Tis’ the season to grow chile peppers! For me, this season is just like christmas (if not better). Now that we’ve moved to New York, I have absolutely no backyard, but that’s not going to stop me from getting my share of fresh peppers this year. I was inspired last night while trying to find a recipe to cook this weekend, one of the ones I was looking forward to requires cayenne peppers and the local stores around midtown don’t carry anything but habaneros (thank god!) and jalapenos. I know there has to be some place in New York that has a wealth of peppers, but that too will require a lot of hunting around - So i decided to do things the hard way and grow my own.

I’ve refered quite a few people to Cross Country Nursery, simply becuase of the sheer volume of chile pepper plants they have on their site, so this time around I decided to check them out myself. The only issue I have with them is that the minimum order was 12 plants, so that’s going to be a lot of plants in our small space. I’ll have to bring some into the office, it’ll probably be the only chile pepper plant 55 stories above New York!

So, since the minimum order was more then I was initially planning on getting, I went hog wild and got a pretty wide variety of peppers.

CAYENNE SUPER II HYBRID
CHILTEPIN
HABANERO-RED SAVINA
SCOTCH BONNET RED
TABASCO STANDARD

The plants won’t be arriving until early May, but that gives me plenty of time to figure out how I’m going to pot them and where, plus assemble the supplies I will need. And there’s even more good news! I’ve talked the wife into letting me get not one, but two blenders. One for her and her margarita’s and one for me and my hot sauces and other spicy concoctions! Wooohoo!

Oh, and I got TiVo for my birthday…