Pruning Back Chiles

We have been having our front yard re-landscaped this week. A new sprinkler system, a new section of concrete to our driveway, new boxwoods forming a hedge and a new sod lawn laid down. It all looks so pristine. I love it. The gardeners are doing a good job, although the project is taking a bit longer than was originally planned. I'm still waiting for my new boxwood hedge to go in, but hopefully that will happen next week and we'll be all done.

With all the activity in the front yard, it has motivated me to return to my organic salsa garden in the backyard. I spent time this morning going over each and every chile in my garden with garden clippers. Most of the stalks had budding new leaves and a few tiny flowers on them, but I decided to be ruthless and cut back the chiles as far as I could. I want them small enough so that I can put cages over them and to promote new growth this spring. I also did a little light weeding, mainly pulling wandering jew vines from where they were invading from the neighbor's yard.

I ended up losing a few plants to the last winter cold snap we had this past February. Two of my chiles were nothing more than dried up sticks. I have two blushing beauty bells, one Corno de Toro Red, one gypsy bell, three fresnos, one cherry bomb, one fatali, one fish, one kung pao, one scotch bonnet and one chocolate habanero. I discovered two bulgarian carrot plants, although I only planted one last year. I think that one of the fallen chile pods must have sprouted during the winter. I have not moved any of the plants to new locations, but I want to get more of the bed fixed up before the pepper sale. This way I will have a better idea about additional peppers to purchase at the sale. Now that the chile plants are smaller in size, they will be easier to transplant.

Spring Arrives

Outside, the weather has been turning bright and sunny. Temperatures have been steadily getting warmer and my pink jasmine vines are putting forth the most lovely clouds of blooms. I have not done much with my salsa garden, other than be around when the termite exterminator injected the wooden fence with poison. The process was done quickly and now dealing with the termites seems like a faraway dream.

Old tomato plants remain in the front bed, mostly dead and needing to be cleared out. I am going to start with fresh tomato plants this year, hopefully I will find a couple of interesting heirloom varieties at the pepper and tomato sale next week. The soil levels in my raised beds are about half of what it should be. Once I'm ready to begin the March plantings, I'll fluff up the soil in the beds with a claw and then add in more organic compost and garden soil from the nursery to bring the soil levels up to the top.

Most of my overwintered chile plants survived! I'm grateful because this means that I'll have access to fresh chiles in my cooking far sooner than usual. While there are a few chile pods still on the plants, none of them have put out fresh blooms as yet. They are still all relatively dormant. This means that it should be safe to prune them back, dig them up and transplant them into new areas or back into my new beds.

Meeting the Termite Exterminator

The termite exterminator from next door arrived as promised and I allowed him to view the common fence in question from my side of the fence. When I opened my garden gate and allowed him into my small side yard he looked surprised and commented about how new the fence was. Evidently, he had not seen this fence when he had inspected the property before. He also said that my side yard was the perfect place for a garden. The fence next to my pepper patch had no termites in it at all. I'm not surprised because it is only four years old and I had sealed the wood after we put it up. It should last at least a good ten years without problems. Just beyond the garden, where the old ten year old wooden fence was, he pointed out the two places that had termite damage. One location was next to my tomato bed.

I explained that I had read about Termidor on the BASF website and that it said to not plant near vegetables. That the product would be toxic. The termite exterminator told me that there had been a change in plans with the neighbor, that he was only going to inject the wood where the termites were and not pump chemicals into the soil at all. This chemical that goes into the wood is a foam and it would not spread into my organic garden, even though the post is inches away from my cinderblocks.

I'm not thrilled about the chemicals being there in the post, but I will accept this as long as there is no injecting of the soil. I don't believe that Termidor soil injection is a good solution for tiny yards such as mine. A two foot "perimeter" is a great deal of space when your entire yard is only six feet deep!

I'm not sure if this is going to be the last dance with the termite problem. Not only was the house next door tented for termites, according to the exterminator, they had also spread deeply into most of the fencing around the property too. The two locations in my fence were the least of the infestations. With so many termites next door, it could be that they have migrated to my home. I might have to do an independent termite inspection of my property as well.

Update about Termidor

I had a long chat with the termite exterminator this afternoon. It seems he went to a seminar about his product this morning and was advised there to NOT use the underground toxic chemical near any edible plantings, such as my organic herb and pepper garden! Imagine that. If the chemical was injected, the poison would spread to cover at least half of my side yard....and would poison my entire garden patch. The poison does break down, but it would be probably a year or two before I could safely plant near that fence again.

He asked to come and see my garden area so that he could figure out an alternative way to kill the termites without injecting the soil with the chemical. He would probably drill holes into the wood posts and put the chemicals in there. That does sound better to me, but I still think that I'm going to dig up all my pepper plants and transport them to the opposite side of the yard during the spraying.

I definitely am going to fight this if the neighbor insists on injecting poisons into my yard.

Termites!

I've been informed today that the neighbors are going to spray our common fence for termites. This common fence is inches away from my organic vegetable garden. I've been reading up on the chemical Termidor to see what I'm dealing with. Evidently it is considered one of the leading poisons to kill termites, so the fact that this company is using it is not anything out of the ordinary. It is not that I don't want the termites gone, after all if they are in the fence they can spread to my house, but dealing with all that poison is an issue. When I read more about the product at the manufactor's website, it stated that the chemical should not be injected into the ground where edible plants were growing.

Hmm.

My chiles have been successfully overwintering in my side yard. They survived the brief bout we had with frost conditions and seem quite happy. A few even have pods on them, although there are no new flowers to be seen. I don't want them sprayed with poisons or growing where poison has been injected into the ground inches away, so I'm considering digging them up and placing them into pots as I continue to deal with the termite situation.

Will I even have a garden after all this? I simply don't have enough information to judge this yet.

Frost Conditions Arrive

It seldoms dips below freezing here in Southern California. Snow is more a myth than a reality. Yet, last night the temperatures dipped down around 25 degrees. I was worried about my wintering chile plants since I don't have anything to cover the plants with.

I looked out the window this morning and so far, so good. The plants are still green and looking healthy enough. My pepper garden is in a narrow yard between two houses and I think that not only are they sheltered from the wind, but being so close to the house the micro-climate there might be a bit warmer. I think that it helps that although it very cold, it is a dry cold. So far, we have not been touched by snow.

I'll keep my finger's crossed that the plants will make it. Who knew that overwintering a few chile plants would prove to be so nervewracking?

Overwintering Begins

The temperatures outside have been steadily growing cooler as our brief "winter" here in Southern California begins. We seldom experience frost conditions, but our eight week winter has a great deal of rain, wind and cool temperatures. Sometime in March, it will all reverse and the warmth with return again.

Most of my chiles have stopped producing pods, the exception being the red scotch bonnet. It still has a number of red pods on it that are ready for harvest. Otherwise, my garden is entering its dormant period where little is being produced.

I've never overwintered chiles before, but I just got an email from a fellow chilehead who told me that his plants would generally live anywhere from three to eight years here in Southern California and all he did was leave them outside in the garden! I'm very interested in this since it is often hard to find the more exotic chiles as starts in my area. If I have a plant, I'd like to keep it! I'm a little uncertain about the techniques involved, but I will simply try and cut them back a little and hope that in the spring they put out new stalks and leaves.

I am going to overwinter the following: Blushing Beauty Bell, Red Corno de Toro, Gypsy, Ariane, Fresno, Bulgarian Carrot, Cherry Bomb Hybred, Fatali, Fish, Red Scotch Bonnet and Chocolate Habanero. By overwintering, I'm hoping to have fresh chiles for my cooking far sooner than the late fall. Only time will tell....