One significant improvement I hope to realize in this year’s garden is improved results with two of our favorite crops, peppers and eggplants. In our first two Hendersonville gardens, I tucked them into the gravel driveway area in grow bags. The hours of sun were not optimal, and though I had reasonable yields, it was not what I hoped for. In addition, getting ripe fruit suitable for seed saving didn’t go all that well. The bell peppers tended to rot or suffer insect damage, and the eggplants didn’t make it to the golden stage of over-ripeness best for seed saving.

The major change this season is to use strawbales for most of the peppers and eggplants, augmented by plants in grow bags sitting in front of the bales. Better staking, more sun, and the amazing environment of the straw bales should provide far more success. We shall see!

The following peppers are planted in straw bales - all planted on May 6.

Orange Bell - this is a selection of the Orange Bell I’ve grown for many years, acquiring it in a SSE transaction. My garden friend Darrel Jones selected for various improvements. It is a wonderful pepper, one of my favorites - thick walled blocky medium green bells that ripen a rich orange color, at which time it gets very sweet.

Chocolate Bell - This is a pretty stable selection from a Stokes hybrid - called Chocolate Bell - offered only briefly nearly 20 years ago. The original hybrid, no longer available, was quite unique - a big blocky thick walled bell that goes from deep green to chocolate brown, and very sweet at that stage. Last year, it was excellent - interestingly, the interior wall is deep crimson despite the outer appearance ripening to deep chocolate brown.

White Gold - This, and the next three, are advanced selections from my dehybridization efforts from Islander. I think that all are quite stable. White Gold is a slightly elongated bell, with an unusual color progression - cream to golden yellow.

Carolina Amethyst - This selection is released and available here and there. This selection mimics the hybrid - color progression cream to a gorgeous lavender, finally ending up medium red.

Fire Opal - This is my favorite of the four selections, a slightly elongated bell that starts cream, then to lavender - finally to golden yellow.

Royal Purple - This last of the Islander selections is the most blocky shaped bell - it starts out pale chartreuse green, then turns black purple, finally ending up a deep crimson red.

Shishito - We ended up purchasing these from a local farmers market all summer long. It seemed appropriate to grow them, since they are a very prolific plant. I don’t find them the best flavored, but we do like to brush with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and toss them on the grill until they are blistered with black patches and soft.

Padron - Unlike the very mild Shishito, Padron can throw some real spicy specimens, providing quite a burn in the mouth. We also enjoy grilling them. Like Shishito, they are very prolific.

The following peppers are in 5 gallon grow bags, planted May 14. The grow bags are situated in front of the straw bales, one bag per bale.

Pinata - We LOVE this unusual Jalapeno type, bred by the Chile Institute in New Mexico. The plant is super prolific - the peppers go from cream, to yellow, to orange, to red, with all four colors on the plant at various times of the season. They are utterly Jalapenos in heat, use and flavor.

Shishito - We decided to do for two plants - one in the bale, on in a grow bag. I think we will have plenty!

Eggplant Mardi Gras in a straw bale as of May 17

The following eggplants were planted in straw bales on May 6.

Skinny Twilight - This, Twilight Lightning and Midnight Lightning are all my selections from the Johnny’s hybrid Orient Express. Skinny Twilight is the same shape - a long, slender Asian type - with medium purple skin and pale greenish flesh. It is very prolific.

Twilight Lightning - This selection is very slender, very productive and is a pale lavender with white streaks. The white flesh is sweet and has few seeds.

Mardi Gras - This unique variety is my selection from a bee-made cross between the white eggplant Casper and another variety. I’ve worked on it for many years and believe it to be stable. The teardrop shape fruit are pale green, with an unusual pale lavender blush over the green. The flesh is quite green.

Midnight Lightning - This is the selection most like Orient Express. The plant is very pretty, with significant purplish shading. The fruit are black purple, slender and prolific, with pale green flesh. This plant is from 2021 saved seeds.

The following eggplants were planted in 5 gallon grow bags on May 14.

Midnight Lightning - See above - this plant is from 2019 saved seed.

Mardi Gras - see above.

Green Ghost - This is another selection from the unexpected cross that yielded Mardi Gras. The plentiful eggplants have skin of pale green and are quite slender in shape, with pale green flesh.

All in all, that makes 10 peppers and 7 eggplants, which should do the trick for our cooking needs.