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P. Dreadie Memorial Group Grow 2016

Long-time THP veterans mourned the loss last August of Amarillo, Texas musician/songwriter/silversmith/chilehead Erin Mason, known to us here on the boards as P. Dreadie. Erin was an enigma, one of the most interesting and creative, yet gentle and loving guys I ever knew. Many of us may be unaware that he played harmonica in one of the original Austin, Texas bands of the early 1970s "Cosmic Cowboy" era, Alvin Crow and the Pleasant Valley Boys. When Erin decided to step off of Alvin's perpetually-touring bus and return to Amarillo, he travelled to Jamaica, fell in love with the Reggae beat, collected the best Scotch Bonnet fruit he could find, and his alter-ego Papa Dreadie was born.

In 2013 Erin sent me a few pods of the Scotch Bonnets he had been breeding, carefully selected descendants of the original fruit he brought back from the Caribbean all those years ago. I harvested every single seed from those pods, and stored them away, as I focused increasing attention on other varieties. When his wife Liz gave us the news last August that Erin had passed, I knew what I had to do with those seeds: a community grow in his memory. I have already shared about half of them, and I will continue to share them with experienced growers of the Scotch Bonnet until they are gone.

Papa Dreadie Scotch Bonnet Select, grown by Erin in 2013:

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Lifetime memories posted by Liz Mason on Erin's FB page. Liz is an extremely talented professional photographer:

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The legendary bus:

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My PD babies... the fourth seed in the right pot is apparently not germinating. In the left pot (sown later) one is up and if you look carefully you can see a second one emerging. At this moment these are the only seedlings I have as I eliminated all the other seedlings that I had growing (or better - not growing). I have seeds of other varieties in the soil again but in the (hopefully unlikely) case that none would germinate I'll have at least five papa dreadie plants to fill my 2022 season. I do like that idea actually 😊

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Sorry to hear about your other plants not making it, @MarcV.
But, it's great that ou will have five Papa Dreadies to carry
on with. Did you replant the others with the same varieties?
 
A 6th papa is already emerging 😉
But at least one of the other varieties is germinating now too...
 
Planted out the 2 large Papa Dreadies in their own pots. I will only keep these two, if all goes well they should provide me with more pods than I can handle. My freezer is still filled with pods from last season and that was from 3 plants only...

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In the mean time my overwintered "commercial" Papa Dreadie is doing fine also. It has been flowering all winter but no fruits have been set. In the mean time it's getting warmer now in the veranda where the overwinterers are and the plants are starting to flush out now. I wonder if they will start to set fruit also... 🤔
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That should be a great plant this summer!
 
Would anyone happen to have any spare seeds? I'd love to try to grow this variety, it came highly recommended. Just getting back into growing after a long hiatus and MoA SB's are my current fav.
 
Would anyone happen to have any spare seeds? I'd love to try to grow this variety, it came highly recommended. Just getting back into growing after a long hiatus and MoA SB's are my current fav.
Hey Brandon, yes, send me your snail mail details.
 
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