@smallcircles
Oh.. well... TBH this is an experiment. I do it this early because of the climate change in here. In the past we used to have frost around the middle of may, but the last years this didn't happen anymore. Last year I I started in the end of March, but this wasn't a good idea, so this year I decided to start earlier 🙂

@opensourcegardens

I am in the Netherlands. Not really the best climate to grow peppers, but I've seen with a friend how long they grow in the season. And the chocolate peppers only turned purple deep in autumn. But those peppers were planted, I think in May.

So maybe I'll be early with one batch, keep them indoors for now, and then sow a second batch later.

@smallcircles
Yeah, that sounds good 🙂
I live in Berlin and only have quite a small balcony and because of space limitation I can't do such as described by you, but I can try things out and compare if I do it that way in a year and the other way the next year 🙂

The good is that I have a lot of sun on my balcony. From the mornings till the afternoons 🙂 Also my flat is on the third floor, so late frost isn't such a big thing in my situation... I'm excited 🙂

@opensourcegardens

My sun conditions aren't optimal, but I also have some shared space with neighbors where I may be able to 'guerilla sow' some hot peppers, he he.

I find the Carolina Reapers aren't as hot as one might expect, but they have a great taste and when baked crispy with a lotta oil you get a fantastic hot sauce.

So yea, exciting :)

I buy peppers from Westland, greenhouse area near The Hague: https://shop.westlandpeppers.com/en/spiciness/super-hot

@smallcircles
I personnally don't like carolina reapers. Well... to be accurate I should say that I didn't like caroline reapler, because since quite a long time I can't eat hot stuff anymore, because of my stomach. Also peppers like habanero or less hot ones are too much, but that time when I still was able to eat hot things, I didn't really like caroline reapers.
I didn't like their hotness. I think their hotness hurts like pin pricks. I preferred peppers like Bubblegum or Trinidad Scorpion. A little bit less hot compared to Carolina Reaper, but then I used a few more peppers to get the level of hotness I wanted and it because of different mixture of capsaicinoids the hotness doesn't hurt like pins 🙂 And in my opinion the Bubblegum Chili is even better in taste compared to Carolina Reaper, because it is very fruity. Also the effect of the composition of capsaicinoids in Bubblegum was great. Do you know the feeling of that "high" caused by capsaicin? That time we ate the chili with Bubblegum peppers we all had a great mood - we laughed and felt a kind of happiness which was kind of more intense and better compared to other sorts. That's why I'm such a huge fan of Bubblegum chilis 🙂 I can really recommend to try them one day 🙂

oh, that is interesting. Certainly going to try these out.

What attracts me to the Carolina's was that more earthly taste which I find hard to describe. And they have a long slow burn.. at least the ones I tasted thus far. Didn't experience pin pricks. But I guess pepper hotness depends a lot on climate and amount of sun they received.

Carolina's mix well in some foods without taking the upper hand in terms of taste. So e.g. yellow Madame Jeanette are fruity but influence your dish a lot.

@stiofi
Hi 🙂 Most of the seeds that I have got are from OpenSourceGardens - but I also bought some directly from breeders.

There are several ways to get seeds. We at
@opensourcegardens used to send out starter kits. OpenSourceGardens is a kind of group of people who like to support OpenSourceSeeds. So you could contact us to get some seeds - another way is to get in touch with the breeders. And there are also other growers or resellers.

Here you can find more information:

https://opensourcegardens.info/seeds.en.html

https://opensourceseeds.org/en/Find%20varieties

🙂

Brilliant! Thanking you. Might buy some for my sisters who have more than a small balcony to grow on.