Growing Non-GMO Tabasco Hot Pepper Vegetable Seeds
How to Grow Tabasco Hot Pepper from Seed
Pepper is a heat-loving crop that does not perform well in shade or cold soils. Seeds are best if started indoors 4-6 weeks prior to final spring frost for transplanting. Sow 2-3 seeds 1/4" deep per cell or peat pot in fertile, Organically rich, and well-drained soil with a pH of 6.0-6.8. Seeds germinate in 7-21 days, transplanting best starts 12-18" apart in the garden or one plant per container.
Pepper plants thrive in pots and containers with a phosphorus-rich potting mix and will benefit from staking and support as they become top-heavy during fruit production.
Tabasco Pepper in the Vegetable Garden
Pepper is one of the most diverse, showy, and flavorful fruits grown in the annual garden bed. Available in nearly every possible color and shape from the super sweet to super spicy, pepper grows stronger and tastes better with a season of full sun and high heat. Pepper plants thrive in pots and containers and can even perennially overwinter in warm enough regions, maturing into bushy, vibrant, and well-stemmed patio favorites.
Plants grow up to four feet tall. Very prolific.
Harvesting Tabasco Hot Pepper
Some sweet and bell peppers can be harvested as soon as 60-70 days, but most hot varieties are ready about 100 days from sowing or when skin has changed color. Know the individual variety you are sowing to know when color has reached ripeness. Peppers can be picked early to ripen indoors or left to ripen and change color on the vine. Using a knife or shears, carefully snip off peppers while leaving some stem attached to the fruit. If working with hot peppers, wear gloves to avoid skin contact with capsaicin.
Tabasco is picked in the red stage for the spiciest flavor. Needs a great deal of heat and takes a while to start producing, but very heavy yielding once it does.
Tabasco peppers make a great hot sauce, and this is due to their juicy nature. Cook Tabasco peppers in vinegar, salt, and any other flavor enhancers. Some ideas include garlic, sugar, carrots, onion, and cilantro. Blend up cooked mixture, bottle, and ferment. Peppers can also be pickled and jarred to be preserved.
About Tabasco Hot Pepper Seeds
Capsicum frutescens. (80-90 days)
Around 1866, Edmund McIlhenny of Avery Island, Louisiana was given seeds to to a hot and spicy pepper that came from Mexico.
A few years later he used this pepper to create the now world famous Tabasco Sauce.
If you live in an area with long hot summers, you will not have a problem with Tabasco.
If not...
Some folks plant Tabasco early on in large pots and move them in if the weather is going to be too cold. tobasco peppers.
The original red variety of Tabasco pepper measures 30,000 - 50,000 Scoville Units
