Photographs of this planting through the 2026 season, oldest first.
The photographs
Week of 29 JuneOne young transplant on 29 June, hairless and faintly ridged, its glossy leaves drawn out to long fine points and every fork holding nothing but another leafy shoot, nothing set on it at all, under warm electric light against a plank wall.Week of 29 JuneA Yatsufusa pepper on 29 June, one slender stem breaking into a tight cluster of shoots at the top where the newest leaves are still folded and pale, the largest below hanging out and down, on a bench strewn with dried roots in dim light.Week of 6 JulyA Yatsufusa pepper on 6 July carrying its buds in a cluster at one node rather than singly, one of them just cracked open on a cream corolla inside a narrow-lobed calyx, its long lance leaves streaked with rain under flat overcast.Week of 6 JulyA Yatsufusa pepper coming into first flower on 9 July, the calyx flushed purple-brown at its base and the creamy bell beneath it not yet fully spread, a bud waiting alongside — one lower leaf gone uniformly yellow, kaolin light across the rest.Week of 13 JulyA Yatsufusa chili on 17 July, the only fruit on a plant of a dozen leaves — a slender green pod curved into a shallow S and held out almost horizontally rather than hanging — leaves chewed to a sawtooth edge, everything beaded with water.Week of 31 AugustYatsufusa chilies on 3 September, a tight cluster held upright at the very top of the plant, three or four still pale green and the one scarlet among them standing tallest, with a single shriveled tan fruit off to the side.Week of 7 SeptemberYatsufusa peppers on 11 September, four pencil-thin pods standing erect from a single node, two of them red down the upper two thirds with a bronze band before the olive base. Dappled sun behind a blur of backlit leaves.
