In the Mix

Some peppers that have been acquired via barter

I’m going to keep this simple. I have some pepper connections and the image below is evidence of that. These peppers are kind of mean ones and I intend on getting them in the mix of pepper garden ambitions, and just like other members of my family, I won’t deny - I am most ambitious. Ambitious like a cocker spaniel, jack russel, german shepherd, labrador retriever mix. Ambitious like a Wolf.

I’d like to put out a thanks to my niece’s husband who shared these peppers with me. We traded. I let him take my metal detector and he left some peppers with me. I already have plans for these peppers. I plan in advance.

Yesterday, I took a bite of this Scotch Bonnet pepper and I bit off the whole thing into my mouth:

I then chewed it just a little and after it got “overwhelming” I spit it out and then ate it later with dinner. After a very initial slightly sweet taste, it rapidly turned into a blast of heat in my mouth and body and it was intense. Bottom line though: this Scotch Bonnet “cleared me up” in a “positive” way I think. Interestingly, the remnants I spit out were rather mild when I consumed them with the evening meal at the neighbors place. With that said, I don’t advocate eating hot peppers for the “fun of it”, but if I’m going to grow these peppers, then it only seems fair that I try them out first.

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Up till this point, when it comes to saving pepper seeds, I’ve basically just let the pepper from which the seeds were desired dry in ambient air after cutting a slit through it. After it was fully dried, I sealed it and saved it for next season when individual seeds were planted. However, I have quite a few of these hot pepper shared from my neice’s husband (I had no idea how he was growing all these), and I think I’m going to try a bit of an experiment. This is what I’m going to do. I’m going to take a few whole peppers, some with a slit and others intact, and simply put them in a 1-gallon felt container filled with potting soil (about 1 inch down I suppose) that I will keep moist and then “see what happens”.

For the other peppers, and the ones I only have a few of, I will simply save the seeds as I have in the past. Next year, the garden is going to have more peppers, but before getting too far ahead of myself, I need to make sure I harvest all the one growing out there now and I may use some of these hot, hot, hot pepper that I bartered for in my “Ken’s Hot Peppa Concentrate - 2023”. I’ll probably end up with a few jars of that similar to how I did in 2022 and I still have the 2022 concentrate and it fermented just a bit and I suspect has a shelf life of many years and is of value.

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Consider this…

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Sometimes something that seems “random” is not in the mind of the one trying to share - let me tell you this simple - Africa is a big place and little places don’t compare and above and beyond that - Odessa beckons.

OK, check this out:

Do you want a 73 minute read (wow - that must be a short story at least) or do you want one that is just 6 minutes. You know what - I’m going to read about the return of the aphids after I finish the update cause those aphids met their match and it was me - I had the will to keep the peppers alive and will can move mountains let me tell ya….still that pee-wee story - I think it has value - I wrote it of course and so of course I’m biased, but sometimes if you look back and see what was suggested and you check what the outcome was - does that not merit something?

It must.

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Happy Gardening!

Ken