Tangled Branches: Cultivated
happenings in and around my zone 6b gardens in northern Virginia and in central Virginia
Monday, July 20, 2009
Harvest, July 19: Tomatoes! and Melrose Peppers!
We have cherry tomatoes!
Nine days later than last year, and the same variety - 'Matt's Wild Cherry'. And just like last year, the 'Fish' peppers are ready too, but I didn't pick any yesterday.
The reason I didn't pick any 'Fish' was because I've been watching 'Melrose' for a few days and yesterday decided the time was right to sample some.
I cut them up and cooked them with onions for topping for bratwurst. I know, completely the wrong way to eat them, but we had already planned to cook the bratwurst...
If you haven't heard of 'Melrose' peppers, they're one of the "Italian Frying Peppers". Throw them in a frying pan with olive oil, sauté to your liking. This particular variety is said to have originated in Melrose Park, Illinois, but prior to that did some Italian family carry the seeds over the Atlantic in their pockets? I like to think so.
Of all the 17 varieties of peppers I planted, 'Melrose' and 'Fish' are doing the best in this unusually cool and rainy summer we're having. All the plants are small and some just starting to flower. We had one and a half days of hot weather last week, and during that time the pepper plants grew about 4-6" taller. Imagine what a week of hot weather would do.
If you'd like to read more about Melrose peppers, click away:
Proud Italian Cook: Melrose Peppers
Mario Quagliata's Peppers. That one is a particularly good story, and I'd love to try growing Mario's hybrid.
The rest of my harvest list is posted at myfolia.com.
5 Comments:
Melrose Peppers were our favorites for Peppers and Eggs, Entangled... we started growing them in IL after having them in Melrose Park.
They look lovely on your blog!
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
Annie: As soon as I can pick more than 2 at a time, I'm going to try them in Pepper & Eggs. Or maybe I could do lunch for one with 2 peppers and 1 or 2 eggs. ;-)
I used to work at a wholesale nursery well west of Melrose Park and they shipped dozens, if not hundreds, of flats of Melrose pepper plants back to the suburbs every spring. Kind of ironic.
Love this small world stuff ;-]
Over the years bet we had some of those pepper plants from your nursery, Entangled - used to hit Luum's in Berkeley, Planter's Palette in Winfield, any number of Frank's, Platt Hill in Bloomingdale, Schwartz in Addison, Naples Fruit Market on North Ave and other places that might come to me.
Sure hope your peppers give you a bounty of fruit!
Annie
Annie: I remember that Naples was a customer, but nothing else rings a bell. The biggest account was Amlings which was still in the garden center business then. This was the late 1970s.
A little Googling tells me that Amlings is now just a seller of cut flowers and Naples closed in the 1980s. The owner, Pat Naples, died just last fall.
We went to Amlings, too - remember buying a white Crabapple for Earth Day - maybe 1991?
We went to Tom Naples Market quite often when our kids were toddlers, and always got our pumpkins there. Thanks for the link - it reminds me how terrified one son was of the "Blow-up Clown" tucked in as part of the Halloween decor.
Pumpkins from Naples and apple picking in Wauconda - glad we enjoyed these places while they existed.
Annie
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