Planted out tomatoes and peppers

I was happy with the performance of the one dwarf I grew, Tennessee Suited. . Since I grow mostly in containers, I’m going to try others. Such an easy plant to care for. Small plants with good production and size. Impressive.

Most solar installations stop generating power when the grid goes down,

My understanding was that grid tie systems have to do that for the safety of those repairing the downed power lines.

Not entirely true. It is easier for the inverter manufacture to design it that way, but there are UL approved inverters which sense grid power going off and disconnect the inverter from the grid but continue to let it run locally. I have such a unit (a fairly old one actually) which does this, takes it less than 2 AC cycles to disconnect from the grid. It also senses when the grid is back and reconnects automatically.

A disadvantage to these inverters is of course the need for batteries. But also one typically has to wire a subset of circuits into a separate box to be powered by the inverter when off grid. Your inverter/PVs most likely cannot power your whole house. If you can do your own wiring, not a biggie, but can be pricey if you are hiring the work out.

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I wonder if this varies with power company/locale. That is the way it was explained to me 3 years ago.

Tomatoes and peppers are slowing down. I cleaned the garden yesterday and then I had this idea. I removed the upper leaves and branches from the pepper plants to expose the fruits to sunlight. Hope they’ll ripen faster this way. It looks kind of ugly but it does not matter this time of the season, isn’t it?

Antohi Romanian is on the left and Costa Rican is on the right.
More pictures of them.


Tomatoes are still hanging. I can find a good edible tomato once in a while.

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Maria, these look very tidy. So do those peppers not get sunburn?

Usually they don’t. But they are protected by leaves. I removed all leaves in the hope to increase the ripening before the cold settles in.

Very nice plants. You are about the same state as us. Our tomatoes are practically done. They’ve been taken over by weeds and there’s maybe a handful of 'mater’s left on the withered vines.

We do have peppers growing pretty well, I actually was out there Friday weeding and fertilizing them. Some plants have produced a fair crop, but nothing like yours.

Like you, I’m hoping to get a decent amount before the first frost. I think we’d have maybe a month before that happens. It’s been very dry and hot here the last month, I was actually happy to get some rain this morning, our lawn actually has been turning brown from lack of rain. Our rain gauge showed about 2/3" for today.

I grow my peppers mostly in containers, and this year all in containers. When frost hits, any still with peppers go into the garage and I take them out when weather is good. Maria the plants look great, nice production, hope they ripen. Mine are always neglected some as I’m not here much in the summer.

Thank you everyone! I have quite good pepper year, I dried and canned them and even put in jam and they are still growing strong. I do not like green peppers and there are so many of them at the end of the season. We’ll see if my trick works and the sun helps them to ripen faster.
I spray my tomatoes and remove the diseased leaves, so they keep going. They have more rot problems and some plants develop grey spots on the stems and then slowly die (grey mold?). Some varieties seem to be more prone to it then the others. We have been getting a lot of rain the last two three weeks and it was unusually cool and wet, not a good weather for tomatoes.

Just an update, as mentioned earlier in this thread, my 'mater’s have been done for a couple months already, but we are still harvesting peppers. We (meaning my wife) actually canned 7 pints of various pickled peppers yesterday, mostly jalapeños, Anaheim Chile’s, and some pepperoncini. Mrs SD took some pics of them before she hauled them down to the cellar, and I will post some of those later.

I thought that when I have the time, I’ll add a post to this thread about how the 33 different tomato varieties of 70 plants did in our garden this year. We will pick maybe 10 of our favorite tom’s for next year, and grow maybe 2 or 3 of each. Seventy plants this year was absolutely cray cray, and I’m not about to do that again, especially with having to deal with fruit trees as well as a garden(s). Anyways, thought a end-of-season report would be interesting.

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Hurricane Matthew put a good beat down on the garden - lots of tears in the leaves. Some peppers got harvested for me and made great fajitas. Overall they seem to picked up and started ripening the ones not harvested.
Note to self: Next year secure the cages better just in case of hurricane.

Trinidad scorpion butch t , habanero tree, and rocoto de

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Start of some little firecrackers… Is that Hab the chocolate one you started months ago? Mine never germinated, but I have enough hot peppers as it is, mostly Jalapeño’s.

What is the last one? Is it a hot one as well?

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The habanero tree is different than the chocolate habanero, the chocolate is doing good also, yes rocoto de seda is supposed to be super hot

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Those are going to be some hot peppers! I grew ghost peppers three years back. I still have most of them. I can’t believe a half of a little pepper gets my big kettle of chili almost to hot to eat, for me that is. I like about three jalapeno peppers in it and I’m good with chunks of melting sharp cheddar.

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Thanks to a member on here, I have some “7 pot” pepper seeds. I didn’t grow any this year, but might try some next season. You probably know why it’s called 7-pot, one pepper can heat up seven pots of chili, now that’s impressive…

Looking at pictures of them, they just look like like devilish balls of fire. That Trinidad Scorpion Butch T that Jason is growing is like a top ten hottest pepper, as is the Ghost Pepper. The Carolina Reaper is the hottest of them all.

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Speaking of Carolina reaper I am growing it this year. I consider it more ornamental and not edible so it grows in a flower bed away from the vegetable garden.

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First tomato of the season. Red pear Franchi. It is very unusual to have such tomatoes this early in the season. Usually it starts with cherry tomatoes.


Red tomato outside and very deep pink color inside. Surprisingly good taste for the first tomato.

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Mary it looks delicious! You surely are our veggie guru!!!

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We have three tom’s on one of our Siberian Pink’s, one is about golf ball size. And we have one Cream Sausage about thumbnail size.

One of the Orange KY Beefsteak plants has a few branches that look very wilty, the rest of the plant is OK. I’m wondering if it’s a reaction to all the rain. The rest of the plants are looking very good. Some of them are definitely three feet tall.

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