Some Like It Hot
It’s nice to know that when lettuce starts to wilt and vine borers polish off the squash, some edibles will always be there for us. Hot peppers are the stars of the summer garden and easy to grow. They like it hot, and they deliver hot flavor. Chilies need full sun, as you might imagine, good drainage and fertile soil. Plant them away from tomatoes, eggplants and potatoes, which are in the same family and susceptible to the same diseases. Pests rarely bother the fruit.
No matter how much you love hot peppers, you can only eat so many fresh. Thankfully, they preserve well. Dry them whole, grind them for spices, make jelly, can them and, of course, pickle them. You can also smoke them. Chipotle peppers, a trendy culinary ingredient, are actually smoked jalapenos.
Besides tasting great, chilies are also attractive dried and hung in strings or bunches. Long, skinny peppers look hot in fresh flower arrangements. Use a stem from a Tabasco plant when the clusters of fruit are in varying states of ripeness—red, orange and yellow.