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.
Some of the hot pepper flakes I have made over the past few weeks. Includes some giant red bhut jolokia, chocolate bhut jolokia, caramel bhut jolokia and a red bhut jolokia / red Caribbean mix.
In the world of hot peppers, while no longer the record holder for being the hottest, the bhut jolokia or “ghost pepper” is still the most popular super hot pepper. Is the ghost pepper as widely known as the habanero…not even close. Is it getting more popular…you bet!
Known Ghost Pepper Varieties
There are a number of bhut jolokia strains. Some much more stable than others…the least stable or “ghost pepper like” in my opinion are the purple, white and caramel bhut jolokias. That said, here are the types I know of:
Ghost Pepper Picture Slideshow
(click or tap pictures to advance)
Ghost Pepper Videos
These videos will give you an idea of how ghost peppers actually taste and what to expect. You won’t find people rolling around on the floor in agony in any of these videos.
Ghost Pepper Popularity
The ghost pepper’s popularity has risen as fast in the United States as anywhere else in the world. In 2011, despite losing the record for world’s hottest pepper in June to the Butch T Trinidad Scorpion, the ghost pepper’s popularity continued to reach new highs.
A quick check of Google Insights shows which states saw the largest relative increase in searches for ghost pepper related terms:
Another quick check of Google Insights reveals the the fastest rising search terms people are using to look for the bhut jolokia / ghost pepper:
1. ghost pepper chili
2. ghost chili
3. the ghost pepper
4. hottest pepper
5. hottest pepper ghost
6. ghost hot pepper
7. ghost peppers
8. scoville
9. ghost pepper sauce
10. ghost pepper scoville
Along with an increase in popularity comes an increase in commercial products that use ghost peppers. While I have not tried all of these I am aware of the following products related to the ghost pepper:
January 22, 2012
Here’s the super hot pepper grow list for 2012. May have some slight changes (additions mostly) but this is the core. Could say this is the year of the bhut!
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.