well, I say that, but as I'm not 100% what 'misting' is, perhaps it has had misting but I'm just not aware of it. But, anyway, I digress . . . the 'purple tiger' has flowered and I've cross-polinated the freak and I now have three fruits as a result. 'Tapping the support' . . . all these weird plant terms . . . what does it all mean?

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