Cherrytime Capsicum Life-Cycle

The cherrytime capsicum has been the most reliable and prolific capsicum this year together with banana capsicum compare to the other varieties we planted last warm season. The cherrytime capsicum produces small size capsicum fruit with average of 5cm. The ripen fruits is sweet and have a roundish shape with a pointed end which looks like a cute heart-shape sometime. This capsicum become more sweeter when grill or roasted which I found out this year experimenting in the kitchen. It goes nicely with grill yakitori/kebab alternating between meat and cherrytime capsicum which our family enjoy.

The cherrytime capsicum can be left over winter (frost-free area) in the patch. The photo below are 2 plants of cherrytime capsicum which still have some unripen fruit left living through last winter (photo taken early winter last year 2011). Snails or Slugs sometime munch on the capsicum leaves during winter.  As you can see, no protection is provided for this cherrytime capsicum plants during winter.

This is one of the same plants above with some fruits ripening earlier this month of June (early winter). This plant is going through its 2nd winter now.

When I tried growing this cherrytime capsicum the first time with the seeds I bought from Eden Seeds company I have trouble germinating the seeds. The germination rate was really poor about 20%. However, we saved some seeds last year.

Last warm season I sowed the left-over seeds I bought from Eden seeds and our own home-saved cherrytime capsicum at the same week. The left-over seeds only give me one plant. Amazingly, the seeds that we saved, germination was very good. Since we had many seeds, I simply sprinkled home-saved cherrytime capsicum seeds in one straight line about 40 cm long. I was not expecting a good germination rate that time because it was just the first generation of seeds we saved. But suddenly in a few days I have so many seedlings sprouted closely together with hardly any gap. I guess that the home-saved seeds has adapt ed well with our garden micro-climate here. This is one of the main reason saving seeds is fun and give a sense of a small achivement from the garden.

The cherrytime capsicum grows well in container too. In this cold weather, this cherry capsicum plant is growing along with carrots in the same container saving space and makes it productive. In summer, the cherry capsicum plant was growing along with a different plant but I can't remember which at the moment (I think it was watermelon plants).

Now, we are in Royal Children Hospital in Melbourne since last week Wednesday because Rayyan needed his 3rd cardiac surgery. He had his surgery last Friday and he is really recovering well. He had an open heart surgery but this is the first time the medical staff did not stop the heart while they did the surgery. Amazingly from experience this time he does recovery very fast and will soon be a troublemaker again. He made the nurses busy by pulling out his wires and putting it on his teddy which makes his heart monitor alarms beeping continuously. Many of the nurses and medical staffs remember Rayyan from his previous cardiac surgeries and was surprised Rayyan a boy now and not a baby like before. I have limited access with internet as I am using the hospital resource centre computer at the moment. Hopefully next week, we will back home.