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Ocho Cinco's rookie season

My superhot story started in late 2012. I was certain that the Mayan's were right and the world was going to end soon. To help ease my mind I decided to browse online for some seeds. I was on Baker Creek Seed companies page and I saw that they were selling ghost pepper seeds.  I was like, "Cool!"  I wanted to get some. I had never had anything hotter than a habanero before so I wanted to try growing some ghosts. I got to wondering if there was anything hotter than a ghost pepper so I googled it. Sure enough I found something hotter. Eventually I stumbled upon Pepper Joe's page. That's where I was first introduced to the Carolina Reaper. The "The NEW Worlds Hottest Champ as of the 8/27/12 Press Releases. It averaged 1,474,000 Scoville Heat Units".
I immediately knew that I had to have those seeds.
The Reaper began my new found love for superhots.
So, that's how it all began. I hope you enjoy reading about it. I had a great time gardening this year. 
Now I'll recap my 2013 season....................

This is my momma....
 
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She doesn't like posing for pictures. 
My birthday was coming up and she asked me what I wanted. I said, "Seeds."  She was like, "What? I ain't gettin' you no seeds. What so you really want?" Eventually she realized that I really wanted some seeds so she got them for me. I bought three kinds of Jalapenos and some Carolina Reapers from Pepper Joe. 
 
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I was very excited to get started but it was late November here in Northern Kentucky. I didn't have any grow lights or anything else to grow them inside and at a buck a seed I did not want to screw this up. So I waited.....and read......and learned. I bought a heating mat, a little greenhouse and some fluorescent shop lights. 
I planted my seeds on February 9th. I chose that date because it is the anniversary of my son's death. I wanted to do something positive that day. Ten days later I had these......
 
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Eventually seven out of my ten sprouted.

Here is a poor quality picture of one of my sprouts. This one had three cotyledon.
 
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My "babies" grew very slowly at first. My guess is that maybe the temps got too low for them sometimes. I had them in a south facing window in the warmest room in my house. Here they are one month after I planted the seeds.
 
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Here they are about a month and a half after planting the seeds. 
 
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The pyramid stack was meant to help save valuable space in my best south facing window. It was a terrible idea and nearly cost me my Reaper babies.
Things went well for me and my little plants. Here they are at 77 days since the seeds were planted. They were growing well.......
 
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I put one of these on Craig's List for $10. It sold a few days later. I was excited. I just made enough to pay for the seeds.
They grew even larger. Eventually I planted them into bigger containers. Two gallon buckets with some Happy Frog soil. 
I put another one on Craig's List. $25. 
 
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Two people were interested in this one. I sold it a few days later. The guy who bought it was very excited and satisfied with the quality of the plant. I couldn't believe that I just sold a pepper plant for $25!! 
 
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