Photographs of this planting through the 2026 season, oldest first.
The photographs
Week of 15 JuneA Dragon Roll pepper on 21 June, one long fruit swinging clear of the foliage under a flared five-pointed calyx, its skin smooth but creased and undulating down to a blunt puckered tip, and a stem node stained purple-black in hard noon sun.Week of 22 JuneA Dragon Roll on 25 June, no fruit set yet: two white flowers nodding off pedicels bent into sharp hooks, with eight or ten green buds at the nodes above them, and behind it one pale papery lantern on a coarser plant of another crop.Week of 22 JuneA Dragon Roll pepper on 27 June, three or four cream bells hanging from curved stalks with their lobes flexed right back and one fruit already ridged at the shoulder, every node stained hard purple-black and every leaf still wet.Week of 29 JuneA Dragon Roll pepper on 29 June in flower and carrying nothing yet, a dozen white bells hanging face-down from the leaf joints with their petals flexed back, the sun raking in from the right and printing hard leaf shadows below them.Week of 6 JulyDragon Roll peppers on 7 July hanging slim and dimpled from every fork, one with a drip still gathered at its tip, and each fork above them banded dark purple-black and dotted white with fine hairs, the whole plant running with water.Week of 6 JulyDragon Roll peppers on 9 July, nine apple-green pods hanging singly beneath their five-pointed calyces, each creased and dented down its length so the skin reads crumpled rather than smooth — one still carrying its spent flower at the shoulder.Week of 6 JulyDragon Roll peppers on 12 July shot from below with blue sky through the canopy, a dozen crumpled apple-green pods hanging at every angle and several kinked into a hook at the tip — creamy flowers half open among them, kaolin streaked over the leaves.Week of 6 JulyA Dragon Roll pepper on 12 July carrying a dozen slim pods, each so deeply furrowed lengthwise that the skin reads folded rather than smooth, under a July coat of kaolin clay dried in spatter droplets along the stems in hard midday sun.Week of 13 JulyA Dragon Roll pepper carrying ten or more slender green fruits on 17 July, every one splashed with kaolin clay and the stems and leaves above them crusted so thickly in it that the foliage has gone gray, one creamy flower still half open at the top.Week of 20 JulyHalf a dozen Dragon Roll peppers on 20 July, hanging finger-slim and pale green, each creased into irregular lengthwise folds rather than smooth-walled, one white flower open above them and a weathered barn roof behind in hard midday sun.Week of 20 JulyA Dragon Roll pepper on 21 July, hung all over with small cream flowers and spent ones drooping their filaments, only two fruits set and both hidden under the leaves, the blades above them still patched with kaolin clay under flat wet light.Week of 3 AugustA Dragon Roll pepper on 4 August turning from the top down, mottled bronze and tan over the upper half with olive surviving lower and a silvery sheen across the whole puckered surface, an arching stem sweeping in front of it, everything wet.Week of 3 AugustDragon Roll peppers on 9 August, a dozen still firm and pale chartreuse and four gone over beside them — collapsed into lengthwise folds, matte brown with a wine-red streak down one crease, every one of those still holding a bright green calyx.Week of 10 AugustDragon Roll chilies on 12 August, shot from inside the bush looking up: kinked wrinkled fruit running green to olive to chocolate to scarlet, the change creeping up from each tip, spider silk strung between the backlit leaves.Week of 31 AugustDragon Roll peppers hanging at every angle on 3 September, most pale yellow-green and crumpled into longitudinal folds rather than smooth — four or five already scarlet among them, one standing almost upright instead of down. Flat overcast, all of it wet.
