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:

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

The legendary bus:

 

[MarcV]

The first ripe papa dreadie. All pods are about this size and it looks like they're going to stay that way, thanks to the low temperatures I guess...

I ate the pod. There was heat but not a lot. Taste was very sweet. I liked it

 

[MarcV]

...and another papa dreadie is "readie"
It's larger than the first one but still quite small...

 

[MarcV]

As already posted in my grow log, I had a small disaster today with my papa dreadie plant. I wanted to put it in a nice spot to take some pictures, and at the moment I put the plant down, one of the main branches broke off!

The branch was heavily loaded with pods and unfortunately I did not tie the plant up to protect it from this kind of disasters. It's a real pity as this was a very nice balanced plant. But looking at the wound, this was unavoidable...

Luckily the other branch is also loaded with pods. I immediately started tying it up. One disaster is enough.

Some pods I took from the broken branch...

 

[hadanero]

Just picked a handful. A few have a really nice shape including a small stinger on one, and I'll be saving seeds from them. I'll taste test them after dinner, I think.

 

[MarcV]

Tasted one of mine yesterday... this pod was not sweet at all but instead was a little sour. Heat was very mild but it was there and built up very slowly. It took a long time to fade. After 10 minutes or so I kept getting "heat waves" on my tongue

 

[hadanero]

Okay, so I've not (successfully*) grown other Scotch Bonnets, but I really liked this one and the flavor/heat was really nice. If other Scotch Bonnets are similar, I'm going to have to give them more garden space next year.

Like Marc says in the previous post, there was a small bit of sourness at the front end. Then it was a fresh almost perfumey flavor and a good solid heat that built up and lingered.

*My other attempt was MOA reds and yellows, but nearly every seedling from the same seed vendor failed this year apart from a jalapeno. I'll be looking for a different source for next year. @MarcV - any variety you'd recommend as a must-grow bonnet?

 

[MarcV]

I think that, in a week or so, I'll be able to do a comparison taste test between the varieties that I currently have growing as I'm (finally) starting to see ripening pods on all plants. In the mean time I sampled a pod here and there, and I must say that there's not that much variation in taste among the different varieties - or should I say - selections . But I can only tell for sure when I can taste them all at the same time. One that has always been high on my list and is a must grow for me is the schneider farms scotch bonnet, but you may already be aware of that . Another excellent one is the HSH scotch bonnet but it seems to start producing properly later in the season in my experience.
I'll soon be able to tell you which one(s) I like best, and I suspect that the papa dreadie will not be one of them

 

[tsurrie]

My two Papa Dreadie plants from few days ago.
The first one is a good producer, nice big pods. The other has smaller pods, but similar overall.