Tag Archives: chocolate habanero

Pepper Seedlings

pepper seedlings

2013 Hot Pepper Seedlings

My peppers have been going for about a month and I have healthy seedlings for all but a few of my original list. A few of the seedlings are a little yellow but the same thing has happened in past season for certain types that I grow. The most common cause of yellowing at his stage of growth is usually is over watering but that’s not the case with a few of these, for whatever reason they always start on the yellow side in growing conditions even when other peppers are a much darker shade of green. It never seems to stunt or any way negatively impact the plant’s growth so it’s not something I get concerned about. Also they tend to grow out if it pretty quickly. One each of the chocolate habs and chocolate bhuts did not sprout. The chocolate bhut that did sprout took almost 30 days to pop, just a reminder to not give up on your pepper seeds early! I planted another chocolate bhut and instead of replanting the chocolate hab I planted a yellow 7 pot from seeds I took from pods I ordered a couple years ago. Since my last post I had a few cayenne seedlings sprout too. Overall a nice start to the 2013 season.

2013 Pepper Grow

My 2013 pepper growing season is officially underway! Last year wasn’t all that great primarily due to the drought. The season started great but then the rain stopped and the temperatures climbed. I still managed to harvest a decent amount of peppers but none of them really grew to their full potential and some plants only produced a handful of stunted peppers. Fingers crossed for a better 2013 growing season.

Here’s the the lineup this year:

Giant Red Bhut Jolokia x 2
Yellow Bhut Jolokia x 2
Chocolate Bhut Jolokia x 2
Caramel Bhut Jolokia x 2
Peach Bhut Jolokia x 2
Red Douglah Cross x 1
7 Pot Brain Strain x 1
Carolina Reaper x 1
Chocolate Habanero x 2
Big Cayenne x 2
Caribbean Red x 3

I put seeds in the dirt on February 3 so should have the first sprouts and day. More than likely I will add some more plants but this is enough to get things rolling.

March 2011 Pepper Grow Update

The 2011 pepper growing season in Illinois is well underway. Yea it’s still dropping into the 20’s at night and we’re 6 weeks away from being able to plant out but when you have a short growing season you have get things kicked off inside if you hope to harvest any hot peppers before fall rolls around. My pepper lineup for this year is basically finalized. Here’s a complete list of everything that has sprouted and I have growing:

Red Bhut Jolokia (aka ghost pepper)
Chocolate Bhut Jolokia
Caribbean Red
7 Pod Douglah
7 Pod Brain Strain
7 Pod Jonah
Trinidad Scorpion Morouga
Pimenta de neyde
Chocolate Habanero
Orange Habanero
Fatali
Giant Jalapeno
Black Jalapeno
Early Jalapeno
Long Red Slim Cayenne

More than 1/2 of my superhots this year will be the red bhut jolokia and the chocolate bhut jolokia. My red bhut jolokia seeds originated from pepperjoe.com. He has them listed as his giant bhut jolokias. I grew those out last year and they did great. Plants were huge, pods were huge and production was high. I saved the seeds from the best plants and pods and am using those this year. Pepper Joe is using one of my photos from last season – the one with the 6 bhut jolokias with a quarter in the middle – on his site this year. He’s using a couple others too but that one’s probably my favorite.

I was given a few fresh chocolate bhut jolokia pods from neighbor at the end of last season and kept the seeds to grow out this year. I started some of them in Nov 2010 in a DWC bucket as an experiment. I still have one of them growing and transplanted the other into dirt. If all goes well I plan to sell some chocolate bhut jolokia seeds from my plants this year.

I’m growing a few of each of the other other super hots in my list and about a combined total of 15 – 20 of all the others…habaneros, jalapenos, etc. Really looking forward to trying the Trinidad Scorpion Morouga and the 7 Pod Brain Strain. I started one of the 7 Pod Brain Strain plants in DWC too but have since transplanted it into dirt.

Here’s how my indoor pepper plants look as of today:

I have around 70 pepper plants going right now. Will end up giving away 20 or so and the rest will be planted in my raised beds.

Pepper Powders

It warmed up enough that I was able to spend some time in the garage today grinding some of my dried peppers into various hot pepper mixes. From left to right we have…

1 – Apple wood smoked Caribbean red & apple wood smoked orange habanero
2 – Apple wood smoked Caribbean red & apple wood smoked orange habanero, chocolate bhut jolokia and red bhut jolokia
3 and 4 – Jamaican yellow, chocolate habanero and red bhut jolokia.

The big one top is just orange habanero.