Hot stuff

In the spring when we're planting dozens of pepper plants, I often ask myself why we need so many. We'll never eat them all and they don't sell well at the Farmers Market; I can make salsa and hot pepper sauce and put some of the tiny hot peppers in the freezer to use all winter in sauces, but why plant so many peppers in so many different varieties?

Because they're pretty, that's why.

Right now most of my garden looks awful: corn stalks stand dry and brown and done for; tomato and squash vines are shriveling and the last beans and lettuce have gone to seed. Deer are nibbling on the okra, sweet potatoes, and beets. The cucumbers are kaput and the carrot-and-parsnip patch has been overtaken by weeds.

But the peppers are lovely, shimmering in rich shades of green, red, and orange. This year for the first time we planted lemon peppers, which start out green and then go straight to bright yellow. I haven't eaten any of them yet and I don't know how hot they are, but when I look at those bright orange habaneros, I can taste that blast of habanero heat suffused with fruitiness. Deer and other garden pests leave peppers alone. We lose one or two plants a year to some sort of pestilence, but the remaining plants just keep growing without much attention or care.

Few of my friends share my love for hot peppers, and the poor sales at the Market suggest that it's a lonely passion. But this time of year when the rest of the garden looks downright apocalyptic, I enjoy visiting that one corner of bright color where the peppers preside. They're a feast for the eyes today, the tongue tomorrow.