In the Garden of Good and Ennui

I'm worried about my peppers. The plants seem okay, there are no obvious signs of insect infestation, the leaves aren't yellow or chewed on, the plants themselves are tall and straight. They look great. They just aren't doing anything.

Sure, the make cute little flowers that cruelly get my hopes up, but no cute little peppers have followed. I checked my veggie manuals and the variety I planted isn't listed. This can't be a good thing and even worse? When I went out and looked at their tag, it says it takes 78 days to do it's thing! 78 days! That's all summer! The other varieties the book does mention are around 50 days. A good round, achievable number. 78 days! Do you have any idea how many very bad things can happen to a plant in 78 days? Approximately 267,324 and that's just the bug catastrophes. There are fungal infections, drought, floods, birds, the dog, Me!! I mean the longer those things are out there unprotected the better the chances that they are never going to live to produce.

And of course, I have takers for the peppers. I all ready know that no one I know wants my eggplants, but that's not a huge problem as thus far there has been no movement towards setting fruit on those plants either as they are obviously in league with the peppers. The squash won't have any takers, again, not a real problem since as yet there are no squash. The collards, the cucumbers and the tomatoes are at least trying but I'm not sure that any one wants those either.

Do the plants know? Can they tell? Am I giving off an ambivalent vibe? Do they feel unwanted? Are they depressed? Should I be out there reading to them from vegetarian cookbooks? I've weeded and watered and fertilized and they are in the only sunny spot on the property, WHAT DO THEY WANT FROM ME!!??

The tomatoes on the other hand seem happy, the smaller variety is all ready turning red and the larger variety grows larger every day - So I know they don't all hate me. My tomatoes love me, why can't I make it work with the others? Is there some sort of therapy we could be trying? Does Mr. Green Jeans do house calls?

I looked online and found that my peppers are completely normal run of the mill peppers, and actually they are a version of a variety they did mention, but still they should have mentioned them by name. People who know what they are doing and can differentiate between varietals do not consult manuals and they most certainly wouldn't be consulting The Miracle-Gro Complete Guide to Vegetables and Herbs no matter how informative or useful it is. It's strictly for bourgeois neophyte gardeners and they can't make any assumptions about how stupid we are about plants! we need answers about our pepper varieties!

A quick check of the veggie manual lets me know that maybe the reason my peppers aren't very peppy is that it may be too warm for them. It's not even summer yet, it can't be "too warm". Hell, it's North Carolina! even when its hot, it's not too warm. I know from too warm and it ain't too warm. I'll let the peppers know when its "too warm". Damn it. The manual also has informed me that what I thought were squished baby squash were most likely unfertilized female squash flowers or maybe they were unfertilized female cucumber flowers, it's hard to tell - Squash plants and Cucumber plants are both viney and they both have showy yellow flowers. If I have boy flowers and girl flowers why am I not racking up so few baby anythings?.