My SIL down in Charleston got me interested in this pepper-ish website months ago, and I bit. We don’t have any growing space at our new place beyond the ornamental beds around our immediate house—the greenspaces in this neighborhood are all ‘common’ areas maintained as lawn by the HOA, and that suits us just fine. No more mowing. But that means any fresh veg we wish to cultivate must grow in pots out on our flagstone patio. So off we went back in the early spring to our local discount pottery place, where we procured six colorful pots for the arrival of the baby plants. Peppers, we were told, are fairly easy to grow. Being ‘accidental gardeners,’ meaning we are two working people with little time to garden, we decided to give it a go. Here are the results of the summer growing season.

All in all, a successful growing season, and it’s not over, although we reckon those pepper plants are probably getting a tad rootbound by now. The peppers joined a large metal tub of fresh basil we started from a small grocery store plant, a handful of other fresh herbs David started in the AeroGarden, and our lovely peace lily, a housewarming gift from a dear friend, thriving outdoors for the time being. Still, our peppers were rawther all alone on the patio—there is a lot of space out there, but also plans afoot for a complete makeover, so we haven’t rushed to fill the space with a bounty of heavy pots just yet.

The toughest aspect to growing veg is remembering they’re out there in the first place. How many times this summer have I made an omelet or stir-fry supper from grocery peppers, when I could simply have walked outside and snipped them.

This was a fun experiment, and there will be others. Might need to look into ways to keep the squirrels the heck out of our garden.