Some eBayers asked me how to take care of the pepper plants I send to them.  First of all, make sure that you select a sunny location for your plant, peppers prefer sunny, warm conditions.  Unless you have an excellent garden soil, work in some compost or organic fertilizer (or a small amount of a fertilizer like 5-10-5 if you prefer).  The second number on the fertilizer bag stands for phosphorus and should be a higher number than the first number which is nitrogen.  Too much nitrogen (like lawn fertilizers will cause your plant to produce too many leaves).    Not enough phosphorus and you won't have as many fruit.  If you are used to growing tomatoes successfully you shouldn't have any problem with the pepper plant if you treat them similarly.  Water your pepper well when you plant it, some people like to use a fertilizer like Miracle Grow which has been adequately diluted for transplants but I just use plain water.  Weed control is always critical, don't allow you plant to get strangled by competitor plants.  If the plant looks like it needs water then you probably should water it but usually peppers get by with normal rains (an inch a week or so).  Avoid a situation where the soil becomes waterlogged or too wet.  Peppers need good drainage.  Some peppers are slow growers at first.  If you live in an area that gets early frosts you may want to consider planting it in a container (five gallons of soil per container is a minimum size for this kind of plant to support it's root growth at maturity).   When fall conditions become chilly and frost threatens, you can simply bring the container inside or  move it to a warm protected area.  In that way you will be able to prolong the ripening of fruit.  Here on Long Island, habaneros will bear a large crop of ripe red peppers by late August and into mid October.   We overwintered quite a few of our most ornamental hot peppers in a warm sunny closed patio (a greenhouse is even better).  By mid-winter they had ripened all their fruit and appeared to go dormant but in spring there was a new flush of flower buds on most of the plants!

I ordered seed for the Naga Jolakia Pepper (winner of the Guinness Record for hottness) as well as quite a few other kinds of peppers from the Chili Pepper Institute. They are a non-profit extension of the University of New Mexico. New Mexico is a hot bed of chili pepper breeding and most of the green chilis you consume were probably developed at the University. Even though the Naga seed was slow to germinate I produced way more plants than I can use. Anyway, that's the main reason I'm selling on Ebay! In the future, I may sell seed or plants of some of the interesting veggie varieties we've developed at the farm. Keep watching! Why grow an almost combustable pepper that was allegedly investigated by the Indian Government Weapons Division for it's near mace-like attributes? Good Question, one that I'm asking myself too. The more I learn about the fruit the more I think that I PROBABLY WILL NOT be using them in my cooking. From what I read, they can be really dangerous if handled improperly (respiratory issues, temporary blindness if juice is introduced to the eye, etc.) This is one veggie you'll want to keep away from the kids. So, you thought I was going to answer this question? No, I leave it to you. Why grow the world's hottest pepper?