From: babs@jfwhome.FUNHOUSE.COM (Babs Woods)
Newsgroups: rec.food.cooking
Subject: Re: How to find HOT peppers (DC area & Mail order)
Keywords: habaneros, HOT peppers
Date: 27 Dec 92 21:58:04 GMT
Organization: Our Lady of Perpetual Mirth (Pacifica)

In <2TEMAV5@taronga.com> arielle@taronga.com (Stephanie da Silva) writes:

>>Michael Schechter has offered:
>>No thai peppers, though those are only availible fresh, and woudn't
>>mail well. 

>Why wouldn't they?  Wrap them up real well, send them Priority Mail.
>Costs $2.90, takes 2 days.  I'm sure fresh peppers have a longer
>shelf life than 2 days.  I can find Thai peppers in abundance around
>here and they've probably been sitting in the supermarket for longer
>than 2 days.
>-- 
>Stephanie da Silva                                    arielle@taronga.com


Well, I've got you all beat on fresh Thai Peppers:  I can find them on 
my windowsill!  Park's Seeds carries Thai Hot Pepper seeds and they
grow pretty well in a pot on my window, so I transplanted some I'd 
grown in a pot last winter to the yard next door (my neighbour let 
me try gardening in her yard this summer) and they grew quite well.  
I dried a bunch in my dehydrator, so I have them dried for winter use, 
gave some away to my father, and have some growing in the same pot in 
a window.  When they're fruiting, I'll start having more fresh.  

	A neat thing about them is, as I understand it, they're supposed 
to be annuals, but I've had two in that window from last fall that 
seemed to die and dry out, but the larger one revived when I began 
to water more frequently.  (They had lost all their leaves and were just 
stems!)  The smaller one isn't doing as well, but the trunks got very
green and then they grew leaves.  In the interim I had planted some of 
the plant-dried peppers in the soil and they have come up, so this
pot will once again become crowded.  Thai peppers seem to germinate
well, unlike a host of other plants from seed, so I'm pretty happy about 
all this.  I don't yet know if any of the plants I left in the ground
will return in the spring, so I'll have to remember to check and let
people know what happens.  (If we get a house I may not be here when
the plants revive.)

Some warnings:  when they are crowded, the peppers grow very small and
full of seeds.  I made the mistake of trimming mine back and seem
to have created a bonzai effect, but don't assume that because they're
extra small the peppers are any less hot.  They're not.  I don't know 
for absolute certain of this is why the peppers grow so small, but mine 
did and they were just as hot as the ones that are full size.  

	Check out seed catalogues, you can find many different hot
peppers and other gourmet items from seed, like I've also found
Habanero seeds (from: Porter and Son, Seedsmen, 1512 East Washington
Street, Stephenville, TX 76401), which I haven't tried to grow yet.
Maybe next year we'll have a house early enough in the year so I
can start my own garden outdoors and then I'll grow a large variety
of many things, including hot peppers.  I recommend to any chilihead
that they look for places that carry seeds and then try to grow their
own of what they want.  (I have quite a collection just waiting for the 
spring.) If you can get the seeds and make them grow well enough, 
you won't have much supply trouble.  Hell, try to grow anything that's 
either hard to find or too expensive as much as conditions allow.  You 
may end up saving money and you'll get good, fresh results.

				-babs

-- 

"Excuse me, while I dance a little jig of despair."
	- hadley@ics.uci.edu (Ted Hadley)
Newsgroups: rec.food.cooking