GROWING HOT THAI CHILI PEPPERS

Thai chili peppers are a hot pepper variety that are easy to grow and spicy
enough to pack a punch
the Thai chili pepper variety that we're growing today
is called Prik Kee Noo
and this is a very heavy producer
and produces in as little as 30 to 60 days
now let's look at the planting technique so this Thai chili pepper is also called the
ornamental Thai chili pepper because it also has a lot of ornamental value so
it's best grown in containers and that's what we're doing here we have this large
container and we're going to be planting our Thai chili pepper plant in this
container
now what you do is remove the peat pot and then plant it in this container
we are using a mix of peat moss compost worm castings and also sand i added a
little bit of sand
I realized that peppers grow very well when you add a little bit of sand in
your potting mix and make sure that the pH of the soil stays around 6 to 6.5
which is perfect for growing peppers
now some of you have asked a question whether ornamental peppers are edible
well the answer is yes and no yes because you need to make sure that you
check with the plant supplier that those peppers are edible
for example these hot peppers I verified it on the Bonnie website that these are
ornamental peppers are very much edible but if it specifically labeled as not
edible do not eat those peppers and within about a couple of weeks after
planting we had to downsize the container for this Thai chili plant to this
5 gallon container because we needed the larger container for a curry leaf plant
it's now july and you can see that the pepper plant is quite loaded with
peppers
so these peppers can be so directly in the soil
but if you're late in the season like if you're in July our june you can just get
a plant from your garden center and then plant it and as you can see here within
about 30 days
this plant is loaded with a lot of small chili peppers this small chili pepper
reminds me of the pequin pepper
it's a similar pepper variety a hot pepper variety
so this plan doubles up as not only a very beautiful looking ornamental plant
but it's also loaded with a lot of small peppers
now these peppers are not very large in size but they do make it up by producing
a lot of these small pods that you see here and these are extremely hot peppers
and if you let them go red their flavor or their heat increases even further
I like to harvest my peppers when they're green and I know one of you asked
me a question as to why do I always harvest my peppers when they're green
well it really depends on how you want your peppers to taste
I think there's a subtle difference in flavor when the peppers go from green to red
so if you want slightly hotter peppers you can wait tll they turn red like these and
they're still very hot, hotter than the green peppers that we're seeing here and
once again these are smaller in size but they are extremely hot they are about
50,000 to 100,000 units on the scoville unit which is a measurement of the
peppers heat index and it's a beautiful looking plant and as you can
see here we are not seeing any pests or diseases on this plant and as far as the
fertilizer goes
we did not add anything else to our potting mix adjust the compost and worm
castings to start with and that seemed to be enough nutrition for this pepper
plant now if you see deficiencies in your pepper plant
I would definitely advise
adding a tomato or vegetable fertilizer that works great for peppers as well
especially when the pepper is in the flowering stage
you do need to supply a lot of nutrients so make sure you're fertilizing your
plant well throughout the growing season
now for those of you who live in moderate temperature zones like
Southern California you can overwinter these peppers
you can just let them grow through the winters they might stop producing in the
winter season but they will come back up in the next spring season so it's a
great hardy pepper plant that you can grow through winters in a moderate areas
and once again this is how harvest looks like
as you can see a small peppers but they do pack a punch
so there we have it folks that was our episode on growing the Thai
chili peppers
if you have grown this pepper variety before do let us know
drop ing a comment we'll see you again soon... Goodbye