Photographs of this planting through the 2026 season, oldest first.
The photographs
Week of 1 JuneA Ghost pepper on 6 June, seen from straight above as a rosette of eight or ten leaves wheeling out from one very short stem, each drawn to a long narrow point and puckered under a glossy skin, the newest at the crown still yellower than the rest.Week of 8 JuneA Ghost chili on 12 June, still all green: two fruits just set behind their small calyces and one flower nodding from a swollen fork, its cream-white lobes narrow and pointed, every glossy leaf beaded with rain in low hard sun.Week of 22 JuneA young Ghost chili on 25 June, its leaves so heavily quilted that each blade puckers between the sunken veins, pale yellow-green but for the older ones below, with one slender green fruit already dangling under the fork in hazy sun.Week of 6 JulyA young plant forked low into several branches on 9 July, its leaves stippled all over with round beads of dew catching a hard low sun — the same beading on the ground behind it — and one blade near the center holding a thicker opaque white film instead.Week of 6 JulyA Ghost pepper on 9 July, leaning right out over the rim on one thin stem — a row of holes punched clean through one leaf, the two lowest gone pale yellow-green and hanging to the mulch — one creamy flower pendant beneath, kaolin white across the blades.Week of 20 JulyA Ghost chili on 23 July, still wholly pale green and shining under a skin puckered into long ridges and dents the whole way down to its hooked point, one small tan scar at the shoulder, purple-flushed buds above it and cloudless blue behind.Week of 27 JulyA Ghost chili on 28 July, still green and puckered into shallow folds and broadly blotched tan and cream, and the puckering runs straight on through the blotches, which lie slightly sunken in the skin rather than on it, with a white flower opening alongside.Week of 27 JulyA Ghost chili picked on 2 August, fully orange-red now and folded into deep creases and rounded lumps, its shoulder pinched and its nose drawn out into a short blunt beak that curves away, glinting hard under warm indoor light on checked cotton.Week of 3 AugustThree unripe Ghost chilies on 4 August, each taking purple from a different direction: the topmost darkened all over to a matte bloom, the largest still yellow-green with purple stippling pooled in its shoulder creases, the third purple only below.Week of 3 AugustA Ghost chili on 9 August, ripened to vermilion-scarlet with one olive patch surviving near the tip, its skin dimpled and puckered to an orange-peel roughness and flecked pale blush-pink, curving S-wise to a fine downturned point in bright sun.Week of 3 AugustA Ghost chili ripening shoulder-first on a foggy 9 August — brick red at the stem end, orange through the middle, the tip still green — with water standing in every pit of its puckered skin and the treeline behind it dissolved to gray.Week of 10 AugustA Ghost chili on 12 August, glossy scarlet shading to orange-red along its lower third, lumpy with dented shoulders and narrowing through a kink to a fine tip that curls left, a dense net of pale corky striations worked over its middle.Week of 24 AugustA Ghost chili on 26 August, its pitted and puckered wall gone deep orange down from the shoulder while the blunt base is still green, hung from a stalk thin enough to bow under it, every hollow holding dew from the night.Week of 24 AugustA Ghost chili on 27 August, its skin gathered into deep folds and pits over the whole surface and not just the tip, ripening in one wash from an orange shoulder down to a yellow-green point, smooth leaves hanging over it from the branch above.Week of 24 AugustA Ghost chili on 27 August, broad at the shoulder and pinched through a puckered waist to a blunt tip, running tan-orange down through yellow into green and slick with rain, with two leaves beside it gone almost entirely yellow.Week of 24 AugustTwo Ghost chilies on 27 August, still pale yellow-green and only gently wrinkled, hanging from stout curved stalks with the nearer one pinched through a puckered waist — and a third below them dried down to papery tan.Week of 24 AugustA Ghost chili on 27 August, held in the hand still attached to its stalk — brilliant orange and glossy, the whole surface gathered into deep irregular folds and drawn down to one small pointed tip — with marigolds out of focus behind.Week of 24 AugustTwo Ghost chilies on the same plant on 27 August, one gone fully scarlet and the other still pale green, both puckered along their whole length to a blunt end, with the leaves around them yellowing from the edges in and woodland soft behind.Week of 24 AugustA Ghost chili on 27 August, still pale yellow-green and puckered deeply down one side only, hanging from a thick stem off a dimpled shoulder, with a red garden wagon standing out of focus on the grass behind it.Week of 24 AugustA Ghost chili on 29 August, ripened right through to a brilliant scarlet and still wet, broad at the shoulder and folded deep down its whole length to one small point, with a rosette of leaves fanned open directly beneath it.Week of 31 AugustTwo Ghost chilies side by side on 3 September, both soaked and shining — the left one longer, pebbled with raised bumps over its shoulders and tipped in green, the right squat and blocky with a puckered end — under flat overcast sky.Week of 31 AugustThree Ghost chilies at three stages on 3 September — one saturated orange-red and lit through by the low sun, one cream at the base running to salmon over its top half, one still matt green — every skin pitted and puckered, rim-lit against a blown-out sky.Week of 31 AugustA Ghost chili hanging dead center on 3 September, one flat orange from shoulder to tip with no green left on it — the skin worked into shallow dimples and raised ridges that hold the rain, beads run together and falling off its lower edge. Flat gray light.Week of 7 SeptemberGhost peppers on 11 September, at least six pale pods hanging pendant under small green calyces, the largest a finger-shaped taper with deeply wrinkled, dimpled skin and a hooked tip. Late low sun backlights the curled leaves.Week of 7 SeptemberGhost peppers on 11 September, six or so pods hanging pendant from the nodes, still entirely green to yellow-green and glossy, each wrinkled skin tapering to a pointed, slightly hooked tip. Low evening light warms the grass behind.Week of 7 SeptemberGhost peppers heaped on a white woven cloth on 11 September, skins deeply puckered with lengthwise creases, one curved pod still grading from yellow-green at the stem end through orange to red. Warm indoor light glosses the shoulders.Week of 21 SeptemberGhost peppers on 22 September, six pods hanging nose-down on slender pedicels, still entirely green with no color break, their skin deeply wrinkled and pitted rather than smooth. Flat overcast light leaves every surface damp and shining.Week of 28 SeptemberGhost peppers on 29 September, three ripe scarlet fruits hanging pendant from thick elbowed pedicels, the center one glossy and dimpled with shallow lengthwise creases down to its blunt puckered tip. Flat overcast light, with blurred green netting behind.
