Our Pepper Garden

Starting with the Harvest

Next season always starts this season. In the Fall we select a number of each variety, dry them thoroughly, and save the seeds. This can be harder than it sounds; the dry peppers seem to acquire a devilish urge to snap open suddenly and send their much desired seeds flying in all directions.

Having carefully gathered seeds into properly labeled little cups, we place the lids on and store them until about mid-winter.

Then we prepare the potting soil, using our own special mix, put labels on the little 3" seedling pots (you can see them in the top photo), fill the cups with the mix, and drop a few seeds into each.

Trays full of cups are placed on heating pads and under grow lights. Then we wait. If you're a gardener of any sort, you understand that this waiting is the worst part.

But Mother Nature does her job, most seeds sprout, and then just need water and a little care until they are ready for the season. With some care and a little bit of luck, the garden gets really green and full.

These photos are of the garden in mid-June this year. There is nothing to harvest at this point, especially after Spring weather changes this year brutalized many of the plants, but it's very promising.

Now, at harvest time, the promise of Spring and Summer has come true. There is plenty to harvest and turn into sauce.

These are Ghost Peppers. They are almost green enough to provide an early harvest and a batch or two of Green Ghost sauce.

Here are Cayenne and Ghost plants . Both have consistently proved to be very productive look to be that way again this year.

These are my favorite peppers to grow! These green and white beauties were first cultivated in the Mid-Atlantic states, and were used to flavor many seafood recipes, so they were named "Fish". The bright white is a sharp and lovely contrast to the otherwise dark green leaves. The coloration extends to the peppers which are pale green and white, when they are small, changing to green and white stripes, then to red and white, (some get purple in the process) and finally a brilliant red when at their hottest.