{"id":2166,"date":"2016-08-09T22:19:00","date_gmt":"2016-08-10T02:19:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2021-08-09T13:49:30","modified_gmt":"2021-08-09T17:49:30","slug":"summer-shishito-peppers-heirloom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardern.co.za\/2016\/08\/summer-shishito-peppers-heirloom\/","title":{"rendered":"Summer Shishito Peppers, Heirloom Cucumbers and Here Come those Dahlias"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Shishito Peppers, the hottest food trend to hit the American garden since Kale, mature on attractive plants which I am raising in clay pots on our deck stairs. <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
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\nIf you haven’t noticed, it’s officially ‘high summer’. Sure, it’s the start of what most gardeners call the harvest time – baskets of tomatoes, piles of zucchini, buckets of pickles and string beans, but early August is also that brief period when summer feels most-summerlike, two or three weeks before we start seeing hints of color in the swamp maples. Hot, humid days and cool, dewey mornings – a precious few warm and sultry evenings when one can dine outdoors with fewer mosquitos and the drone of evening insects. Firefly season is over, and late summer mushroom season is just beginning.<\/div>\n
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Golden cherry tomatoes are beginning to ripen on the vine. Few seem to make it into the kitchen, especially when they are drenched in a late day summer thundershower.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
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\nI thought that I would just show some ‘catch-up’ photos from around the garden. Dahlias rule around here, as they begin to bud – we’ve plants far too many for any household, but with the new Dahlia Society we helped start (the New England Dahlia Society), we felt that we should plant as many as we could.<\/div>\n
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‘Kelsey Annie Joy’ Dahlia. Almost, too pretty. Almost.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
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Dahlias are a bit of an obsession this year, but not all is going completely well with them. The 100+ dahlias which Joe and I purchased so eagerly this past winter, are all progressing but with mixed results. Raising dahlias for show is a completely different thing than raising dahlias for cut flowers. They are quite prone to insect damage, virus, rust and fungus. There is daily disbudding to do, and endless staking and fertilizing. Joe’s field out back is proving to be too shady and weedy, and even though my 60 or so plants near the greenhouse are doing better, they need almost daily watering since we are experiencing an epic drought this year.<\/p>\n
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Most of the dahlias in my exhibition bed – the bed where I am raising dahlias for local dahlia shows – are just beginning to bloom. This beauty is named ‘Wowie’. Indeed. My days (or, after work evenings) are now are spent disbudding, staking and trimming away unwanted stems, all are efforts which help the plants focus on producing larger and more perfect blooms.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
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This one is an anemone form – always a very pretty form in my book. Meet dahlia ‘Alpen Fury’.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
In the vegetable garden, things are doing much better, although, I now wish that I had dedicated more space to tomatoes than dahlias! The hits this year are my new raised beds – the Elevated Cedar Planter Box – which I purchased at Vermont’s Gardener’s Supply Co. But more about those in a later series of posts – as I fell in love with that product last year – so much so, that I actually wrote them, proposing that I would love to write about them more. Now, I have four.<\/p>\n
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A collection of Rhizomatous Begonias on the back porch, where they love the cool breezes and protection from full sun a rain. The perfect porch plant, these were small 2 inch pots in march, but quickly have grown to fill 6 -8 inch clay pots. \nLeft to right- ‘Desert Dream’, ‘ Northern Lights’, ‘Kit Kat’ and ‘Autumn Ember’.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
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This one is a rare species (one with a question mark on the label, which I purchased at a Begonia Society show last September). I really like its water lily -like foliage, and now, it is beginning to bloom.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
Shishito and Padrone peppers frying in a hot skillet. I’ve heard that they are the perfect accompaniment with a cool summer cocktail. Gonna try that!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
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Shishito’s are so popular at the hippest Japanese restaurants on the West coast, that they often sell out before the night is over. They are not hot (except maybe 1 in 100 they say, but I have yet to find it.). Closely related to the Spanish Padron pepper, it’s a tender, thin-skinned treat. Cast iron skillet, hot and seared in a drop or two of olive oil, a squeeze of fresh lemon and sea salt – yum! Mild, sweet and tender. Seeds and all.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
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The last of the lilies are blooming – surely, a sign that summer is nearing the end. \n (OK Bruce, this IS a lily, which IS a flower. But I could cook and eat the bulb if I wanted to!).<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
Shishito Peppers, the hottest food trend to hit the American garden since Kale, mature on attractive plants which I am raising in clay pots…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2167,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
Summer Shishito Peppers, Heirloom Cucumbers and Here Come those Dahlias - Growing With Plants<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n