The name’s Piper. Peter Piper

Sadly I don’t have a peck of these. They might last the year if I did.

A fair bit of today (at least as far as I’m concerned given that I’m not spending as much time alive these days) was passed very pleasantly with a friend I’ve not seen for more than twenty years who was visiting from Sydney (yes, the Australian one). Production of pickled peppers still took place however.

These are Hungarian Black. I know, I know, it sounds like a recreational herb for baking into brownies, but in fact they’re a variety of chile. They’re very slightly hotter than a Jalapeño and once they’re fully ripe they’re not even black: they turn a beautiful glossy red. I picked these now because I’m going to let my Jalapeños turn red and it’s fun to have different colours of pickled peppers.

Anyhow, all sliced up with a couple of cloves of my garlic, cider vinegar, salt, home-grown honey and some oregano and they’re done. Sadly the colour appears to have faded when the fruit were added to vinegar, but I can live with that for the moment and I’ll see if I can find a way to stop it happening in future batches.

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Morning only

Very poor show 🙁

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Not great today either

But at least the heart rate isn’t such an issue.

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No dig diary, 17th September 2026

Moving on from the tomatoey (Yes, of course it’s a word! I just invented it!) goodness of the first half of the week, today’s captivating comestible commentary gets a bit more spicy.
Whilst I was picking peppers and chiles I decided that I’d have another go at collecting seed from them. I’ve already tried it once this year and though it could be a little late in the season I may as well give it another try.

Tomatoes are easy to collect seed from as they tend not to cross-pollinate. Peppers and chiles are at the other end of the scale. They will self-pollinate, but they’ll also cross with any other Capsicum variety that so much as flashes its stamens at them. To get seed that will come true it’s therefore necessary to prevent that by introducing a peppery chastity belt ?

I bought a pack of mesh bags with ties that can be put over a group of flowers that are on the point of opening and pulled closed around the stem so prevent pollinating insects from getting to the flowers once they open.

I’ll remove the bags once the flowers have died off and loosely put a tie-wrap around the remaining stem to mark the fruit from which I want to save seeds.

There are of course still loads more tomatoes to come.

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Not feeling good this afternoon

And that heart rate isn’t looking too clever either.

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No dig diary, 16th September 2026

I got out in the polytunnel today, rubbing shoulders with my six-legged stinging girls and decided that there were more tomatoes needing picking.

The large fruit here are Amish Paste which will be used for making pizza sauce and passata. The orange ones are a mixture of Orange Banana and Dív?í Prs (aka Czech Breast). The cherry tomatoes are Garnet. All non-F1 varieties, so I can save seed for next year. In fact, the Amish Paste and Garnet plants were all grown from seed saved last year.

The left-hand tomato on the scale weighed 440g (15½ ounces in old money) all by itself.

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And again

Unexpectedly low for the morning reading, this one.

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Just the one, Mrs. Wembley

Bit of a brain fart today and I forgot to do it after the morning.

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This one doesn’t look too good

I didn’t feel too good either 🙁

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No dig diary, 15th September 2026

There’s a definite tomato flavour to the start of this week. I have a single “Lotos” plant that poduces medium size pale yellow tomatoes that can get a slight pink blush when they’re really ripe. I discovered at the weekend that one of the fruit closest to the soil had been extensively nibbled, so I picked what was left, scooped out the seeds and left them in a jar of water for a few days to fester and turn into an absolutely honking mouldy mess. After pouring that down the sink today followed by plenty of clean water to get rid of the smell, I collected the seeds remaining at the bottom of the jar and put them out to dry. I’ll do a germination test towards the end of the year and if they look good then I’ll use them to grow more plants next year.
No photos of the tomatoes themselves, sadly. All the ripe ones were used to make salsa to go with our chicken fajitas this weekend.

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