Gardeners...pepper plant ID?

[Bro. Bill]

Mm mmm good

[be12hunt]

Getting one to grow on your place is like have a P&Y buck on your low fence that never leaves your yard. I've tried getting them to grow and transplanting them.....nope.

I’ve heard once they are established they are pretty hardy...once they are established

[TexasLongball]

Sounds like I've got a good thing going here. Thanks for everyone's input. Only downside is that I have to go to the mother in law's house regularly.



Kidding!

[miket]

I have also tried to get them to grow no luck yet but I would like to get some seeds if anyone has some they would send me please and thank you!
Freddy

My understanding is that the seed coating must be treated with acid to break down the coating to allow it to germinate. Thats why the birds are the main dispersal method, the acid in their stomach is strong enough to do it, ours isnt. Apparently it is pretty hard to get them started.

[wlee15]

This is what I came here to post. I pick them, let them dry out, they will look like red peppercorns. I save a bunch up, put in my spice grinder and grind up and put in a shaker. Great on pizza or anything where you would use crushed red pepper.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

2x Great Pizza topping!

If you have a molcajete you can make a awesome fresh salsa. Take 3-5 dried bird peppers, crush them in the molcajete, add salt and grind salt in as well. Then add 2-3 fresh roma tomatoes (slice them into 4th's before adding). Crush the tomatoes until your arm hurts, that is when you know its done. I add a little water to make it a little runny (my preference) enoy!

If you don't have a molcajete your SOL it will not taste good any other way.

If you don't know what a molcajete is here is a link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molcajete

[VinnysquidTX]

Used to find them growing wild in the marsh. We would dig them up and bring them home and plant in the back yard.

I put a clove of garlic and about 20 of them in an old hot sauce bottle, boil white vinegar, pour it in and cap it. Let sit for a week or two. Pretty good pepper sauce.

[brokeno]

Yep. Birds transplant them all the time. They are great. Drop two of the red ones in a pot of beans and watch out

[tex4k]

I've planted the whole dried pepper and got them to grow, have never had one survive a transplant though.

[bowmansdad]

We have had a couple of plants for the last 4 years or so, if it freezes they come back in the spring.

[Johnny Dangerr]

Two years ago I could not keep up with the bush pumping out peppers. This year nothing.....

[txbowkill]

Empty bottle of pepper sauce

1 teaspoon of salt in bottom

Fill with chilis

Fill bottle with hot white vinegar and let sit 2 weeks

Slap ya mama good

[TexOddball]

Yep, Chile pequins. They grow wild on our place out in the Hill Country, I’ve had success transplanting them, but only in the winter. You gotta get a lot of the roots, if it’s stem is the size of a pencil, your rootball needs to be about volleyball-sized. Water it, dig it up, get it to its new location within 48 hours, and keep the soil moist for the next month or so, just don’t let it dry out. It’s tricky because you don’t want it sitting in water, it’s gotta have drainage (think raised bed or large container), but you can’t let it go dry. A smaller plant will transplant much easier that an older one. Getting seeds to sprout is tougher, like mentioned above, the seeds need to be exposed to an acid environment. I gave some Chile pequins to a coworker one time, and when she asked me about getting the seeds to sprout I joked that they had to go through a bird first. She took that literally and fed some of the peppers to her parakeet, then sprouted them from the bird crap. If it works, it works I guess.

[Briar Friar]

Im rehashing this thread to post what Im going to do attempt germination.

I figure since the seeds need some sort of scarification and bird stomach acid is the most common method. I thought about feeding some peppers to my chickens then following them around for a week with a bucket collecting poop...not appealing. So...

https://www.backyardnature.net/birdguts.htm

Bird stomach acid pH apparently in the 2.4-2.6 range...and muriatic acid aka HCl is in the pH range of 3.0ish...Im going to mix in a ziploc bag some sand, Muriatic acid with some Chili Pequins (petin, Texas Bird Peppers, whatever) and let them sit for some (undetermined) length of time...maybe one bag for 1/2 an hour and another bag for 6hrs. Prolly shake the bags ever so often. Mechanical (sand) and chemical (acid) scarification of the seeds. Rinse with water then place back into more moist sand in a ziploc to sit it the kitchen window for germination. I hope it works out.

[Kbar]

White vinegar
And its non-toxic

[Tall0]

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