Datil Be Some HOT Peppers!

After stripping my poor overworked datil pepper plant of a snack baggie of smaller than usual datil peppers, I made the decision that while driving home from this past weekend's Jacksonville parent visit, I would locate a datil pepper grower and buy some plants. Oh how exciting! Eleven datil peppers were purchased and are home now, waiting for transplanting into 5-gallon buckets.

I contacted several places that sell datil plants and was disappointed to hear "they won't be ready for 2-3 more weeks" from all of them. I called Uncle Paul''s St. Augustine home and was ever so lucky to get Jeannie on the phone. She is such a wonderful gawdenah (gosh I love her and her New England accent) and told me she heard that someone on Church Road sells them. It was a seven mile shot in the dark, but lo and behold, I found them!

Randy Haire at 5225 Church Roa d in St. Augustine, FL has a small greenhouse and a whole bunch of datil seedlings (not ready for a few weeks) and a whole bunch more of 1-2 year old plants that have been cut back for the winter to ten inches tall. They look great with a sturdy stalk, good healthy leaves, and some with datils and flowers. Randy and his wifesay, "Y'all come!" He asked me to tell everybody about his datils. He does not sell peppers, just the plants.

My lone datil had gotten stringy and limby and the peppers were growing smaller and smaller and turning orange too fast, so I went home and followed suite, cutting back my scraggly bush to a ten inch stump with a few leaves. Soon we will have a whole bunch of healthy full datil pepper plants with big green peppers.

A single pepper can season an entire pot of lima beans. I quick soaked a bag of dry limas, then added a few pork ribs (that I smoked a week ago and froze) and ONE datil pepper. I'll fish it out before we eat, or somebody will be on fire.