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Good Crop Rotation is Important A good crop rotation plan is critical for a productive vegetable garden. One of the rules of organic gardening is to rotate plant families from one season to the next, so related crops are not planted in the same spot more often than every three years. The purpose of crop rotation is to help maintain the balance of nutrients, organic matter, and micro-organisms necessary for healthy soil. When the same vegetable, like hot peppers, are planted year after year in the same plot, they become dise...

Ripen Green Tomatoes Indoors When it comes to ripening any fruit, ethylene is your friend. This gaseous plant hormone is produced by all fruits as they ripen, and will prompt unripe tomatoes into turning red. Place the fruit in a paper bag, cardboard box or wooden drawer with a ripe banana or apple, ensuring you leave out any damaged or diseased fruit which will rot the lot. Check them regularly and you should find the tomatoes are ripe within a couple of weeks. Fun Tip: Place half your immature green tomatoes in a box ...

Pepper Seeds Sandia Seed has pepper seeds from all the chile peppers you can think of: hatch chile pepper seeds, anaheim pepper seeds, bhut jolokia ghost pepper seeds, habanero seeds, jalapeno seeds, and sweet pepper seeds such as shishito pepper seeds, which are wonderful japanese peppers that are very popular with chefs! Our GMO-free Pepper seeds are gathered fresh every year from New Mexican farms, bringing you the authentic New Mexican hatch chile varieties, as well as some of the hottest pepper seed...

Roasting Green Chile is Easy! Put fresh green chiles on a propane grill on medium high heat. Grill until the outer skin is brown and bubbly. Keep turning until entire chile has brown thin paper skin. Remove from grill and place into a plastic bag with 1/4 cup water. Steam for 5 minutes. Remove from bag and peel outer skin away! Yum! Grow your own Hatch chile seeds and you can harvest and roast chiles right from your own garden. Hatch Chiles are actually quite easy to grow around the world, the plants love summer heat. ...

Hybrid vs. Open-Pollinated and Heirloom Seeds This is the time of year that many gardeners start planning their spring gardens. It can be helpful to know the difference between hybrid, and open-pollinated (OP) seeds. The OP seeds are the best choice if seeds from the fruits will be saved and replanted the following year. The produce from OP seeds often tastes better, but the plants may not have the disease resistance that hybrids do. All heirlooms are OP, so the two words are often used synonymously. The main difference is that heirloom ...

Trinidad Moruga Scorpion Trinidad Moruga Scorpion Look at all the hot capsacin inside this pepper! Capsicum chinense (120 days) Pods are 2-1/2" wide with wrinkled reddish orange skin.They have a fruit like flavor, with nuclear heat! This pepper contains so much capsacin that the chemical blasts past the numbing response and keeps activating receptors in the nerve endings in your mouth. This produces ferocious burning sensations. Chile burns and heat burns are similar at the molecular, cellular, and sensory levels...

Chile Peppers are a Hot Diet Food Hot Peppers help boost your metabolism and induces the body to burn off more fat instead of storing it in the body. So, if you want to lose weight, eating hot peppers as part of your diet will help boost your weight loss success.Several studies have shown that hot peppers can curb your appetite, burn fat, and inhibit fat cell growth.One representative clinical study conducted by scientists at the Laval University in Quebec found that eating cayenne at breakfast decreased appetite and led to l...

Yellow Scotch Bonnet The Yellow Scotch Bonnet (Bahamian, Bahama Mama, Jamaican Hot or Martinique Pepper) is a very hot pepper, closely related to the Habanero and has about the same heat levels. The shape is different and resembles a Scot’s Bonnet, hence the name. The Yellow Scotch Bonnet is very important in the Jamaican cuisine and the Cayman Islands. That’s why Jamaican Jerk and other Caribbean dishes have a unique taste. Jerk is a way of cooking that is originated in Jamaica. Meat is rubbed with a very sharp ...

When to Harvest Peppers A good time to harvest peppers is when they are full size and have matured to their full color. Well that's easy to say, but another thing when looking at the plant full of fruit. The best thing to do is to cut one pepper off the plant and taste it. If it is bitter and tastes a little green, wait another week and try again. A general rule is to use the number of days to maturity, but that will vary in different growing conditions. Both sweet and hot peppers can be eaten at all stages of g...

Guajillo, Fresno and Red Cherry Hot Peppers... ...are just a few of the new varieties we will offer for the 2016 season! Also included will be Trinidad Scorpion 'Butch T', 7 Pot Douglah, 7 Pot Jonah, 7 Pot Barrackpore, Yellow Brain Strain, Peach Bhut Jolokia, White Bhut jolokia, Sweet Banana, Golden Greek Pepperoncini, Pimiento, Legacy Big Jim, Jamaican Hot Chocolate and a few more! We are so excited to be adding these the great peppers to our collection. They will all be available the first week of November!

Fresh hot reaper! Wow! This is such a productive pepper! The plants are overflowing with fruit and when it's cut open it is wet with capsaicin! Now to see what it's like to chew on a little piece. Wish me luck, and get some seeds to grow your own!

How to Germinate Pepper Seeds What You will need: Pepper seeds Indoor/Outdoor potting soil Plastic growing tray, at least 2” deep with holes for drainage Seed germination warming mat Grow light or bright window Distilled water Labels. Fill growing tray almost to the top with potting soil. Moisten thoroughly with water and allow to drain completely. Always use distilled water. Make an indentation with a pencil eraser approx. a quarter of an inch deep or less, about every 2 inches in the soil. Place one pepper seed int...

What makes a Hatch Chile Hatch? What makes a Hatch Chile, Hatch?New Mexico is home of the famous Hatch Chiles that are grown in the Hatch Valley. Hatch Chiles are special and unique to the Hatch region in New Mexico, you can grow the same varieties in other areas or states, but, like Champagne, then it isn't a true Hatch chile. What gives the Hatch chiles the special flavor is the unique soil and climate in this part of New Mexico along with the people who plant, nurture and harvest the chiles over many generations. But...

Shishito Pepper Appetizer Harvest about 15 peppers from your plant and rinse. Heat 1 Tbsp olive oil in amedium hot skillet. Place peppers in skillet after poking each with a fork to prevent from exploding while they cook. Fry about 5 minutes until the peppers are a little brown and soft. Sprinkle with sea salt and serve warm. When eating, pick up the pepper by the stem and eat the entire pepper, seeds and all. Discard the stem. View more of our chile pepper recipes »

“I love these seeds!!” Here's a nice comment from one of our customers:“I love these seeds!! I have planted some of your seeds here in So. California and I have good things to report! First, the Heritage 6-4 plants are produced some BIG boys. I will be preparing rellenos tomorrow night to try them out—I am excited! The Sandias are lookin' good. But I think I may let them turn red for ristras— not sure. I can't wait to taste these chilies. It's been so long since I have savored real New Mexico chilie...

What to do in your Garden in September Above: Picking Shishitos will keep them coming long into fall if the temperatures are good. What to do in your Garden in September It depends on where you live, but here in the West, our 5B growing season can end as early as late September, or can last through October or even November, depending on the weather! We always hope for a long summer without frosts until November, but mother nature does her thing as she likes. Here are some of the things we do in September in our garden: Harvest an...

Seeds to Sow in August for a Fall Harvest It's not too late to sow more seeds and enjoy more food from your garden this season. August is a great time to plant fall crops so that you can enjoy and preserve the abundance before winter arrives. Seeds to Sow in August for a bountiful Fall Harvest Bush Beans - Ready in just 50 days!, bush beans are the perfect pairing with tomatoes or peppers, you can easily tuck in these fast growing edible plants in your garden. Beans are great companion plants and they also boost the soil nut...

Vegetable Garden Hacks Here are some vegetable garden hacks from fellow gardeners to try: I plant my peppers in pots as I'm in a short season climate, so I can move them to a warm place during late spring cool weather or early fall cool weather and frosts to extend the season. I also use a small garden bed hoop house with greenhouse film to cover them on cold nights below 50˚in spring and fall. Adding alfalfa pellets to my beds for slow release nitrogen to feed the beneficial bacteria in the soil not the plant...

Sharing Veggies There is nothing better than growing your food than also sharing your homegrown produce! Share your extra garden harvests with neighbors, friends and family, or by trading produce in local online groups, setting up a free driveway stand, or donating fresh harvest to community pantries and food banks. When you grow your own food, you often have way more than you need, and it's so rewarding to share your bounty with others. Above: Herbs Share in the neighborhood: What a fun front-yard comm...

Ask five gardeners a question and you will get six different answers.😂😂 Ask five gardeners a question and you will get six different answers.😂 Ain't that the truth? Gardening is all about experiences, trials and errors... and above all, experimenting! After all, there are no gardening mistakes, only experiments! For example: Some people swear that topping their young peppers will result in more yields. But many people, especially those in short growing seasons, find that the opposite is true – topping peppers only delays their production. Find our advice on...