Photographs of this planting through the 2026 season, oldest first.
The photographs
Week of 1 JuneA Chinese 5-Color pepper on 3 June, shot almost at soil level, its veins picked out in a dark purple-maroon that runs right down the leaf stalk and into the stem, the blades faintly silvered where the light skims across them.Week of 1 JuneA Chinese 5-Color pepper on 5 June, eight leaves and its first fork, alone in a bag whose surface has split into two zones — dark compost across the top, a broad pale drift of perlite below it — in low warm late sun.Week of 29 JuneA Chinese 5-Color pepper on 29 June shot from the ground, its glossy purple-magenta stem forking high and one violet flower open at the fork over a near-black eye, the low sun flaring through leaves gone translucent with purple veins.Week of 6 JulyA young plant on 6 July with stems gone almost black, a purple so dark the pale ribs running up them are the only light on it, the same purple laid over the older leaves while the newest shoots come out fresh yellow-green.Week of 20 JulyA Chinese 5-Color pepper on 20 July, standing upright on its stalk rather than hanging, glossy magenta-purple with a cream-gold blush low on one shoulder and the curled brown style still at the tip, a lilac flower nodding below it in hard noon sun.Week of 20 JulyA Chinese 5-Color pepper on 23 July, standing straight up off its node with a shriveled flower still clinging beneath it, glossy magenta and faintly creased lengthwise, an older fruit gone almost black directly above it against a cloudless sky.Week of 27 JulyA Chinese 5-Color chili on 30 July standing bolt upright on its stalk instead of hanging, glossy magenta-purple with a four-lobed tip, two blacker ones still cupped in their calyces above it and a mauve flower out of focus alongside, in hard morning sun.Week of 17 AugustChinese 5-Color peppers on 17 August, two on one plant and both standing point-up — an apricot-yellow one streaming with rain, freckled russet and still carrying a withered style stub at its tip, and a violet-purple bullet above it.Week of 17 AugustChinese 5-Color peppers on 18 August, both standing point-up in strong low sun: a glossy orange bell paling to yellow down one side, and above it a mauve-purple bullet browning at the shoulder, with a wedge of blue sky at the corner.Week of 17 AugustA Chinese 5-Color pepper on 19 August, one erect ribbed bell held in a sliver of focus and coloring unevenly — salmon-orange over the top, apricot down the right, freckled with pinpoint brown — as a mauve one dissolves above it in dim light.Week of 24 AugustA Chinese 5-Color chili on 27 August, barely longer than wide and sitting upright rather than hanging, glossy scarlet under a faint dusky bloom at the stem end, on a woody stem gone purple-brown with the youngest shoots above it almost black.Week of 21 SeptemberA Chinese 5-Color pepper caught mid-turn on 22 September, deep eggplant purple over one shoulder washing through bronze to clear apricot at the tip, with a red streak along the underside. Bright overcast, the purple-black branches soft behind it.
