I'm Kaye, and I'm a late bloomer. There's something so intriguing about growing
peppers that attracts so many people, including me. I was determined to outdo
my first year success last year, and I did, but it took a lot of TLC. I got
started on January 8th with several varieties mostly sent to me from friends.
With only window light and no grow light setup, it was slow going for a few weeks,
but by the end of February, things looked promising. A month later, it was warm
enough to start moving them outside in the afternoon filtered sunlight. Almost
immediately, tender leaves were attacked. I sprayed often with soapy peppermint
spray. They left the Filius Blue plants alone. Finally it was time to pot up my
peppers. I reused cups from last year and my custom potting mix. I made quite a
mess on my front porch. my pepper babies. One hour of direct cool morning Sun,
then you'll go into the shade. By late April they were still only taking in
indirect afternoon Sun, and morning Sun. I got help with bugs from lady beetles. It
was a big job but I got all the peppers into their forever homes of three gallon
size cloth pots on June 1st. Two weeks later, of my four front yard
plants, I had peppers on my overwintered Sweet
King of the North and blooms on Filius Blue. The balcony plants were starting to
respond to the summer heat of June. This is a Filius blue pepper. It has these
lovely little purple flowers and tiny leaves. What've we got here? We got peppers.
Let's see, looking good. This is crushed glass that is inert and it's supposed to form
a barrier to fungus gnats getting into your soil. Looking good, just gave them
compost tea spray, and watered, so we'll see how they look in a couple of days. By
July 4th, there were good sized peppers on most plants and I was watering every
two to three days. I use seaweed fertilizer in the water
and water till there was some standing water in the tray, as that would be
soaked back up within an hour or two in the heat of July. There are three ways to
determine if they need water, with a moisture meter, the lift test, to see if
the pots feel light, or if the leaves are limp. It's best to water in the morning
or evening, but if the leaves are limp in the middle of a hot day, don't wait until
evening. Give them what they need.
Even with spraying for bugs every two weeks, there was some pest damage, but no
infestations like last year. What's most interesting about peppers is they grow
in so many shapes, sizes, and colors. Some peppers like Hungarian wax grow straight
up. As you can see most of my peppers are up on a balcony, and no one gets to see
them but me. My Hungarian yellow wax peppers are ready to harvest. These are
gorgeous. That's the orange Thai chili pepper, my only one, and it's huge. But
it's the only plant that hasn't had any blooms or chilies, but it's still growing
so I'll leave it alone.
(lively music)
My first pepper harvest.
Wow! Ha, ha, ha!
This is what happens when you baby your pepper plants. They really produce.
First big pepper harvest, with one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight
varieties. I also have orange Thai chili and Caribbean red habanero. Those two are
super hot, and Sweet King of the North, which are yet to mature. So that's
Margaret's, and Sweet Apple kind of looks like an apple, and these are Arubra hybrid,
and these are Jimmy Nardello and that's one little Jalapeno Medium.
Check out my
Filius Blue peppers. There's more red than purple now, love it! The chemical
compound in peppers that makes them hot is called capsaicin, and there is a level
of units per pepper. My peppers, in order of hotness from least hot to most hot,
are jalapeno and Hungarian wax those are 10,000 units, and then I jump up to
cayenne and Filius Blue at 50,000 units, and then I have Orange Thai, which is a
hundred and fifty thousand, and my hottest pepper is Caribbean red habanero,
which is four hundred thousand units of capsaicin, and have no intention of
eating one of those, but I thought because this is the first time I've
grown Filius Blue, and I survived eating a
Cayenne last year,.. be sure and watch my Growing Peppers Part 1 and Part 2 episodes.
Dairy products kill the heat from peppers, so if you get something
that's too hot in your mouth, drink a glass of milk, or any dairy product will
cut that heat. Don't drink water. That exacerbates the problem. So, let's try
this Filius Blue, okay...
Oh boy...
... I have the milk standing by... (clears throat)
That's hot,
but, um, haha..
Cheers!
You expected a bigger reaction, right? The waves are still coming. The capsaicin is
most concentrated in the interior flesh of the pepper so if you pop the whole
thing in your mouth, your going to get much more of a sensation, than if you just
nibble on the end. Cpsaicin is recognized by the Environmental
Protection Agency as a pesticide and is used that way, and you really need to
take care in handling really hot peppers and any kind of application that has
capsaicin in it, because it can irritate your eyes, and your skin, not to mention
your lungs. And it causes swelling in the mucous membranes of the lungs, and so
forth, so watch out. If you have tips for growing peppers, please let me know, and
please share this episode and help me inspire more people to grow their own food.
I'm Kaye, I'm a late bloomer, thanks for
watching. See you next time.
(bloopers)
Is that just like so cute? (crunchy bite)
(bluesy guitar)
Hm, that doesn't even taste hot.
Eat the whole thing.
See what happens.
Whew! (clears throat)
Yeah. I think my tongue is swelling, ha.
Whew! Oh, wow!
That whole pepper might have been going too far.
I probably should have done this at the very end,
after I was finished talking. Ha, ha.