Hot hot hot (and cold)

I admit it: I gave up on our pepper patch way back in September. Fortunately, it didn't give up on me.

I would blame the weather, but I'm not sure which weather to blame: the cold, wet spring; the hot, dry summer; the incessantly soggy fall; or the warm days and pleasant nights extending well into October. The peppers grew slowly and ripened late; we've had some nice hot chilis and poblano peppers on and off, but those twentysomething pimento pepper plants produced maybe one edible specimen all season long.

I gave up picking peppers after school started and I haven't really thought about them since, but the peppers kept growing. This afternoon the temperature dipped into the 40s and the forecast calls for several cold nights, so any pepper that remains on the plant will soon freeze and rot.

This evening during a break in the rain I sloshed on down to the pepper patch to pick anything still worth picking: a few underripe habaneros, a handful of jalapenos, two (!) green pimentos, a pile of lovely red and green chilis, and about a dozen of the prettiest poblano peppers you've ever seen--small, yes, but deep green and glossy enough to hang from a Christmas wreath.

About halfway through the pepper patch I found some plants still covered in blossoms. My hands were numb with cold and tingling from touching capsicum oils, but the pepper plants were still devoted to producing new fruit. I'm afraid the next few nights will put an end to their endeavors.

Now I have this big pile of peppers in my kitchen. The weather outside may have turned wintry, but inside I've got poblanos to keep me warm.