Pepper Harvest

Yesterday was a pepper harvest day. I had one plant of Tabasco peppers and one plant of cayenne peppers growing in the garden. From these two plants I picked about a pound of the ripest peppers leaving a more for later in the season. You may not be aware but a pound of cayenne and Tabasco peppers is a lot of peppers. Occasionally on the cayenne peppers I would get a green one but with the weather we've been having there should still be plenty of heat in them.

I don't understand it, but usually when I pick hot peppers it seems to make the plant mad. It goes back into a mode of full blooms and will try to make another batch of peppers. The pepper plants are usually the last plants to come out of the garden and it depends on how early we get frost here in Indiana as to whether the peppers have enough time to grow a second batch.

In the past I have either frozen the peppers or dried them for later use. Once the peppers are dried they can be ground in a blender to make pepper flakes or ground pepper, both can be dangerous when being used in a recipe. This year, however, since I still have plenty of frozen and dried peppers I am going to make hot sauce. Should make for a day with a very fragrant house, good thing my wife will be out today.