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Hot Doc Talks Peppers
 I currently have 135 hot pepper plants, 12 shoots of garlic, and 4 horseradish plants in my garden. I like peppers (picture to the left is last years meager 85 plants). And I order my pepper plants from www.dubarfamilyfarms.com.
It wasn’t always like that though. When I lived in the Chicago area, and was only growing hot peppers casually, I would go to the local nurseries and other places to buy hot pepper plants. One year, I was devastated. I bought mostly habanero plants (at least they were marked habanero), some cayenne pepper plants, and a few jalapeno plants—about 20 plants in all. It wasn’t until mid-late June that it was readily apparent that most of my pepper plants were NOT hot peppers, but Cubanella plants. Cubanella peppers rank just a little bit hotter than tap water on the Scoville scale. I went everywhere to find habanera plants, but to no avail. No one had ANY hot pepper plants. I was going to have a miserable year WITHOUT significantly hot peppers. And then, depression set in.
Fortunately for me, I moved back to the Pendleton-Anderson, Indiana area just in time for my 20-year high school reunion. There I met up with a friend from high school, Dana (Starks) Dunbar. As it would turn out, she and her husband have their own nursery and can grow just about anything. Anything, I tell you.
Ever since then, I buy my peppers from the Dunbar Family Farms in the Waynetown, Indiana area. When I say I buy my peppers from Dana, I do not mean I buy only the regular variety of peppers you can buy anywhere. I get EXOTIC peppers. Dana knows peppers. I know she knows peppers, because she schooled me in them.
 In terms of the habanero pepper plants, Dana has provided me with the standard orange habanero. But then, she has also provided me with the chocolate habanero, vanilla habanero, red savina habanero, and the hottest habanero of them all—the Carribean red habanero. I had little idea there were five types of habanero peppers, let alone that I could actually get my hands on all five types.
Other “different” hot peppers I have acquired from Dana are the scotch bonnets, the peter pepper (looks like an uncircumcised phallis), and Thai hots. She has fatalii peppers, Charleston hots, cayenne, jalapeno, serano, red mushroom, tabasco, and I’m certain I’m leaving some of them out. If there’s a pepper, chances are Dana can get it!
The Charleston hots are just about the perfect blend of decent heat and taste. I highly recommend the Charleston hot. If there is only one type of exotic pepper you want to try out, make it a Charleston hot. Red mushroom peppers have pretty good heat, and honestly look like a mushroom. Similar to the Charleston hot, fatalii peppers also have a good heat and taste combination.
 And don’t forget that the Thai hot pepper plants can be fashioned into something of a floral bouquet. I gave my girlfriend, Lezlie Johnson, a bouquet of Thai hots on her birthday, and honestly, she appreciated it. It was the gift that kept on giving. She placed the bouquet in a decorative bowl in the kitchen and allowed the peppers to dry. For months, when she needed a little extra kick to a dish, she would just go over to the bouquet, pick off a dried pepper or two, and add it to the dish. It was purdy AND functional.
Not only is the variety of peppers from Dunbar Family Farms impressive, the quality of those plants is equally impressive. I have NEVER lost a Dunbar plant due to an unhealthy seedling. They won’t allow it. And this is my fourth year buying plants from Dunbar. So, go to their website (www.dunbarfamilyfarms.com), snoop around their offerings, and enhance your garden with some Dunbar plants next year.
Yes, I credit Dunbar Family Farms with the somewhat unique taste of Hot Doc’s Hot Sauce. Anyone can put standard habanero peppers in their sauce, but putting a blend of different peppers in the sauce really improves the taste. Dunbar is one of the reasons Hot Doc’s prides itself on heat AND taste.
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