Today is a happy day for my people!

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Gardening is such a rewarding experience to begin with, but, for a #homesteading pepper fanatic like me, this was an amazing day. Not all that long ago, we finally purchased the land for our homestead down in Arkansas. While we are in the process of working on many, many things, I could not help but put in a small garden to grow a few peppers this season.

THE GHOST PEPPER

With heat that is three times hotter than a habanero, the Ghost Pepper is the former world champion as far as Scoville Heat Units go. The Bhuit jolokia is originally from India, and I have been growing them at least since 2011,

Today I finally decided to harvest some of the ones that were growing on our land. It is my belief that these are the first of many, many peppers that will be grown on the @papa-pepper homestead. Recently, the temperatures dropped a bit, and the wind picked up too, so I figured that I should harvest some before the first frost of the year.

Many of the plants are very heavy laden with ripe peppers. If the plants were allowed to grow long enough, they would each produce hundreds of peppers. When you consider how many seeds are in just one pepper, and how many peppers just one plant can grow, this is a huge return on your investment.

If you notice the plant at right-center, you can see that the wind has taken its toll on a few of the plants. Since it is the end of the growing season anyway, this is not a huge deal.

This is half of one of the plants that actually broke off in the wind. Just look at how many ripe peppers it already produced. Back in Wisconsin, many of us would actually pot the mature plants at the end of the outdoor growing season and move them inside of our homes for the winter. Then, in the following spring, we would move them back outdoors again and let them grow for another year. In warmer climates, some pepper plants can actually grow for years!

THE SEEDS AND THE USES

A good portion of these will be used for saving seeds. Thankfully, the ripe peppers can still be used when you save the seeds, so they are really "dual purpose."

Overripe peppers like these can still be good to save seeds from, although they have passed their prime for culinary use. While I always enjoying using a lot of them fresh, we usually end up with so many that I dehydrate and pickle some too. Here are two of my favorite Ghost Pepper "recipes."

If you follow the link here you will find the recipe for my own creation, Green Ghost Salsa. As @robrigo can testify to, this salsa is a real treat. It was actually a "secret recipe" of mine that I kept to myself for many years. However, I decided to bless the world and publish it on the blockchain last year for all to see.

My Ghost Pepper Pickled Eggs are another amazing spicy treat. Just like the Green Ghost Salsa recipe, I chose to share this recipe here too. You can check out the original post here. Basically, just by adding a ghost pepper to the jar when you are making the pickled eggs, the heat from the pepper will soak into the eggs and spice up the whole batch!

There are some other great things that you can do with these peppers, so I'll try to share a few more fun ideas with you all this season.

HARVESTING

The harvesting process for these super hot peppers is pretty simple.

I like to use some snips or pruning shears to cut the stems of the ripe peppers. This way, minimal damage is done to the pepper and the plant, which helps the pepper keep longer and allows the plant to continue to produce more peppers.

Eventually the ground under the plants becomes littered with the cut peppers, and they are very easy to collect at that point. it always amazed me to see how many peppers can come from just one plant. I don't think that I'll ever get over that fascination.

FUN WITH PEPPERS!

Because "sharing is caring," I chose to show how much I cared for my other steemians last year by sending them some of my peppers. Here are a few videos of some of our wonderful community members "enjoying themselves" with a few of my peppers.

@sevinwilson

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@matthewtiii

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@merej99

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@gardenofeden

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@anotherjoe

DON'T GO THERE!

I know that a few of you may be entertaining the idea of possibly trying this yourself, after all, we all like to have fun, sharing is caring, and @papa-pepper likes to send presents around to bless others. So, what's stopping you then?

Well, before you get too exited, consider this quote from the post titled '@papa-pepper sent me a Scorpion Pepper! The most painful 14 hours of my life. Here is my story.':

Warning: Do Not Try This!

If you do attempt this I have a few suggestions:

• Don’t do it.

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If that is not enough to deter you, please watch this important word of advice from @matthewtiii.

Here is a summary of what he shares in the video:

DONT' EAT THIS PEPPER! MILK DOESN'T HELP.
ICE CREAM DOESN'T HELP.

IT'S BURNING MY EAR CANAL.

DON'T EAT THAT PEPPER! DON'T EAT IT, I'M TELLING YOU DON'T.
DON'T EAT THAT PEPPER!
DON'T EAT IT. DON'T EAT IT.

WHAT ABOUT YOU, PAPA?

Just so you know that I'm serious about my peppers, here are a few videos of me enjoying some too.

Okay, on a more serious note, I do have some to share. That said, if you live in the US and would like a few ripe peppers, just let papa know!

Seriously. LOL!

As always, I'm @papa-pepper and here's the proof:

proof-of-amazing-and-hot-harvest

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Until next time…

Don’t waste your time online, invest it with steemit.com

GIF provided by @malos10

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