tomatillo sets

tomatillo husks have started to inflate...

madame jeanette

last week rain was dished out like there were no tomorrow, yet sun is back again by now. so far, 14 (out of 31 species) are in bloom with 5 of them already developing pods. here's a picture of the surinamese madame jeanette flower, allegedly named after an eponymous brazilian prostitute...

el big jim, the first

i keep a few seedlings that act as "substitute" plants in case their bigger repotted brothers' suddenly die. was about to cull the formers, but found the season's first bigjim. the 1-cm little jimbo has catapulted me up to the 23rd position in thechileman.org's big jim challenge 2007 board. bigjim siblings standing side by side, the eldest is now blossoming and towering 45cm from soil level. right up to the challenge!

workbench

heat is finally here, with night temps consistently above 15C and daily ones soaring. time to set up the gardening workbench to repot smaller & bigger plants into larger pots, to fertilise, to get rid of early bug developing colonies (aphids, whitefly and some unknown others). number of plants has grown to 41 new peppers (found 2 guindilla seedlings at the garden centre and rescued 2 "reserve" indoor plants that were developing well) and 3 surviving overwintered ones. most plants are flowering or developing buds, see if fruit onset preceeds the scorching summer for once...

pusa jwala & hang jiao

the first tiny peppers of the season are on their way!