Bitterness in brassicas usually means a stressed plant. Stress can occur from excess heat, drought., disease, or insect damage. In the south heat is a major factor when one tries to grow broccoli in the summer. You need a fast maturing variety, Packman, Blue Wind, Bay Meadows. and you need to transplant a couple of weeks before your last frost date. Bt or row covers will take care of more persistant insects like cabbge worms and cabbage loopers. In this part of georgia, Spring harvest ends in June. Start again in September for late fall, winter harvest. You can use longer season varieties in the fall. You can use broccoli anytime the heads or florets are large enogh for your use. Quality deterioates fast when the flowers start to open.

A crab apple is by definition just an apple with small fruit. They come with a wide range of qualities and are often good to eat right off the tree. If it is a variety that was seleceted for cullinary use, one thing you can be sure of- it will have some acid. Never tasted one selected for eating that was bitter- not much you could with that. I don't know about the quality of varieties grown for cider but I've never encountered real old trees that were, say, old English cider varieties. I know they tend to be high tannin so probably sometimes bitter. If a crab apple is selected for beauty, it's pretty obviousl as well by the flowers and/or the form. I believe the odds are extremely high that this tree is a seedling and I can't think of better advice than grafting it over to several other varieties ASAP. I've done this with such trees scores of times and it is a quicker way to fruit than buying new trees and much less work and expense.

Too much water. If it's from rain there isn't much you can do about it but if you are irrigating the garden then back off when it comes to the peppers. Peppers like to dry out a bit between waterings. Rodney

Buy bulk whole seed pepper and grind it yourself. Much cheaper. And fresh. I have purchased at Costco but most of my spices are from MountainRoseHerb. A 15dollar spice grinder or a yard sale small coffee grinder is just a couple bucks (i have a back-up). Higher prices are just the usual supply/demand....pepper "The wholesale price of pepper has reached an all-time high after rising by more than 300 per cent in the past five years. Increasing demand from Far East countries, which have started using more pepper in cooking, is said to be behind a price rise of 40 per cent in the past year alone. Until now, supermarkets have absorbed the wholesale cost increase, but retail experts say shoppers are set to face higher prices."