Light and peppers
We report on things inevitable and unpredictable.
Some weeks ago we mentioned the use of a consultant’s kitchen as a kind of sundial, connecting the way dawn illuminated this or that with other features of the seasons. Well, although the kitchen window still faces north and we’re not quite to the solstice yet, no direct sunlight has come in for many days now. This is partly due to the fact that the windowsill has a certain depth, so the Sun has to be north of east in order to shine directly in. Also, there is a building blocking the exact eastern horizon, so the Sun must gain some altitude before it appears. Those are features one expects in one’s own personal sky. At any rate, the first days when one can get by without turning on the air conditioners more or less coincide with the departure of direct sunlight from the kitchen.
As a compensation, the bedroom is looking brighter. It faces south, and has been rather dim the past few months for two reasons: the Sun has been too high in the sky to shine directly in the window, and the tree outside has filtered what light comes in from the street. Now, with summer waning, sunlight covers more of the floor. In a short time (a few weeks) the tree’s leaves will go, and the room will be brilliant with winter light. That’s what a southern exposure is for, after all.
The passing of time means that our informal biological experiment, bell peppers raised from seeds, no longer gets direct sunlight. We planted them sometime near the summer solstice a year and a quarter ago, wondering what would happen. They grew, and eventually put out small white flowers, to no schedule we could discern. In late winter a different growth appeared, a green pod that eventually became a red bell pepper; a few weeks later it was joined by another. Had this been a formal experiment, of course, we would have recorded dates and times, and measured sizes at stated intervals. Any responsible farmer would do the same. We are content to observe, however. One surprise has appeared lately: although we remember all flowers as having six petals, at present we have one with five and another with seven. Maybe they match the green and yellow pepper seeds; maybe there’s no correlation. Probably we should repot the plants soon, to give them more room to grow, but we don’t want to disturb things that are apparently thriving. Our questions at the moment concern how big the peppers will get, and when others might appear. The fact that they showed up on the plants that got the most direct sunlight may be important, or not.
We’re now struck by the contrast between the movements of the Sun, which can be predicted with as much accuracy as anyone could wish long in advance; and the activities of our plants, which happen in their own time and for their own reasons.
