Monday, October 30, 2017

Growing Ghost peppers in PA! here is my experience with it

This was my first year growing ghost peppers, I was a little scared because I herd they are really hard to grow here in PA, but we ended up with a big healthy plant and many peppers to harvest. I do not know tons about ghost peppers plants but here is what I did, what I used and a little of what I do know.


~My ghost pepper plant was bought as a sprout from a local store. I was so surprised to see them I quickly grabbed one. It was about 5 inches high when bought.
~It was planted in May but for the first few months it did not grow really because a huge tomato  plant was blocking it from the sun. I did not know the tomato plant was going to get that big but the little sprout never died and once I pulled the tomato plant it grew quick.
~ I use old soil, soil for raised garden beds, and this was the first year I used compost from my bin. Other then that I threw in a little fertilizer every now and then.
~To be honest it wasn't a plant I expected to grow so I gave it little attention :/
~ I did not have any pest problems and never used any bug spray on this plant.

What I learned threw this growing season~
~Ghost peppers are great repellent, any peppers that  started to rot I just threw back into the garden. So far...no squirrels digging this fall...
~They love heat and humidity...some people grow these plants in containers so they can easily move them around but that can easily kill a plant....a green house would be perfect but sadly  I do not own one :/
~Plant as early as you can or start indoors. These plants take a long time to grow peppers and then the peppers take a long time to turn red on vine.
~From my experience with my peppers is that no matter the color all are hot BUT the hottest ones are the ones left one the plant to turn red.
~WEAR gloves!! I can not express this enough, these peppers are hot and washing your hands after handling will not clean all the pepper oil off...trust me...
~A plant can grow to over 3 feet tall once full grown..make sure to check out my video linked at the end to see how big mines got this season.
~They are originally from India and are also called Bhut Jolokia.

Either way if you want to try to grow these then do it! You never know what can happen.~

Here is a short video of my ghost pepper plant and small harvest.




Friday, October 6, 2017

Using pine needles to freshen up dishes!

This is something I am very happy I tried. We have a dishwasher, a old dishwasher that most of the time doesn't work really well. I always end up having to go over many of the dishes and that is just a waste of time and money. My dishes wee starting to look old and stained and becoming hard to get clean. So instead of throwing them away I decided ...after collecting some pine cones... to try this idea. After  I was done soaking my dishes with some soap I put clean water in and added the pine needles. I let it sit while I brought my son to school and when I came back I used the pine needles to scrub down the dishes and then just rinsed them off. Yes it is a extra step but a step that doesn't take long and had great results! My dishes came out very clean and some even smelled of pine, witch I did not mind. Just keep in mind not to cut any branches that have sap or bugs. lol I do not use pine every time my dishes need to be done but when ever I have a pot to scrub or my dishes need a little extra tlc it has become my first go to thing.
Did you know pine needles can also be used for tea? and is even a antibacterial.