Hanna moved through yesterday and we got three inches of rain. The better-half and I remarked that if we didn’t know it was a tropical storm we would have just thought we had a big rain storm. The only casualty of the tropical storm was the garden. The tomato plants are mostly toast. The tomato plants overwhelmed their cages once and for all. I just went out and picked as many tomatoes as I could get to without sinking to my ankles in mud and once things dry out we’ll go in and pull up the plants.
The pepper plants may have a little more in them but I picked a ton of jalapenos, habaneros and anaheim peppers too. Truthfully even those plants may be pulled up and composted. We have so many peppers. The green pepper plants are about done as well. I think there’s one pepper still out there that could use a few more days to get bigger. The only plants that aren’t on the definite pull up list are the eggplants and the weather may be the end of them. They don’t like cool temperatures so I think once we start cooling off they’ll kill themselves off. Suicide in the garden.
Last night we made a riff on beef bourguigon and ended up throwing a whole habanero into the pot for about an hour, mabye an hour and a half. The pepper gave just enough heat to the dish but did not overwhelm. The dish was rich and perfect for a rainy day–even though it wasn’t cool yesterday it seemed appropriate to make a hearty meal.