It's universal, really. The conditions - they must be right. If not, it could be a matter of ability or disability, of function or dysfunction, or even of life or death.
For three summers, I have coasted along with sufficient enough conditions to grow and harvest very hot chili peppers (Jalapeno, Habanero, Thai Hot, Cayenne, Red Hot, Yellow Wax, etc). The first summer (2008), our plants were late, and it was a "cooler" summer, never reaching the 90 degree temperatures that most of us despise, unless we are laid up on one coastal beach or another. It was cool, yet humid, which produced amazing plants, but not the hottest peppers, because, indeed, the hotter the sun, the hotter the pepper. We discovered this the next summer (2009) - the summer of the Bear Jew, as it were. In 2010, Franklintown became the land of a thousand habaneros. I had conquered the Caribbean in Central Ohio. So I had thought...
In January of 2011, I had already ordered and received genuine Fedco seed - about 7-8 varieties of chili peppers. I hadn't ordered early enough to receive the Bolivian Rainbow - the first disappointment of the season. :( Seed starting got underway on March 1st, both peppers and tomatoes. Each variety showing life for many days before the first of Spring. Then came April, with it's normal rainy nature, but only six days of sunshine all together - LAME. Actually, SUPERLAME. I made the mistake of transitioning my younglings out to the cold frame in the first week of April. They remained cold and wet and stagnant and young. Not good, but not necessarily a huge set-back. Fortunately, I had great faith in the month of May for sunshine and warmth, balanced with appropriate portions of rain. I had such extraordinary faith, that I even mulched (straw hay) around all 45 pepper plants that I spread around three 8x4 raised beds. Pepper plants like their soil warm, moist, and humid. However, mulching in May became (what I believe) to be the biggest mistake of the season. I read later (the story of my life) that it isn't appropriate to mulch until the soil temperature is above 60 degrees. Otherwise, mulching will entrap a colder soil, even after it begins to warm up. Well, it didn't fucking warm up to tropical standards until around the beginning of June - and even after two months (April-May) of non-stop rain, it still continued to rain substantially through the third week of June. So the pepper plants remained developmentally disabled because their roots were essentially still insulated in cold/wet soil. I actually did remove the mulch during the first week of June, but it didn't matter because it remained to be so wet. Unfortunate. Was I to pray for drought? Who the fuck prays for drought? Did the natives ever do a drought dance? Who knows?
On the other hand, tomato plants apparently love wet/cold conditions, because they grew like weeds...
First of July (above) - here are my lame ass chili peppers plants, the same day...
Essentially, it was obvious that the roots didn't have enough motivation to grow in such conditions, but the plants never died - which one might think is a good and positive aspect - but instead, or "along the way", they acquired a serial fungus from the extremely wet conditions, which to date, has destroyed 15 of the 45 pepper plants. Bastard fungus shall be it's name.
The end of June brought heat and humidity, without the rain. The plants didn't really look that much better until a morning rain broke last Saturday, then they suddenly (magically almost) began to show new, healthy, substantial growth with the combination of real heat and little rain - straining the roots enough to grow - then finally responding normally because of more familiar conditions. I may now end up with at least 15 healthy pepper plants. The other 15 may or may not produce well. I re-applied the mulch now that conditions are appropriate.
The above photo is a Jalapeno plant - which I have lost more of than any other pepper plant. I saved two of of the eight, but have little to no hope of production. We will see. They were seemingly the most vulnerable to the bastard fungus.
...
Consider this...
Maybe, in this world we live in, we are as subjective as pepper plants in how we develop, grow, and react/respond (or not) to the conditions, circumstances, and environment with which we were raised to produce a particular kind of fruit. Each plant needs nurture and nutrition, just like us.
And what if there are entire families, like the Jalapenos, that just seem more vulnerable to certain types of fungus and disease than other "types" of families. Can we expect the same from them in our societal condition? Can we expect them to produce "fruit"?
Not looking for answers, but once a plant is severely stunted, there is only a certain amount of recovery that can be expected, even in great conditions. It may still look like the other plants to some extent (blend in), but it's fruit will be minimal, if it produces fruit at all. What do we do with this type of plant?
What do we do with this type of person?
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