As a gardener since childhood, I have learned and researched information about growing and using hot peppers. These tips about adding hot peppers will give you some extra variety in your backyard as well as not harming your other plants. There is nothing better than fresh vegetables from your own garden. Not only do you have the pride of watching them grow up much like what comes from raising children, but they do not talk back to you!
Easy To Grow
Pepper plants are easy to grow in a garden, and they come in many varieties. That crisp taste and flavor can only come from a pepper that has just been picked. Much like corn, a pepper will lose flavor every hour that it has been plucked from the plant. One category of peppers that can be grown easily is hot peppers.
Peppers can be used in cooking for flavor. Another idea is to add boiling vinegar to hot varieties placed in canning jars and you can make wonderful pepper sauce. Be sure to use plastic gloves for placing the peppers in the jar because your hands become a source for pain if you rub your eyes after handling hot peppers with unprotected skin.
Use Caution In Planting
Much like that garden can remind you of raising children; hot peppers can be a blessing or a curse. Those lovely plants can ruin all the wonderful other peppers in the garden if precautions are not taken and discipline and proper selection is not observed. Do not plant hot pepper varieties close to those sweet peppers. Cross pollination can make all the peppers hot! Place the heat producing plants on the far side of the garden from the others. During a dry summer this can happen very easily, but it is possible during any weather pattern.
Exciting Varieties
Many varieties of hot peppers are available, and you must choose carefully. If you like really hot ones select the varieties that grow upward, such as Thai peppers. These little fellows pack a real punch in the sting department on your tongue. They offer more heat than flavor. These are great for cooking really hot dishes, but not to eat raw, as the heat is like needles in your mouth.
Other varieties of hot peppers that have a better flavor are jalapenos, hot cow horns, and habaneras. The same precautions apply to these types also. Plant them in a corner of the garden away from the others and use gloves when handling them. If you don’t heed this advice and come from the garden with those “hot hands”, your spouse and kids will not be happy with you if you touch them. Life is too short to make enemies with hot peppers, enjoy them in a responsible way.
