PirainoPeppers
PirainoPeppers
Cayenne [KI-yehn]. (Capsicum annuum). The Cayenne derived its name from the Tupi Indians of the Cayenne district of French Guiana, from whence the Portuguese transported it to Asia around 1500AD. The Cayenne chili is long and thin with a sharp point. Heat level is 7.
Somewhere down deep in my Tennessee roots I have a bit of a green thumb. Well,
that might be exaggerating a bit. Maybe I have a really pale green thumb
at best. From my Italian roots I have a serious affection for hot and spicy
peppers. What better way to mix the two than by growing a few peppers to eat or
cook.
Back in the spring of 2004, I got the idea that it would be nice to grow a
few peppers. We planted four little plants by the kitchen door and by late
summer had a whole bunch of peppers. Obviously we grew peppers faster than we
could eat them and I noticed that several were drying out (on the dining room
table) as they were waiting to be eaten. Why not crush a few to put on a nice
bowl of Sunday-after-church pasta? Wow. Into the fall of that same year we were
faced with the same dilemma we had faced with tomatoes the previous year: What
to do with the excess we had grown faster than we could eat. That is when we
came up with the idea of crushing and bottling the remains of the season. We
filled about eight bottles and gave them away to friends and family.
In 2005 we had a bumper crop even late into the season which made for a really
nice bottling year, bottling even more for friends and family. That year each
bottle had a number hand written on the label. This number represented the
number of peppers that was ground up to fill each bottle prior to it being
sealed. Every bottle contained between 50 and 80 peppers and each bottle also
contained two whole, un-ground peppers hidden inside each bottle.
The year 2006 was a more challenging year.
Starting off we had a couple of bad plants and ended up pretty much missing the
season. My mother saved the year by jumping in and adding her collection of
peppers for drying and bottling. We ended up having plenty of peppers for
bottling and ended up with more bottles to give away to friends and family.
2007: Wow. Between Mom's and our
harvests we have peppers-a-plenty for bottling, again adding more bottles than
the previous year. Below is a collection of photos from the 2007 crop during the
drying process prior to bottling. Note the stages of drying from the freshly
picked green to the mature dried red of the Cayenne. THANKS MOM for taking the
pictures and for helping with this year's harvest while I was traveling so much.
Year 2008 was a great year with a plentiful harvest and MORE bottles for friends and family!!
In 2009 we erected a greenhouse and got serious about this pepper hobby!! We added Jalapeno, and Habanero peppers to our line and had a serious year. We quickly learned the difference between the peppers in terms of growing, harvesting, and consuming. The habaneros certainly turned out quite hot towards the end of the season.
Be sure to visit the LABELS PAGE to see the history of the bottles from year to year.
