Where to get the seeds I actually want.

[pomerinke]

Hello everyone,
Is like to get some recommendations on where I can get some jolokia peppers. (or anything comparable)
I ordered some seeds from Amazon a few months ago, and started growing, but they ended up not being jolokia like I thought and was told they were. Turns out they were red habaneros.
I'd like to grow something extremely hot. I've always wanted to make my own hot sauce, so I guess I can practice with the habanero.
So, any trusted sources that you use would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for any help in advance.

-- Pomer

[webmaster]

Apparently it's difficult to obtain a consistent source of Ghost Pepper seeds out of India. However Pepper Joes found a reliable supplier and then supplemented that with other confirmed quality strains, like a giant bhut jolokia pepper that found was cultivated at the University of New Mexico from seeds originally from India. Give Pepper Joes a try, they're a reliable and reputable vendor of pepper seeds, they've been in business for many years.

[imafan26]

If you buy seeds from a reputable company and they turn out not to be as advertised most will refund or send you new seeds if they have them.

Getting the wrong seeds and empty seed packets happens. If you garden long enough you will probably encounter this too. It doesn't mean the company is bad, it happens to the best of them. I ordered yellow brandywine from Burpee and people complained because they got a red tomato, so Burpee sent new seeds and an apology letter to all the customers who purchased those seeds from them, even those like me who hadn't even planted the seeds yet.

Bhut Jolokia seeds are becoming easier to find now and Pepper Joes is a good source.

[pomerinke]

I appreciate the information. I will definitely try pepper Joe's. I would have contacted the company, but I bought the seeds from seeds direct in 2013, and now I've looked into, I guess they are extremely unreliable. (It's been so long because a whole bag of fertilizer got spilled into the pot, and killed the plant. I put it on the porch and at the end of last summer it started sprouting leaves again)

Again, appreciate the responses. And I'm glad I found this forum.

[3 Pound Tomato]

When do you plant your seeds?

[ElizabethB]

Hello Pomerinke - warm welcome to the forum.

The advice on ordering direct from Pepper Joe's is spot on.

Have you made hot sauce with some of the extremely hot peppers like Habanera?

I do not intend to sound condescending. I am sure you have done your home work on handling super hot peppers.

Handling Habanera and Bhut Jolokia requires a commercial kitchen with lots of ventilation and military quality personal protection - gloves, aprons, eye protection and air breathers.

Several years ago a friend of mine had a jelly/jam shop in a neighboring community. A local football player, Jake Delhomme was drafted by the pros. Sandy decided to make an Habanera Pepper Jelly that she named "Red Hot Jake Pepper Jelly". She made a lot and sold a lot but the investment in personal protection ate up a lot of her profits.

Please be careful.

Bhut Jolokia is so hot that it could qualify as a weapon.

I hope you find your seeds.

Good luck and again - welcome to the forum.

[pomerinke]

@3 pound tomato, I originally planned in the summer of 2014 (the seeds took months to get to me)

@ElizabethB, I appreciate your concern. I haven't cut any if these peppers yet, I harvest them and put them in freezer bags at the moment. Habaneros don't concern me too much. My wife stays away. And as a kid, my parents grew red chili peppers. Me and my sister used to try to eat more than the other before we puked. Most hot sauce doesn't bother me too much. I have about ten different bottles from hotsauce.com that I use in an almost daily basis.
I did first start getting suspicious of the plant when it didn't even smell spicy.
I would of course be wary of jolokia. But these definitely are not.

@raindog, I appreciate your pm, but I guess I haven't been active enough since I just joined to be able to respond to pms yet.

[3 Pound Tomato]

I have the hottest seeds as I have been growing the super hots for quite a few years. Jay's peach, moruga scorpion, Butch T, Carolina reaper, etc. Is it hard to send packages to Japan?

[imafan26]

I was told it is always a good plan to wear gloves when handling peppers or the seeds.

When I forget, and touch my face or eyes, I am reminded painfully.

[pomerinke]

I work on a military base, so I have an American P. O. box. I've never had trouble shipping seeds before.

[imafan26]

You are in Okinawa. Some states and the dept of Agriculture have interstate and foreign laws that restrict the transport of living organisms like seeds, plants and animals. Even shipping seeds can be dicey. For example rape and convolvulus are restricted and cannot be shipped to the states and for me to ship to Canada I had to fill out a customs form as well.

[pomerinke]

It is still necessary to fill out a customs form, but I can't think of any pepper seeds that are restricted. Some things are restricted like lady bugs and other plant aiding bugs, even certain electronics are restricted. But seeds have never been a problem.

[pomerinke]

I believe it also doesn't cost extra.

[3 Pound Tomato]

Do you need the seeds now? When is the growing season in Japan?

[pomerinke]

I pm'd you just a minute ago, but I believe the growing season is year round. I have a tomato plant that I planned in January, and it's doing just fine. I'm not on mainland Japan, I'm on a tropical island to the south.

[Peter1142]

What happens if you screw up handling the super hots? I don't think the capsaicin can do permanent damage? Only temporary pain... but feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

I recommend Johnny's Selected Seeds for seeds in general, I have never grown super hots.

[imafan26]

When handling hot pepper seeds or pods, always wear gloves. Even the ones that are not the super hots will cause you pain if you touch your face or eyes. And it will last for a long time.

[HoneyBerry]

I cut up some cute little orange habaneros and the oils stayed on my hands for weeks, would not wash off. Hot peppers can be really powerful.

[Greywolf]

A new supplier that I am going with this year is:

http://www.chiliplants.com

They have over 500 varieties of peppers, both seeds and live plants and tout themselves as "The Worlds Largest Selection of Chile and Sweet Pepper Plants"

Hmmm.... (I'm leafing through their paper catalog) on the back it states:
500 Varieties of Chile and Sweet peppers, 186 Tomatoes & 65 Eggplants
50+ Tomato seeds, and 120+ Pepper Seeds


~They were recommended by the guy on YOUTUBE who does the "Grow Your Greens" videos
PS: I just checked all the links I have showed you, and YES! Chiliplants.com has a BHUT JOLOKIA that looks like an extra long red habanero. Was this what you were looking for?



Now, for herbs and rare medicinal and related plants there is a place in Oregon that has helped me a number of times.
The owner, "Richo" Cech travels the world looking for special plants and seeds of all sorts. here is that one:

http://www.horizonherbs.com


Also - for specialty ASIAN plants and vegetables such as Pak Choi, Malabar Spinach (both green and red), Snow Peas, and even RICE! I highly recommend Kitazawa Seed Company

http://www.kitazawaseed.com

*Kitazawa Seeds are proud of their traditional "Dento Yasai" heirloom quality varieties for traditional oriental produce, and rightfully so.

I believe that none of these will dissappoint

[imafan26]

You are in Okinawa, that is further south and most Okinawans don't really like being called Japanese. They like to keep their cultural identity. You may need to hunt a few places to find one that ships overseas. Australia is nearby but the companies I looked up there restrict their sales to Australia. If you don't have import restrictions maybe you can have someone you know mail the seeds to you if they don't have export restrictions. The only other way I can think of is to try to network with other people in the area and see if someone locally has seeds. You can try a personal ad. You are actually sub tropical, frost free so you should be able to grow peppers year round. You get more rain so you may have to use more fungicides because of the humidity.

[Greywolf]

It IS possible to "BACK CHANNEL" yes, but by doing so you are going around species protection in the local area - and you really ought to beware of that.

But PEPPER seeds can only be spread by deliberate planting - so I would think no harm might be done. They are not "AERIALLY" distributed by the plants, nor do they propagate by roots. The seeds are quite heavy and only fall from pepper pods

I should think you would be quite safe about that, and no harm come of it.

If possible, it may be wise to check into the local regulations and import restrictions.
*Do that online

[pomerinke]

Thanks all!

I realize the thread is almost a year old, but I lost the link and couldn't remember the name of the forum. After a recent fight with my ignorance, (overwatering. Thanks imafan for your insight) I finally put my effort into the grueling task of going through all of my email to find the link.

As for customs and shipping seeds. I've looked a bit more into it, and anything that comes over is inspected by customs. Even through the American postal system by proxy on the military base, there is still nothing that could get through if the Japanese government wanted to restrict it.

I do leave my plants outside, even right now because as was mentioned, it is a sub-tropical island.

@imafan. I was pretty impressed with your knowledge of Okinawa. Have you been here before?

[Gary350]

I buy peppers at the grocery store, eat the pepper save the seeds. Do a test planting in a pot inside the house before garden season. I get a lot of seed from grocery store vegetables. FREE seeds.

[pomerinke]

I've done that with tomatoes before. I ended up getting some heirlooms this year, so no need.
The problem for me with doing it that way is I was looking for the super hots. They don't have them at the stores around here.
I ended up finding a reliable supplier, so I should have some growing pretty soon.

[pepperhead212]

For those who handle a lot of peppers, washing with Gojo, or other similar items, used for washing auto grease from your hands, helps to get pepper oils off your hands.

[gumbo2176]

I've been making my own hot sauces for years now and I do give a good bit of it away to folks that like such things. I've used Ghost Peppers, Trinidad Scorpion Butch T's, Habaneros, and for milder pepper sauce, I use a mix of jalapeno, cayenne and some others in the 100K Scoville heat range.

I make this stuff in my home kitchen and use my blender and a stainless steel pot to process the sauce when it comes out of the blender and cook it down to make sure all the seasonings are well blended before putting it up.

The only time I use latex gloves is when cutting up the hot peppers for pepper jelly as I remove the seeds and pith then mince them, along with red, green and yellow bell peppers.

However, for my hot sauces, all I remove from the pepper is a bit of the stem end and process the whole peppers with some onion, garlic, lemon juice, salt and vinegar. This is pureed in my blender until it is liquefied and pretty free flowing when poured in the stainless pot to cook it down for about 20 minutes at a low boil before placing= it in jars and then put in a boiling water bath.

I probably make between 3-4 gallons of sauces in the summer months when my peppers are going crazy.

[rainbowgardener]

and then what do you DO with three or four gallons of pretty hot hot sauce? Do you sell it?

It's always a problem for me with my jellies. I love to make lots of different floral and herbal jellies, but I end up with lots more jars of jelly than I know what to do with!

[imafan26]

I just revisited this thread.
The newer pepper hybrids are not always stable. I have gotten Bhut Jolokia that had no heat. I also talked to some pepperheads I know and said it happens to them too. I have a lot of problems with Jalapenos because of inconsistent heat levels within the same variety and on the same plant even. Over time the peppers should become more stable. At least seeds are easier to come by now and they are not as expensive as they were before.

What I found with the super hots from India was that they needed really warm temperatures for good germination. The ghost peppers germinated much better when the temp was 80 degrees and almost nil when the temperature was in the sixties. Trinidad scorpion was not that fussy and still germinated well in the 70's. Most of my peppers of any kind germinated best when the temperature was between 75-85 and the minimum temperature for germination was around 68 degrees.

Peppers actually do get spread here by birds, but they usually go after the smaller, hotter peppers.

[gumbo2176]

and then what do you DO with three or four gallons of pretty hot hot sauce? Do you sell it?

It's always a problem for me with my jellies. I love to make lots of different floral and herbal jellies, but I end up with lots more jars of jelly than I know what to do with!

It sounds like a lot, but I probably eat over a gallon of it every year by going through a pint or more a month. The rest I give to folks that love the hot stuff. I have a few lady friends from Texas that have a fondness for Habaneros and they love it. Then there's a lot of fellow Cajun types that seem to favor it over Tabasco, Crystal and other commercially produced sauces.

My pepper jelly is hotter than most because I use habanero and Trinidad Scorpion Butch T peppers in it and I can't make enough of it if I were to give it away to those that want it. Most love it with crackers, Philadelphia Cream Cheese and the jelly as a snack. It is also good to use as a rub when smoking pork and when I make my jelly, I will purposely not use as much Pectin so it doesn't set as firm so it can be used like a rub.

[dragonthumbs]

Have you tried Baker's Creek?

they are very reasonably priced and have pepper seeds that I myself have never seen or heard of before. They are very good and very knowledgeable when it comes to their products and travel the world in search of new seeds. They are also GMO free and try to be as organic as possible.

www.rareseeds.com

give them a try, they got your ghost pepper seeds, caroline reapers and scorpion trinidads