Pepper Profile: Mad Hatter

It is not hard to see why this pepper is called the Mad Hatter. You won’t have to fall down a rabbit hole to bring the ‘Mad Hatter’ to your garden!  The shape of the fruit resembles a flattened hat. This exotic looking pepper is unique, vigorous, and delicious. Mad Hatter is a member of the Capsicum baccatum pepper species from South America commonly used in Bolivian and Peruvian cuisine. This is a mild pepper with a Scoville rating of 500, meaning it is mostly sweet with a floral scent. Flavors intensify as the fruit ripens. Hot, dry climates may produce fruits with a hint of heat at the center, but the outer parts remain sweet.  I picked these peppers before they were fully ripe but I will update this post if I get any red peppers in the near future.

-Gia

Not Your Backyard Blackberry

There is no shortage of blackberries in the Pacific Northwest, as a matter a fact, we are inundated with the invasive Himalayan blackberry.  This extremely prolific but tasty "weed" is a serious problem in our open spaces, woodlands, shores, and forested areas.  As much as I enjoy the flavor of blackberries, I know better than to plant this thorny pest in the garden.

Almost a decade ago, I did some research on thornless blackberries. I knew my children, at the time 1 and 2, would appreciate picking the fruit from a thornless bramble.  After a few months of research, I settled on the cultivar "Loch Ness."  This is a very large fruiting blackberry that is similar to wild blackberries in flavor.  One of the other advantages of this variety is that it grows upright and does not need much support. A decade later, this wonderful berry is still producing.  I recommend it highly to those who have the space to host this tall yet tameable beast.  It grows 6+ feet in height but not much in width.  The blackberries are perfect mouthfuls of deliciousness, come by of you want a taste. We are at plot A17.

-gia

Tomato Profile:White Cherry

Several years ago, I wrote about a tomato called Great White. This season I have found its miniature counterpart in a cultivar called White Cherry. This is a cherry tomato that is reported to be easy to grow, prolific, and resistant to cracking. (This can happen naturally or when your tomato plant is left to wilt or dry out and then is flooded with water.)

These genuinely adorable pale, yellow fruits keep producing right up to frost. They are sweet and very delicious, with a light tomato taste that is very refreshing. The one-ounce fruits are larger than Sweet Million and larger than SunGold (in our garden). They require no special care but staking or caging is recommended.

Note: These cherry tomatoes are not truly white but the less sun exposure they get, the lighter in color they will be.

-Gia

Sungold next to White Cherry.