Dani's Dirt

I have a lot of “I told you so moments” happen in my life, I can be a little bit of a quiet know-it-all and as it goes with any form of know-it-all, when the moments of being wrong come hither, they come hither strong.

A couple of months ago, My Someone and I were Sunday afternooning like a couple of pros, napping, grilling, straight up chilling. HA! Just kidding, that rarely EVER happens. As a matter of fact, it happens so little due to multiple jobs + farm life, we somewhat have to schedule down time, we’re working on being better weekend warriors. Seriously.

But anyway, I digress…

So a couple of months ago, My Someone and I were doing our typical Sunday activities which usually includes cramming in as much house and yard work as possible before we get summoned somewhere, or I have a photo session. That particular Sunday was garden plant buying day. You see, par usual, we were running behind, and plants need to be planted by a certain time.

As we strolled around the greenhouses of our local nursery, I planned, schemed, dreamed and got way ahead of myself in terms of what was physically possible for me to keep up. Spouse wandered beside me, cardboard box of plants in hand, gently bringing be back to Earth with guidance such as “I promise you don’t need five Banana Pepper plants, two will produce more than you could possibly ever eat.”

And so went our adventure…

I never realized that deep down I had this intense desire to grow ALLTHEPEPPERS, but apparently I do, Tabasco, Jalapeños, Banana Peppers, Four different colors of Bell Pepper plants and finally, Habaneros.

I saw them. I wanted them. I HAD to grow them. It was a necessity.

Except… I’ve never seen how Habaneros grow, tasted one or even seen one in real life.

But I NEEDED them.

I grabbed four plants and loaded them into the box.

“Whoa there, babe,” my Husband said. “Do you like Habaneros THAT much?”

“I don’t know,” I replied, ‘But I really want to grow them.” <= Totally acceptable reason.

Smirking he said, “Well how about we just get one, so you can find out if you like them.”

“I need two.” I stated.

Because obviously from my intense gardening experience, I knew very well, without any doubt, that I needed TWO Habanero plants in order to produce the amount I needed to recipe experiment with. When in reality, my ONLY gardening experience involves a couple of potted tomato plants and cilantro. Which, I should note, I’ve managed to kill my Cilantro plants before they produced anything EVERY year I’ve tried.

And My Someone, my sweet husband, who picks his battles ever so carefully, bought his first truck and paid a good portion of his way through college selling produce from a five acre garden he grew.

Flash forward to this past weekend, our little garden — watered by a lot of rainfall, fertilized with chicken litter and tilled faithfully by my spouse — has grown and flourished. And when I say flourished, y’all, plants thrive in chicken litter. Our tomato plants intimidate me, they are so gigantic. Minus a couple of trampled bell pepper plants things are going well.

Do you see where this is going?

Did you guess the Habaneros?

Ah yes, my two little Habanero plants. The two I had to have. I NEEDED them. ALLTHEPEPPPERS, man.

Well, I picked the first batch Friday…

I have at least this many waiting to be picked in the garden today, and many more happily growing away.

So, does anyone have any Habanero recipes?

I’m asking, ahem, for a friend. 😉