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W∴ Balboos wrote: I've heard they're difficult to grow (longer season than I have)
Half a dozen years ago I grew Carolina Reapers, they seemed to take about the same amount of time as habeneros to grow and mature which makes sense since they are a hybrid.
Habanadas on the other hand took much longer than their spicy relative to grow. They have the same flavor as a habanero but a scoville rating of 0.
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You're quite right about the reaper (I just went looking for that info):
Quote: Carolina Reaper plants take roughly 90 days to get to the point of sexual maturity, which is when they will be ready to produce fruit. Plant size: When planted in the ground or a suitably large container, Carolina Reaper plants grow to be approximately 5 feet tall and 4 feet wide.
A similar search (and the seed package) puts my Habenaros at 100-110 days. That's why it's weird to have them ripening. I grew the 90-day variety a couple of years ago and late August was the start.
Slow germination doesn't bother me - I grow cactus from seeds. Probably start indoors in January - if I knew what I'd do with them one I had them. On the other hand - you planted the it's-doable seed in my head (pun intended).
[edit]
I reread the blurb - that 90 days is "ready to produce fruit" - implying they still have to set fruit, grow and ripen. That may just put them out of reach.
[/edit]
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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The other thing to consider if you have space indoors is to overwinter your peppers, which also means a larger yield in subsequent years.
I had multiple black walnut trees in the yard so had to plant all my peppers in pots and did this. Usually picked the biggest/healthiest looking plant of each variety and moved them indoors at the end of the season.
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Practical Advice - I have to quite-tall maples shading much of the yard. The garden's a mix of in-ground (ca 10x10 feet) and a lot of very large pots (which are better known as 5-gallon buckets). They are too bulky, however, to bring indoors (let alone any wildlife they may contain) and, unfortunately for me, I have only one small south-facing window.
My best option would seem to be an extra-early start (when they're small and in pots under lamps) to give them a good head start - but the earliest safe day to put them outdoors is usually Mother's Day. That would just get them to start fruiting around mid-August. Doable if they'll ripen withing the month and autumn doesn't arrive early. It all depends, it seems, on how long the flower-grow-ripen period is (and less than full sun).
Practical Department:
OK - let's assume I managed this. Aside from being very hot and the job-satisfaction, did they have any qualities that made the whole thing worth it?
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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W∴ Balboos wrote: better known as 5-gallon buckets
That is what I did as well, had to move one at a time and getting the four selected pots up or down the basement steps to the grow tent was a pain in the back.
I love spicy food, so for me the Reapers had the extra hot I was looking for in a number of applications. Dehydrated and ground into a powder for seasoning/cooking, added to salsas, inserted into batches of bread and butter pickles for extra kick on a burger or sandwich, and so on. Otherwise they have a similar fruity flavor to the habanero.
If you have limited space and time, I'd opt for other varieties for different flavor profiles instead. Shishitos are very good charred, pablanos are thicker so good for stuffing, cayenne, hungarian wax, and the list goes on. Every new pepper added to your seasoning mix brings with it something unique. My initial pepper selection revolved heavily around what I use when making chili and grew from there.
Edit: Saw your other post about growing zones and I'm in 5a. I think I got around it by starting from seed as soon as possible so had a larger plant when I finally moved them outside. It involved a lot of fans running on timers to get stronger stems along with heated grow lights, and moving them in/out on a daily basis when it was warm enough during the day but not at night, https://hort.extension.wisc.edu/files/2014/10/Cold-hardiness-map-high-resolution.jpg[^]
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I've grown chili for quite a few years. Some in your list overlap: pablano, Hungarian Wax, cayenne
Some others of memory: tabasco, Salsa, jalapeno, Serrano
Of the items, I had lots of pablano last year - easily too much as they were very abundant. Too mild for most use (my son's family, however are training in hot food and they're prefect for that). The Garden Salsa Hybrid[^], a longer green pepper but as wide as a jalapeno at the top are about 3000 or so Scoville and are very tasty - but I haven't grown it for several years. My single favorite of normal peppers is Serrano: very abundant and, being solid, easy to slice any which way. For the hungarian wax - nice and early as yellow. I've one about 18months old in a tiny pot at my office. Still producing. Since I pollinate the peppers myself, via my thumbnail, they'll breed true. I'm going to ripen them for seeds so I can garden-them next year.
Three types, at present - plenty of variety. The Thai Hybrid seem thin-walled enough for easy drying and may go that way.
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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A few words of warning about drying/dehydrating, learned through painful experience. Of course there is the usual stuff like pieces dry faster than whole.
The important part is if you are using your oven to dehydrate them, just don't. Even if it vents outside, enough of the fumes will stay inside and turn your kitchen into a chemical warfare zone. The next morning was still bad enough to cause a lot of breathing problems. Same thing with a dehydrator, stick it outside while it is running.
Kind of surprising about having to pollinate them yourself, for some reason I thought peppers were self pollinating. That's because I never did any pollination while I overwintered and they still produced. There was a fan running for a good portion of the day so that might have been a cause as well.
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Thanks - fortunately air-drying was the plan. Realizing it was unpleasant, it still can help but bring on a bit of a laugh. Luckily it was unlikely to be running out into the snow. I observed the Thai Hybrids starting to wrinkle and dry, even whole, within a few days of picking so cut open, covered with a permeable top, and dry air should do cut peppers nicely - their non-hybrid predecessors are commonly sold and used for Asian cooking, which I take as a hint.
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Have you ever made pepper oil? For any reader who hasn't, it's really great stuff and extremely eas to make. Just fill a jar half full (or more) with dried pepper - even low-quality pizza pepper. To this, add light cooking oil (i.e., low viscosity) and just let it sit. I usually wait a week or so, "stirring" by upending the jar a bunch of times every few days. Then, strain to get the now-red cooking oil that has extracted the capsicum from the peppers. You can cook with it, drizzle it on salads - sadists can rub it into their skin (actually used to relieve joint pain).
What not to do: use fresh peppers, unless well equipped with lab-ware. Grinding the fresh peppers and doing executing process resulted in a water layer. Separation, which would have been trivial in a lab with a separatorory funnel turned into a tedious decanting job do to the ground peppers. Filtering, unlike with the oil-dry-pepper version, just didn't work as the filter grabbed what water it could and rapidly became impermeable to the oil layer. I eventually solved it but the extra effort made it a dry-pepper only even thereafter. Not worth perfecting the techniques when such an easy option is available.
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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That's okay, I laugh about it now too.
I haven't made pepper oil myself, but there is a guy at the local farmers market who is a serious pepper head. Sells pepper oil and pepper vinegar plus all sorts of fresh, dried, and even young plants you can take home and continue on your own.
W∴ Balboos wrote: sadists can rub it into their skin (actually used to relieve joint pain).
Speaking of funny stories, I've got reasonably oily skin and capsicum is fat soluble. I thought I was smart and wore two pairs of gloves while cutting and deseeding several pounds each of reapers, habaneros, serranos, and other less painful types. Well turns out those gloves are slightly permeable and that much capsicum feels like the sun was teleported into your bones for a few days and nothing will help the pain.
To be completely fair, my joints felt great! 
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RJOberg wrote: Speaking of funny storie
This is funny, at least in hind-sight. Maybe when it happened, too.
Years ago, my first-time real crop of habanero and I was chopping them (bare-handed, knowing the consequences). Well - when through, I washed my hands twice, directly with dish-washing liquid. Still, not long after, whilst eating a slice of pizza, as I ate down toward the holding end it got got hotter and hotter until quite serious. Clearly, although the heat long since subsided my fingers was still quite full the oil.
Then, shortly after the pizza, I went to the bathroom, and without thinking, well . . . a few seconds after I started I realized I was holding with . . . well . . . now it was just a matter of time.
Damn - essentially I left 'finger prints" - and a lot of very fidgety discomfort.
But, it is funny to think about.
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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Sorry for laughing at your discomfort! The only thing which even remotely helped was soaking my hands in cold half & half. I'm not sure if it was actually did anything or if it was so cold that it made everything numb.
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RJOberg wrote: orry for laughing at your discomfort!
Like it or not, it's really funny. Even for that first moment when I realized what a uniquely stupid thing I had done and new it was only a matter of time.
Soaking in half-and-half would doubtless have inspired some serious questions I'd not want to answer
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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Questions like "Oh, is that how guys reload those things?" 
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RJOberg wrote: Habanadas on the other hand took much longer than their spicy relative to grow. They have the same flavor as a habanero but a scoville rating of 0.
Now there's one I might eat.
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
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An amazingly delicious (not hot) eating pepper: Giant Aconcagua[^]
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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I love habaneros. I like to pick them when they are still green and don't have their full heat yet. The flavor really comes through then and people who don't like the heat can still appreciate them.
I used to live in the Fresno, CA area and the growing season was very early there compared to where I used to live. The peppers would start being ripe in late June to early July often. We moved about three hundred miles north and the growing season is more typical here. People get ripe peppers in mid-August here, several weeks later than in Fresno.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
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I'm in Growing Zone 7B; Fresno's in 9B - what's you current zone? It seems to vary a lot as you move from the coast toward the mountains.
My growing zone, itself, is way out of line for my latitude[^]: A gift from being by the ocean.
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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It appears we are in 9A now but I'm not sure. It could also be 9B. We live very near Lake Shasta now.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
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Me:
Average First Frost: November 11 - 20
Average Last Frost: April 1 - 10
Koppen-Geiger Climate Zone:
Cfa - Humid Subtropical Climate
Ecoregion: 84c - Barrier Islands - Coastal Marshes
Thee:
Average First Frost: December 11 - 20
Average Last Frost: February 21 - 28
Koppen-Geiger Climate Zone:
Csa - Hot-Summer Mediterranean Climate
Ecoregion:
Enjoy those extra 9-10 weeks! Almost enough for a second crop of many things.
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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Hot-Summer Mediterranean Climate is accurate. There are lots of olive and almond orchards around the area. Also a few vineyards that grow hot weather grapes like Cabernet Sauvignon. This climate extends into Southern Oregon up to about where the mountains start.
Last winter we had about a foot of snow which is more than there has been in over fifty years here. That followed one of the most severe fire seasons in history here. The weather has been all over the spectrum lately.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
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Mmmm... habaneros!
he said with with a Simpsonesque drool
"If we don't change direction, we'll end up where we're going"
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W∴ Balboos wrote: I haven't figured out exactly what I'd do with them
I highly recommend dried California Reaper in tomato soup, if treated with respect. All you need is a strip off the main fruit that is about 1cm long, chop it carefully and throw it into a big pot, lightly saute with some ginger, garlic, onions, toss in a few tins of tomatoes and let all that bubble away for about an hour before blending it all. It's an angry, smokey flavour, that's just delicious and really livens up anything tomato-based. Just be careful with it or it really will burn your mouth off.
One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don't know.
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From the sound of this is implies the reapers add a smoky taste to the soup. That could well justify the effort of growing them. Otherwise - why not a habanero? Actually, with all the sweetness from the tomatoes, cooked onions and garlic, even regular chilies ??
The reason for growing the habanero is (potentially) similar in that it adds more than just heat.
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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I absolutely adore habaneros, and use them liberally for the same purpose. I was addressing your specific lack of experience with the "super-chillies"... As in, this was something that I tried using reapers, which genuinely worked as a dish. Yes, habaneros work well in this. But the dried Reaper just transmogrifies it into something really special. I have also tried blending habaneroes for sweetness, and balancing that with the terrifying strength and flavour of the Reaper. It takes a few goes to get that right, but it's worth it.
Plus, if you're serving it to people, you get to call it "Reaper Soup" which sounds elephanting bad-ass. Or "Reaper Stew", if you're doing a sauce. I find that stewing rough cuts of meat in a Reaper and tomato sauce, the kind of not-too-fussy butchering job with some fatty bits, bones and even some tendons still in, makes for a fantastic taste and fun to eat. It also adds to the dramatic effect for your guests, particularly if they're not used to a rustic style of cooking where you get bone-in stews all the time. Good for Hallowe'en parties and the like, served in a giant bowl and accompanied by crusty bread and full-bodied red wine. You get the idea.
One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don't know.
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...that's a gift that is really hard to beat!
Ba-tish!
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
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The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine
Winston Churchill, 1944
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Never argue with a fool. Onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.
Mark Twain
modified 3-Sep-19 8:16am.
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