Garden Path Food

‘I had a little capsicum’,  and I still do.

This little capsicum has been in the garden for almost two years and spent most of last winter hibernating beneath a refrigerator box, but even then, it still produced the odd fruit. It has continued to fruit all through summer, just as it did all last summer.  It produces just enough to keep us going and since we eat them on salads and in stir fry and in casseroles, that it not a bad effort for the one little plant.

And, it has produced babies with a little help.  I talked about that at http://wp.me/p2tNt0-32

The Gardening Australia website http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s1866669.htm suggests that capsicums are indeed perennial, but usually we treat them as an annual. I sometimes wonder how much of what we assume as home gardeners comes from commercial agricultural practices and how much we need to relearn to be really effective home vegetable producers.  The garden is really your best teacher for this so just get in there and give it a go.

The capsicum is also an attractive little plant, so given that it is actually a perennial and that it has lovely glossy green leaves and can have bright green, red, yellow or orange fruit, it is a plant that you could easily use as an ornamental in a spot in which you can protect it  in winter.  That is, if you get frost as we do.They grow easily in a pot and this probably ideal as the plant can moved in and out of shelter in winter for an all year round boost to both your food dishes and your immune system.

Raw capsicum  contains high levels of Vitamin C and also  beta carotene which converts to Vitamin A, a great immune system boost.