[Eric in the Ozarks]

We grew Trinidad Scorpions last year. They were just too flat out hot to use straight up so I dried them in our little dehydrator and ground them into powder. Just a brief shake (from a salt shaker from Target) was enough to set fire to burgers or other fare. I gave a bunch to our local pizza guy and that's where this whole thing started.

You'll need a really good blender to grind up the dried peppers. I'm using an Omega 2500 which is a commercial machine. This unit has the power to grind chunks of asphalt. Dried peppers come out as dust. No chunks.

95 percent of our garden got started as seeds in early February. All the tomatoes and peppers have small produce, altho not quite ready. Two of the tomatoes fell over yesterday from the little bamboo sticks they were tied to.

Need to tie these up to the fence so they have something to grow on this summer.

[who knows what evil?]

I use cattle panels to trellis my tomatoes, and they work pretty well...the only problem is that any tomatoes that grow real tall no longer have support. (The idea came from 'JustaDumbBlonde', who no longer posts here.)

I run my super-hots thru an Excalibur dehydrator and then grind them. This is done in the garage or outdoors, as the dust and fumes render the interior of the house uninhabitable for some time.