Dried Cayenne Peppers

      I don't know why I tried growing Cayenne peppers two years ago, as we did not think we liked hot peppers.  It was probably that the plants or seeds were on sale and I couldn't refuse a bargain.  Don't they make pretty dangly red peppers; I could grow them as an ornamental.  The first year they grew much better than sweet peppers, and I must have brought a whole plant onto the porch just before killing frost.  They dried by themselves, so we had a supply of dried hot peppers.  And found out they were quite good as pepper shavings in dishes that needed a little spicing up.  This past season, they did well again, and again I pulled the whole plants at the last minute, as in that freak Halloween snow event last year:

If only they had waited till Christmas

      The plants were hung upside down on the porch, and ignored other than sweeping up the fallen leaves.  But now the paper towel germination has been so successful, that I need every bit of space and more for the new veggie starts.

Dried Cayenne Peppers on porch,  2/7/2012

      That empty space behind the peppers is prime real estate, so it was time to pull off the dried peppers.  I put them into two jars, one with the perfect peppers for eating, and one with blemished peppers to be kept for possible bug spray.  I used one pepper on January 17th for seeds as I started eight different varieties of peppers.  The cayenne germinated in only five days, well ahead of any of the commercial seeds.  So I have great hot peppers, and they are free to boot.

Perfect, deep red peppers on the right