really hot peppers

walshevak wrote:

Kay

Kay, how 'bout sharing a recipe or two?
& all you other "HOT" pepper growers...
I too, have a son who persuaded me to grow Habaneros this year! They're mostly Bhut Jolokias (red, orange, yellow, white & chocolate) and WOW are they HOT, HOT, HOT! I'm learning to appreciate them a wee, wee, wee bit at a time but they're SMOKIN' HOT even in tiny amounts!
We started them all from seed early this Spring. We made 5gal. "Self Watering Containers" (SWC) for every one of the nearly 50 (yes fifty) plants. Each SWC is topped with 6"-7" of a "sandy blend" of MM. We raised our seedlings hydroponically and aeroponically 'til they were big enough for transplanting to the SWCs. Then we hardened them off for 7-10 days and set them out to grow.
Here's a pic of a few of 'em...

The plants are producing heavily, and we've frozen scores of pods from our 1st harvest. Now we're air drying our 2nd & 3rd crops. The plants are very strong and have developed "woody" stems, their flowers and their pods (especially the Scotch Bonnets) are BEAUTIFUL! We plan to cut them back and bring 'em inside to overwinter. Supposedly they can live and produce for 3-5 years this way. We shall see!
Here's some of the pods we're air drying.




A few neighbors, friends, and family members who eat hot peppers attest to the heat AND the excellent flavors.

This is the recipe I sent him and the one we used last year.
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/habanero-pepper-jelly/detail.aspx
We used 3 unseeded peppers last year and this year he increased it to 5.

This is the recipe I used last year for Jalepeno jelly using green bell peppers. I also used the same recipe substituting yellow cayenne and yellow bell peppers. Made a beautiful sunny yellow jelly.
http://whatscookingamerica.net/Sauces_Condiments/JalapenoJelly.htm

This recipe I found on the forum last year. Tasty on Kielbasso.
http://www.food.com/recipe/Hot-Pepper-Relish-25486

I don't know what receipe he used for the pickled peppers. He found it on line. I do know it has mustard seed in it because he was telling me he has to go to the store to buy some. He hasn't opened a pickled pepper jar yet.


Kay

Jan 15, 2013

The peppers are hanging on from the fall.







notice the blooms





Kay

How pretty! I have a serrano chili plant I brought into the house. It has one wee pepper on it. When that is done ripening I will cut the plant back and have it recharged to go back out to the garden in Spring..... ahhh.... Spring, so far away.

I still love this thread As I've gotten older, I can't seem to tolerate the heat as much as I used to, but there is still something intriguing and addicting about really hot peppers.
This year I'm hoping to grow Pequin Peppers. These things grow wild in Texas and perhaps other parts of the country as well. They are incredibly hot and I remember my grandfather ate them like candy. I was tormented many a times as a child with these peppers and perhaps that's where my fascination with them comes from lol!



Here are all the peppers I have planned for this season:

I can't tolerate hot peppers myself, but my son likes them so I'll put in possibly 3 plants this year just for him. I'm not thinking ultra hot because I don't even want to handle those with my hands; Hungarian Hot Wax, Jalapeno, and Yellow Cayenne or Tuscan Sun. It always amazes me when folks eat those really hot ones.
Good luck.

Recently, I read that the hottest pepper is Ghost.

donnainzone10 wrote:Recently, I read that the hottest pepper is Ghost.

Yes, they are incredibly HOT!!!

So all you experienced successful pepper growers, any tips?
Do they do better in pots?
Need a bit tweak on the mix?

I would love to grow poplano and anahiems. I love them stuffed.

This winter while driving to Missoula to visit my mom we stopped at a Thai restaurant in Deerlodge MT. It was quite good, and utterly fantastic considering the location I noticed they had a planter dividing the room and in that planter was a row of pots of some small fruited hot peppers. There was a dozen or so plants all growing and blooming and fruiting in this sort of dim room. So cool.

I've got a Ghost Pepper in a pot that I started from seed a couple of months ago - I will NOT be eating the peppers, I'll be giving/selling them And this from someone who loves raw jalapenos and anything made with habaneros!

This might be a good year to sell the peppers. I was at my nursery on Friday and looking for a good jalapeno. The guy there was asking if I wanted the hottest pepper available the ghost pepper. After I said no he showed me the price of almost $10 for a 4 inch seedling. He said due to conditions last year there was a seed shortage for ghost peppers and the prices were outrageous. Coelli, good luck I hope you can support your gardening habit with some of those peppers.

Another positive that comes with SFG. Buy seeds which usually come in packets that have more seeds than you need and save seeds from year to year. If you don't have to buy new seeds and seedling every year a problem on the supply side will not affect your gardening. Imagine planting an old fashion row garden last year with ghost peppers and thinning out half of your sprouted seedlings. Then buying new seeds this year and the price is double from last year. I would automatically start calculating how much money I pulled out of the ground (thinned seedlings) and threw in the trash.

H_TX_2 wrote: Coelli, good luck I hope you can support your gardening habit with some of those peppers.

I'm here in SoCal, so they should grow well here - I did get seeds from Baker Creek actually and the seedling I started indoors in Jan was very healthy (and lives outside now in a pot). Maybe I should start some more outside before it's too late

I grew 15 poblano/ancho pepper plants last year in containers. I set them out the first week of May and by the end of the week we had hail. It set them back a little. But they came back and they did great! I grouped them together and this spring when I moved the pots there were roots growing down into the dirt.

Oh and the battle of the squirrels - they did not like them lol. I started harvesting them when they got to the size I wanted and they kept producing until we had a killing frost. I roasted them out on the grill and made yummy stuffed peppers. They were about the heat that I like: spicey but not tongue numbing hot. I know some people dry them and make a powder, but I tried drying them once and although its arid here, they didnt dry enough.

This year I am growing 18 poblanos and 6 jalepenos in containers. Maybe because I grouped them together I didnt need any type of support. Did notice that the side that got sun from sun up to about 8 pm or so got a little bit sunburned.

Turan wrote:So all you experienced successful pepper growers, any tips?
Do they do better in pots?
Need a bit tweak on the mix?

Make a "Self Watering Container" and top it with 6-7in MM, and here's a sample of last year's GHOST pepper (first blossoms) using this method.
This type SWC handles TWO plants, both of which produced heavily.
Each of these 5gal bucket SWCs is topped w/6-7" of MM, each plant was a heavy producer, as well.
We experimented with a dose of Bone Meal, and as the plants began to set fruit, periodically Fish Emulsion.
Once fruiting ended and leaves dropped, each plant was pruned back to try overwintering. Most of them were brought indoors to protect from frost, now only time will tell...

Sprouted all in rock wool. Once they had 2nd set of true leaves (under tight flourescent 12-16 hrs), off to HID lit hydro 'til transplanted to SWC for hardening off and then "steppin' out".
"Ghost Apocalypse 2012"

donnainzone10 wrote:Recently, I read that the hottest pepper is Ghost.

Actually the Maruga Scorpion pepper is the hottest now.


We have seed for it, and can't decide whether to grow it or not. We have a friend who grows them, and she made some hot sauce in a huge pot, and used one pepper. The flavor is out of this world. It's spicy, but not too hot to eat.

http://iloveitspicy.com/2012/02/08/introducing-the-moruga-scorpion-the-worlds-hottest-pepper/

I recently saw this cayanetta pepper plant, fell in love with the plant, ordered seeds...(25 seeds for $8.00 ). I have 3 going under lights now 3/26/13..their looking good.
Going to plant them in containers and hope for the best..

Windsor, I'd love more on how you did your swc. Would you care to start another thread on how you did them?

Windsor.Parker wrote:
Make a "Self Watering Container" and top it with 6-7in MM, and here's a sample of last year's GHOST pepper (first blossoms) using this method.
This type SWC handles TWO plants, both of which produced heavily
We experimented with a dose of Bone Meal, and as the plants began to set fruit, periodically Fish Emulsion.

Thanks.
It seems like bucket brigades is the way to grow hot peppers. I am guessing it works so well because peppers want/need their roots to get hot (relatively speaking of course). I guess the greenhouse is going to grow peppers this summer too.

RoOsTeR wrote:Windsor, I'd love more on how you did your swc. Would you care to start another thread on how you did them?

I'll do it!

Jan picture of the bucket brigade peppers my son is trying to overwinter.



They are alive but not pretty right now. These are the chocolate hab, ghost and red scorpians. Regular hab, 7 pot and more ghost in another greenhouse. Had seed for morouga but it never germinated. Tried again this year and still no luck.

Kay
Kay

H_TX_2 wrote:This might be a good year to sell the peppers. I was at my nursery on Friday and looking for a good jalapeno. The guy there was asking if I wanted the hottest pepper available the ghost pepper. After I said no he showed me the price of almost $10 for a 4 inch seedling. He said due to conditions last year there was a seed shortage for ghost peppers and the prices were outrageous. Coelli, good luck I hope you can support your gardening habit with some of those peppers.

Another positive that comes with SFG. Buy seeds which usually come in packets that have more seeds than you need and save seeds from year to year. If you don't have to buy new seeds and seedling every year a problem on the supply side will not affect your gardening. Imagine planting an old fashion row garden last year with ghost peppers and thinning out half of your sprouted seedlings. Then buying new seeds this year and the price is double from last year. I would automatically start calculating how much money I pulled out of the ground (thinned seedlings) and threw in the trash.

After reading this I went to the dried pepper pot and pulled 4 ghost pod and there are still a pod or two on the green house ghost. I'll see what I can get to germinate. Hope I'm not

Kay

Just wanted to report that  I managed 25 ghost seedlings. Took some to my son in law in VA and son gave some away.   My daughter in law brought back some Philippine peppers and I managed to sprout over a dozen of them.

I'll see what my son managed to keep growing when I visit over July 4th.

Kay

Looking forward to your report Kay   Those ghost peppers are insanely hot lol.   So far my pequin plants are doing well. I'll get some pics as soon as they start producing. The purple cayenne's look pretty neat. The foliage has a dark dusting to them and some nice little purple flowers. I'm getting kind of excited to seeing how these peppers turn out.

Lol, I just noticed this thread is in the Lower South regional forum. Anyways, I'm far from the region, but my purple cayenne's are starting to come in