Chilies

Two summers ago it was Jalapeno and Santa Fe.  Last year Jalapeno and Habanero.

This year F's gone made and grown Tabasco, Serrano, Pimiento de Padron and something called a 'bird-beak' in Portuguese.

Ripe Serrano

Single Tabasco

A tiny bird beak

Jalapeno

The serranos are prolific and the plan is to eventually turn them into a fermented hot chili sauce.  The tabascos are huge plants with a tiny crop of tiny chilies that stick straight up.  Night time temperatures are apparently crucial to chili flowers setting chili fruit, so it hasn't been until our overnight temperatures started dropping below the 30's (C) that we began to see fruit on the anything but the serranos.

Prolific serranos

The Spanish (Padron) tapas chilies grew spindly and aren't handling well this season of breezes off the sea and the dear little bird-beaks are just this week beginning to set some chilies.  They are only millimetres in size (zoom helps).

I don't know why humans eat such things.  They are positively dangerous. Even F refused to use the Habanero and only grew them 'decoratively' because Mr B bought the seeds.  However one of her work colleagues pounced on them and later pronounced them to be 'excellent'.  They are ugly though aren't they?  Ugly with hot tempers.  Even their own mothers would struggle to love them.

Drying some Jalapenos

After all this growing and nurturing, F decided Jalapeno are her chili of choice.  They are good sturdy bushes with lots of pretty chilies, and not too dangerous to put into the occasional dish of human food.