This Isn't a Story About Kickball

These pictures aren't even from this week. I had to work on a freelance project after the cardiac rehab I went to after working my regular job on Monday this week, so no time to carpe brewski and see a few friends.

I don't have a grand narrative about the week before when I did stop by Kickball on Roanoke. I humbly submit that these pictures tell the whole story, people play as hard as they feel like playing, or they don't play at all and hang out with good friends in the bleachers. Sounds kind of blah when I put it that way but as you can see, it's neat.

What's mainly on my mind this evening is gardening. I've been researching pepper varieties to grow for next year, possibly starting some from seed myself to get varieties that will scratch various itches. I want to grow very large bell peppers, lots of sweet salad peppers for pickling, too. Not so into the extra-hot stuff. Peter Peppers are fun for their visual impact, but capsicum is too cheaply had retail for me to bother growing much of anything hotter than Thai chili peppers and jalapeños. Those Thai peppers would be off the list, too, but one little bush yields so much and it dries so easily. I could skip a year or two and not run out of home grown crushed red pepper, so I might not even include those next year, but at least I never accidentally bite into a skinny little chili thinking it's going to be a mild salad pepper.

Aside from learning of pepper varieties such as Early Sunsation, Orange Blaze, Giant Marconi, Friggitello, Corno di Toro and Antohi, I've been taking mental notes for the tomato beds. I don't think I'll do 36 plants next year, not so much because that's been too many tomatoes, it's been about right for the most part, but because I want to grow more sweet peppers and something's gotta give. I might cut back to as few as 24 tomato plants to make room, that'd free up two beds for peppers. My general inclination is to grow more of everything every year, but I think we're reaching a sort of critical mass in our yard where there's no way to do that without dropping a crop or two. Now I'm even wanting to experiment with heirloom corn, and corn takes some room, so...

The tomatoes that are definitely coming back is a pretty long list, so we'll see if I can actually trim it to 24 plants. KBX, for sure. Sun Gold, Black Cherry, Cherokee Purple, Berkeley Tie Dye, Carbon, Paul Robeson, these are non-negotiable. But then there's a whole herd of varieties jockeying for spots on the second tier.

Oh, and speaking of KBX, gotta go. Researching golden marinara sauce recipes to make use of the butt-load of KBX I've harvested this week.