THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 12, 1995 TAG: 9503100091
SECTION: HOME PAGE: G10 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: WEEDER'S DIGEST
SOURCE: BY ROBERT STIFFLER, GARDENING COLUMNIST
LENGTH: Short : 47 lines
PEPPERS ARE NOT always the easiest vegetable to grow in Hampton Roads. Often plants in garden centers are too large to adapt readily to a garden. The smaller the plant, the better when you go to transplanting. When hot weather arrives and they bloom at midday, peppers refuse to set fruit. But they counter for that by producing good peppers right up until a heavy frost.
One benefit about peppers is that they easily freeze. With peppers in so many recipes today, frozen peppers can be substituted for fresh ones, without any flavor difference, and at much less cost.
Pete Anoi bought his pepper plants from McDonald Garden Center in Virginia Beach and selected Big Bertha and California Wonder varieties. On Thanksgiving Day, he picked one and one-half bushels of peppers. The photo above was taken Dec. 4 and he was still picking lots of peppers, proving that peppers really do produce over a long season.
Anoi says his secret to success is putting lots of grass clippings around the roots of his peppers. He mulches with up to 10 inches of grass cuttings. That keeps the roots cool in summer and warm in the fall. He also grows them in a raised bed.
Anoi has also had success growing rhododendrons at his Alanton home, a plant that many local gardeners have difficulty with. His plants are nearly 20 years old and very healthy. He planted them very shallow and put in ``fake dirt,'' his name for peat moss, around them. Then he piles lots of oak leaves around their root to make the soil acid and to mulch their roots.
He never fertilizes rhododendrons but has dozens of bright pink blooms every spring. He uses clippers to nip the ends of the limbs each spring. He says this gets better spacing and more blooms on each plant. The plants are now 12 feet tall and still producing colorful blooms every spring, in spite of strong winds blowing directly onto them from Broad Bay. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
ROBERT STIFFLER
Pete Anoi collects bushels of peppers from his Virginia Beach garden
in early December.
by CNB