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Chiltepin Economics: How To Get More Bang For The Buck!u

Hey Everyone!

Over the past few weeks, I have planted samples of chiltepin seeds from the different plants around Tucson (and one set from Nogales, Sonora) I collected. One of the best results so far happen to be from a collection that I had serious reservations about.

Back in April or May, I learned from a produce manager at a local Hispanic grocer that there was/is a severe chiltepin shortage this year. At the time, I was making my chiltepin salsa at least once a week for a certain Congressman's campaign that I was working for. Realizing that I might run out of chiltepins before the end of the election, and not having any for myself afterwards, I went into a panic-buy mode. All of the grocers were out of chiltepins. But then I remembered the retail store of Native Seed Search, which is here in Tucson, as they have a few food products.

Sure enough, Native Seed Search had jars of chiltepins for sale! I thought they were expensive at the time, being $7 for a 1 ounce jar. Now, when you happen to find chiltepins for sale in the area (which is rare), they go for about $12 an ounce...Except at Native Seed Search! I was there a week ago, and they still have a supply of their jarred chiltepins at $7 each. I guess they didn't get the memo.

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So I purchased three of the jars of chiltepins. The volunteer at the counter (they're a non-profit) told me that it might be possible to grow some chiltepins from those in the jar, but she wasn't sure. Meanwhile, just a month before I had purchased a pack of Native Seed Search's chiltepin seeds for $4.95, which contained 26 seeds.

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When I decided to test each of the batches of seeds I had collected, I decided to test seeds from the jarred chiltepins as well, even though I had my doubts. Well, it appears that those seeds did quite well. The middle six, with the three nice starts, are from the seed jar.

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Each 1 ounce jar contains between 250 and 300 chiltepins. I recently seeded the 266 chiltepins I picked at a local park and had about 4,500 seeds, so I'm guessing that there are a few thousand chiltepin seeds in each jar. Meanwhile, the chiltepin packet basically costs about 20 cents per seed. Quite a difference.

I've read that all chiltepins are sun dried, but I wasn't so sure that was actually the case. I personally used my dehydrator to quickly dry the ones I picked off my own plants this year (they were next to some piquin plants, so they were probably crossed anyway).

As a side note, the row just in front of the sprouts from the jarred chiltepins are from seeds I collected from this very unkept chiltepin plant in someone's front yard down in the South part of Tucson. A few branches were poking out of the fence, so I picked a few. After all, it looked like no one had tended that plant for a long time. I didn't put much faith into those seeds. But they are also doing quite well!

In the past, I've bought some other varieties of dried peppers at different grocery stores, and I've been able to sprout seeds from some of the varieties, while others wouldn't sprout.
 
I grew Chiltepin Amarillo this year without planting any. 3 plants grew from seeds that escaped pods that dropped end of the 2011 season. I can say each one has 45 - 55 seeds in almost all cases and I harvested a thousand or more. These are by far the most prolific I grow with some Thai and the White Habanero coming in close second. Good info above and they taste great as well!
 
I've actually never had these before but they sound awesome. I'm glad I planned on growing some next season!
 
They ARE awesome! They're a part of the local Latino cuisine here. Restaurants in the Latino neighborhoods will have small containers of chiltepins for customers to crumble up into their soup and other dishes (except now, because of the shortage). They're quite hot, with the heat hitting you fast, and then fading away much quicker than other chilies. The chiltepin is the mother of all Capsicum Annuum varieties.
 
Chiltepin are still one of my favorite wild varieties of all time. They do take a bit longer to germinate than some other annuums but they are quite hardy little plants.
 
I'll be growing chiltepins and pequins this spring.

I also buy Mama Lycha pickled chiltepins for cheapness at a Mexican mercado called Fiesta Mart.

They come out of El Salvador.

Mi gusto mucho.
 
I am gonna have to look for those pickled ones, they look like I would muy gusto them too.
 
I grew up eating chiltepins, my dad would often head out with a few friends to hunt wild pigs, deer or turkey, and would often come home with a paper bag full of peppers. I like their flavor, but spending a hour picking pea size peppers by the hundreds wear me out. I found it was a lot easier to pull my plants and hang them in the sun then shake the plants over a tarp for easy harvest. I don't recommend this practice for wild plants as it could be illegal to take whole plants from the wild, and you might piss off people who collect the pods. I do a lot of gorilla planting and have some good places where they self seed every year. I plan to do some Bhuts to see if I can get some wild stands that will self seed.
 
the wife and kids pulled out the fake christmas tree, set it up and decorated it. 3 feet from the tree was my tepin plant, it stands about 3 feet tall, so i went to the decoration box, pulled out some ribbon and yep, decorated my tepin. it is not strong enough to support lights but perhaps one of those directional solar LEDs would look nice in the planter.
 
I like them but this last season couldn't get any to germ. The Cumari Do Para I grew was a good stand in but not the same.
 
Chile Tepin or Pequin are about $2.50 for a 6in x 3 inch bag full (Don't remember the weight or the company that packages them) here in the Mexican markets.
 
Chile Pequin is available in our grocery stores, with a 1/4 ounce bag going for around $2.50. But pequins are nothing like the chiltepin. If you find chiltepins for $2.50 a quarter ounce, you're getting one hell of a deal! The freeze we had here in the Southwest a few winters ago killed off a lot of the chiltepin plants (as well as many other plants). Eventually, the supply should come back, assuming that we don't have any more freak freezes!
 
You should think about starting a few plants here and there if you take walks, or if there any mountains or areas with scrub trees that you could visit off and on just to see if they made it then the following year you could check on them and pick a few pods if they are ready. With enough time you could have large stands in the wild again. With luck I should have a few wild stands here that I gorilla planted and watched this summer I picked a couple handfuls leaving enough to hopefully come up next year. Picking my own from wild stands are better than the ones in my garden, as they are smaller and seem to have more flavor with a real kick.
 
I am going to plant a dozen or more in an easement behind my yard as well as take a bunch of dried pods to where I hunt in Va and drop them all over. Should be interesting.
 
[background=rgb(255, 244, 228)]I have a tepin for a [/background][background=rgb(255, 244, 228)]Christmas tree[/background][background=rgb(255, 244, 228)] too...lol[/background]
great Canadians think alike

[background=rgb(255, 244, 228)] I do a lot of gorilla planting[/background]
i think that is a good idea, you can't always depend on birds. our city parks have community gardens set up that allow something similar.

the post author asked:
(it is hard to see the multicolour ribbon, perhaps i should have used that fake ice cycle stuff and drapped it over)

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All good! I saved seed from Joyner's Amarillo. They seemed really large. I'm hoping they grow. Gorilla planting sounds very fun. Thanks for the idea. Every Hackberry tree gets a seed!
 
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