Photographs of this planting through the 2026 season, oldest first.
The photographs
Week of 1 JuneA Kori Sitakame pepper on 6 June, four big leaves held out almost level on one slender stem with its seed leaves still attached at the collar, the blades smooth-edged and faintly glossy over a sunken pale midrib, alone in clear bench space in flat cool light.Week of 6 JulyOn 9 July one leggy plant forked low into a Y, unlike anything beside it — stem, branches and leaf margins alike under a dense coat of long white hairs that stand out silver in the low sun — its buds still shut tight on hairy stalks, the leaves notched ragged.Week of 6 JulyOn 10 July a tall bare-legged plant against open sky, every stem and leaf margin sheathed in matted white wool — the leaves eaten back to fringed skeletons between the veins, one small dark fruit hanging in a bristly star of calyx lobes, style still on it.Week of 6 JulyA plant on 12 July sheathed in white wool, every stem matted with curling hairs so the green barely shows through, and five or six creamy buds hanging unopened beneath it — one dark green fruit among them, held in a calyx star, in soft warm light.Week of 27 JulyA Kori Sitakame pepper on 30 July, a single blunt-ended cylinder of dark green hanging off stems that are smooth and ridged where they are sharp, and crossing the top of the frame nearer stems too far out of focus to read as either hairy or bare.Week of 27 JulyTwo Kori Sitakame peppers on 30 July, blunt dark cylinders flecked with small corky pale scars and capped flush by a collar calyx, hanging off main stems that are purple-tinged and matted with tangled white hair, in soft even shade.Week of 3 AugustKori Sitakame peppers on 6 August, fifteen dark green cones hanging on stalks matted so densely with white hair that stems, leaf stalks and pedicels all look felted, with cream bell flowers nodding at the top of the plant in bright sun.Week of 24 AugustA Kori Sitakame chili on 24 August, maroon at the shoulder and glossy scarlet below, stitched all over with fine raised corky dashes that stand proud like healed scratches and thin out toward the tip, its stem behind matted gray with wool.Week of 24 AugustA Kori Sitakame plant on 26 August carrying a dozen fruit at once, all still dark green and none of them turned, each smooth-skinned and blunt-tipped and tapering only slightly from a broad shoulder, every one washed over with dew.Week of 31 AugustKori Sitakame chilies on 31 August, half a dozen blunt cylinders hanging against a flat overcast sky, most of them a very dark glossy green and the one scarlet among them scored with fine pale corky lines down its shoulders.Week of 31 AugustShot from under the canopy on 31 August: slender green chili pods hang right across the foreground on hairy gray-green stems, with tomatillo husks and mown grass receding behind them under a heavy gray cloud deck.Week of 21 SeptemberKori Sitakame peppers on 22 September, two pendant cones shading from deep red at the shoulder to a warmer orange-red at the blunt tip, with an unripened dark glossy green one above them under a flat white overcast sky.Week of 5 OctoberA narrow woozy bottle of thick brick-red sauce stands on dark speckled stone on 8 October, opaque and shot through with pale seeds, a thin line of oil separated on its right shoulder; behind it, blurred round red fruits on a white tray in soft indoor light.
