Plenty of Peppers

We've officially gone overboard. What started as the desire to grow and can our own peppers for year-round use has turned into an obsession, a hunt for more. It has resulted in the making of mental lists that will likely turn into pen-and-paper reality. It will probably evolve into the pair of us cultivating our own pepper patch.

We wanted jalapenos and banana peppers. Simple, huh? Jalapenos for when we wanted a kick. Banana peppers for when the milder side took over. We bought two jalapeno plants and four sweet banana plants. We are the only people in our household of five that eat them, so surely it would be enough, right? Then, we went to town. Aerron was lost to me for a while. He was hypnotized by Scoville units, flavor charts, and wordy descriptions of varieties he had never before seen. We left with four more plants. We managed to find Mammoth Jalapenos and a tame variety. They are happily soaking in the sun where our onions used to be.

Next year, it will be bigger. We will go early and find the ones we wanted, but the store had already sold out. I will also be putting out a call for help to harvest them around July or August. I am hoping they do as well this year as they did last year. We had so many that a lot of them were simply left to rot on the ground, even after canning and giving them to friends. I am also hoping we become the "Jalapeno People" at the farmers' market, should it get off the ground.

This summer, if you find a mysterious bag of peppers on your doorstep, yeah... We likely ran out of jars and the will to live.

**Update: As of noon today, we have four more pepper plants. Someone call the men in white coats, please.