Catalina Pueblo Chronicle April 2015 State of the Pueblo Jean Paine, President Please join me in sending out a cheer for our great Pueblo. In the last month five homes have Pools Chairman been sold quickly, some in just days, and, if my John Trang Intel is correct, at respectable prices. This only On behalf of the HOA Board and Pool enforces what we already know, CP is a very Committee, I am writing to say thanks to desirable neighborhood. Welcome our new everyone for continuing to take great care of our neighbors when they arrive and help them get to pools and also for letting us know when anything know the Pueblo. needs attention. We have seen many of you at the Adelita Pool during our beautifully warm As I walk about it is wonderful to see how great winter months this year. the area looks. Spring clean up of yards and walkways is well underway. Eleven owners have Since it is reaching into the 90s - we will plan resurfaced their driveways and they really change to begin using the solar heating system at the the way a property looks – grand indeed. Caballo Pool in early April and begin heating the Minera Pool by May 1st. When you see the “This It is party time in the old Pueblo. Take note of the pool is not heated at this time” signs removed invitation in the newsletter regarding the Tapas Inside This Issue: from these pools you will know that the heating Party. Stroll with your neighbors on April 18th systems have been activated. The Caballo Pool Page 2 to enjoy good company, good food, and good solar system will take several weeks of hot days Spring Party libations at three homes. We thought you might and lots of sun to begin to warm up, but the like to try something a bit different this spring Minera Pool heat pump usually warms the water Page 3 and at a time when most folks are in residence. I nicely within 3 to 5 days. Thanks, again, for your Garden Gallimaufry look forward to seeing you on the 18th. help taking care of these three wonderful HOA community assets ... ENJOY! ... Page 4 Our new Social Chair, Deborah Bowman, Garden Gallimaufry would appreciate a few volunteers to help with Weeds the Halloween Party October 24th at Adelita Page 5 Pool. Deb has some great ideas but needs some Weeds-continued manpower to make this a memorable event. If we want to continue having these events we need Page 6 your help. Please contact Deb [email protected] Pueblo Recipes or 520-795-7145. Page 7 Pueblo Plodders Catalina Pueblo Association 's Page 8 authorized trash hauler: Tried & True Trades Trash only: Tuesday Page 9 Recycle &Trash: Friday February Financials Reliable Environmental Services Page 10 Robert: 520-300-9211 Photo by Committees Terry McLeod Board of Directors [email protected] April 2015 2 Catalina Pueblo Chronicle April 2015 Catalina Pueblo Chronicle 3 Garden Gallimaufry Mark Sammons Mark J. Sammons Vegetables take an immense amount of room for cooler temperatures than most Capsicum species, [email protected] limited production. In our little walled gardens and gives rise to varieties little known outside 615-6019 we can get a lot of bang for our buck with herbs Mexico, Central America and eastern South and hot chili peppers. America, and most of its varieties are unknown to Arizonans. Hot spice is the commercial lure that took the Portuguese around Africa, and drove Columbus Two others, Capsicum chinense, and Capsicum westward. Both sought to bypass the Venetians baccatum were domesticated in northern South and Ottomans to get to the source of black pepper America. The C. chinense – not Chinese in above all other spices. The Portuguese found the spite of its name – includes the varieties we call water route; Columbus encountered an alternative habanero (same as scotch bonnet); and Florida’s spice, the American chili pepper, Capsicum. datil pepper. C. baccatum is mostly associated with Peruvian cuisine, though varieties familiar True pepper (black, white and green are different to us are amarillo peppers and commercial phases of the same thing) comes from a vine, Peppadews.® Piper nigrum, which requires the intense heat and humidity of its place of origin in tropical Don’t bother memorizing this! Peppers cross- southern India. American chilies proved more breed easily, giving rise to endless varieties. adaptable to varied climates and conditions. The Native Americans already had dozens of Further, the American chili flesh, ribs, as well as named varieties before contact with Europeans, seeds all give heat, and the seeds are easily saved and as the plant was traded around the world, for planting or trading. new varieties were developed everywhere. For example, the notoriously hot ghost peppers (900 American chilies were rapidly introduced around times hotter than tobasco), are a cross between the planet, became the poor man’s alternative to the American C. frutiscens and C. chinense, made costly black pepper. They were so quickly and in extreme northeastern India and Bangladesh. deeply ingrained in regional ethnic cuisines that today it is hard to grasp that Hungarian paprika, A wild pepper, Capsicum annuum var. Spanish pimenton, Italian pepperoncini, Indian glabriusculum, is known in folk parlance as the ghost peppers, and Thai peppers are, in fact, all chiltepín, or ’tepin for short, sometime called American in origin. bird pepper for its tiny fruits, smaller than a pea. Southern Arizona is the northern limit of The fiery chili and the sweet bell pepper are its natural range, so it is suited to our gardens, closely related. A single mutation of a specific either inside or outside the wall. Grown in bright gene shuts down production of the hot chemical dappled shade, the chiltepin forms a small-leaved capsaicin, yielding a sweet pepper. From five airy shrub about three or four feet high and two naturally-occurring species, native New World feet wide. It produces numerous tiny fruits, each farmers selected for preferred characteristics. By carrying searing heat. Pluck individual peppers 5,000 BC, they had developed both hot and sweet peppers. Three species, Capsicum annuum, Capsicum frutiscens and Capsicum pubescens, were domesticated in Mexico. Human selected Photos & Text varieties of C.annuum include cayenne, by Mark Sammons jalapeños, various rainbow peppers, hot mild and For native plant sweet paprika peppers, and sweet bell peppers. recommendations, see: C. frutiscens is used in Tobasco sauce (there is no http://www. specific “tobasco” pepper), and varieties include catalinapueblo.com/ the Thai chili pepper, as well as several varieties suggested-plant-list. popular in Brazil and sub-Saharan Africa but html generally unknown to us. C. pubescens tolerates April 2015 4 Catalina Pueblo Chronicle Garden Gallimaufry–continued Landscape & Architecture Mark Sammons Pat Wagner, Chair Article by: Mark Sammons for use as they ripen from Thanksgiving through New Years and, in mild winters, into February Weeds April Garden Chores and March. They are easily dried on a saucer : on the windowsill, to provide month’s worth of This winter’s heavy rains bracketed a season • When new leaf buds culinary piquancy. We crush two of these tiny of intermittent rains, to give us a bumper crop appear, prune frost- of weeds. Most of these fast-growing annuals damaged wood. things to give abundant fire to a batch of pasta • Evergreen trees sauce for two. have already gone to seed, ready to germinate shed old yellowed when a similar winter comes again. There is still leaves in spring; it’s I have grown several kinds of peppers – tepin, something to be done about them. normal! Thai, Fresno, Sandia, Santa Fe Grande – in As weed dry, they become a fire hazard. • Now is the season When yours are browned off, pull them away to plant cactus, pots, and find they prefer a large pot, as the succulents, citrus, plants become a bit large and need both root with a rake and dispose of them. They will shed palms, bougainvillea, room and the weight to keep them upright in their seeds as you handle them. lantana, tomatoes, wind. The seeds may be difficult to germinate, If you want to prevent or reduce a peppers, melons, recurrence, you can do that in May or June by zinnias, portulaca, especially the wild tepin form, so buy small periwinkle, thyme, plants, available at this season at big-box and deep soaking the problem area and covering oregano, marjoram, hardware stores. Obscure types such as chiltepins it with sheets of clear plastic, weighted at the basil, rosemary. can be found at farmer’s markets, if you patiently edges so it doesn’t blow away. If you have • Wrap up planting of ask for them week after week. Peppers don’t watered deeply enough, the trapped moisture other things for the will eventually cause all the seeds beneath to year. like cold when young, which delays their being • By the end of brought to market. germinate. The heat trapped under the plastic will the month, potted kill the seedlings before they mature and produce plants (other than For planting, fill the hole or pot with bagged seeds. Or you may fold back the plastic and pull succulents) will them from the moist soil. This may take a while, need daily watering. cacti and palm soil. Chiltepins prefer dappled Bigger pots hold shade, but the other broader-leaved varieties but it is thorough. So thorough, it will kill the moisture longer. seem to endure more sun, even some violent good wildflowers and beneficial weeds as well as • Fertilize shrubs afternoon sun. Once established, they seem to the undesirable ones.