I'm a US Peace Corps Volunteer currently living in rural South Africa. I LOVE my spicy foods (a creature comfort), especially my habaneros. I've been here for more than a year now and have been working at growing various foods I enjoy, especially peppers. I've had limited success with growing my peppers because even though I can get the seedlings going well, we often don't have enough water to sustain them or our neighbors' chickens come and tear them out of the ground while they're still young (but I don't have to worry at all about frost). I've had one habanero plant start very slowly and finally get going after a few months. It wasn't really that healthy, but I guess it was healthy enough because it gave me a few very nice and spicy habaneros - possibly not the hottest I've ever had, but very much enough to satisfy me and my cooking. One pepper has been enough to add a LOT of heat and flavor to a regular-sized dish for me.

Now that summer (our rainy season) is coming, I've been lucky to get another 4-5 habanero plants going, in full bloom, and with quite a lot of healthy looking peppers produced. The plants themselves aren't huge, but each one seems to support 8-10 habaneros at a time. I've since had maybe 10 peppers fully ripen and plenty of others are on their way. I've been very excited!

But my hopes have been disappointed. These peppers aren't hardly spicy at all! That may be a slight exaggeration, because they're a *little* bit spicy, probably too spicy for people who don't like spicy foods - if eaten directly. But for someone who usually enjoys them, like me, it's almost nothing! Seriously, usually I can only use them for cooking or making salsa or hot sauce because they're way too hot to enjoy just eating straight. But with these peppers I can eat a whole chunk of them and not feel anywhere near overwhelmed, and when cooked I'm not even sure I notice a spiciness increase at all.

Can anyone please help? I put a LOT of work (mostly mental/emotional) into getting these habaneros to produce and now that they are it's a HUGE letdown! Even my jalapenos (which I appreciate, but not nearly to the extent of my habaneros) are less spicy than usual, though their production is as steady as ever. Is there any way to ensure these peppers are much spicier?

I've read that water and temperature can affect the heat, but how so exactly? When these plants were just beginning to bloom, the temperature started going WAY up (it's usually VERY HOT here at this time of year) and the rains hadn't come yet, so I could only water them sparingly (there's no plumbing or any central water supply or anything like that here in our village)... mostly when I saw their leaves began to wilt in the middle of the day and stuff like that. Is low-water, high-heat a recipe for weak spiciness in peppers? Thankfully, the first big rains came in the last few days and should continue and I've also stored enough rainfall that I can provide relatively steady water supply to them if that's what I should do.

Anyway, any tips on regulating the spiciness (specifically to increase it) would be GREAT! Our soil is mostly a very poor sandy-ish sort of thing - quick draining and evaporating, but I do have access to some medium-quality compost and quite a lot of rich cow manure. These particular habaneros (the 4-5 new plants) were planted with added compost about 6 in. down in the soil. Please help by giving me advice!

No, without a doubt, these habaneros are much less spicy than before. So I need some real info on how to affect that. Even when I was growing habaneros in pots in the States, I'd notice some fluctuations in their spiciness from time to time, but never to this degree.

moving on, you say recently youve hit your "rainy season"
exactly how much rain has been falling, that very well could be it right there, if its been really excessive, and for a good amount of time.

secondly how hot has it been getting? I imagine it can get pretty hot down there, especially in the summer.

If at all possible I'd move those plants into containers.
I prefer container plants just because of that, if it starts getting above 90, you can just move them into the shade. Where as if you couldnt, theres a good chance your plants are gunna start burning up once it starts getting over about 95.

Sandy soil isnt bad, it actually serves as a decent draining aid to soil.
But not on its own, youre definitly going to want to add nutrients to that.
The manure and compost would work alright. Thing is though depending on whats in the compost i dont know, it might be too rich in something.
Id use that sparingly. And you said you have chickens? Odd as it may sound, try getting some of their manure if you can to put in the mix, and if by any chance you can find some rich just strait up soil anywhere, I would mix some of that in.

soooo yea....those are my suggestions, if you have any more questions ask.

The compost was mostly a mix of the same dirt and kitchen scraps and a bit of dried grasses. You may be right that it could've been pretty rich and even though it wasn't the only soil they're in, there was a good bit of it I put about 6 in. down. Is it true then that too many nutrients can actually make peppers less spicy?

I can't really put them in pots because I don't really have any decent-sized ones and our Peace Corps budget (since we're "Volunteers") is very small. I don't really want to work out the logistics of buying a bunch of decent sized pots from the nearest city that sells them and then finding a way to transport them back to our site. Also, I've found out that the air is hot enough that the soil in the pots (i.e. for some seedlings, and even in the shade) often dries out faster than the stuff planted directly in the dirt, since those in the dirt can send their roots further down.

As for the no water but electricity and internet thing, you make a good point. Unfortunately, access to water is a BIG problem in Africa, but access to electricity is much easier, and more than that, access to cell phone coverage is easiest. It's through a cell phone that we get internet coverage and though it's usually no faster than 10kb/s download speed, it's adequate and still a great informational and communication resource. The water situation may be a bigger problem in some ways here in SA because the constitution states that everyone has a right to access to a certain amount of water, meaning that the gov. has to give people water even if they can't afford to buy it. It doesn't say that about electricity. So, electricity is a money making business, and easy to distribute, whereas water is more difficult to distribute and a certain amount of it would have to be given away, thus making it less likely to make a profit in these rural areas where we really need it and thus less likely for the distribution network to be constructed (constitution be damned). Cell phones are the easiest of all to distribute since they don't require that people have access to electricity themselves; instead they can just build a tower at certain intervals of distance and the people can charge their phones wherever there are electricity points or with car batteries. So cell phones cover pretty much the whole world now, rural villages in Africa and everything. But electricity's not a problem in our village. Sorry for the long tangent! I think it IS a very fascinating set of contrasts, so I don't mind explaining it to anyone interested.

When the dry season starts, you will have established plants and probably some hot habaneros again.

To keep the chickens out, make little cylinders of chicken wire or window screen and put them over the plants. I have quail, and they are vegetarian birds.

Maybe, a sign of nitrogen deficiency? The hot constituent of peppers, capsaicin, contains nitrogen. In a bind, you can fertilize with urine.

However, it doesn't sound off the cuff as though those are your issues. It could be that you're at a point in the S. African growing season when the plants would be less hot. My blazing-hot Jalapenos in August are no hotter than bell peppers in October, no heat at all. late season pods can have very different heat profiles than early/mid season pods.

But really, what you have to do is find someone nearby who's growing habs, or at least peppers, and see what kind of results they're getting. Then you will able to quickly determine whether it is your plants, you, or your regional growing situation.

The most important thing is not to get too emotionally attached to a plant...I recommend a cat...LOL Believe me I know the feeling. I raised 72 plants from seed in March, constantly watching over them after building a custom growing system with heating pads, timers, and so on, for them. I spent two months nursing them into big, beautiful plants ready for transplant. I had each plant numbered in a diary, with a complete growing history, and hundreds of digital photos. Then I brought in one plant from a store, and it had aphids. The entire setup got completely infested. In a panic I spray insecticide, but the wrong type or something, and it killed the plants. Whoa! Very disappointing. Well, after being really bummed out, I started over with store bought plants. Many of those didn't make it either - worms, aphids, beetles, wilt, rot, rainstorms, cold, heavy winds that blew some over, blah blah blah. Eventually it all worked out and I got many hundreds of pods this season. But along the way, I learned that they're just plants and their job is only to give you something to eat, before you throw them out at the end of the season - they're not people or pets LOL Not to be too philosophical about it, but hope that helps.

Unfortunately, no one else around here grows habaneros or any peppers that even approach that heat, but there are some that are a little bit spicy, so I'll try and get them and see if they're still spicy at all.

One good thing is that I'm busy working on a "bio-intensive" garden that I recently learned some great techniques for, so maybe I can plant some perrenial pepper plants there and they'll maintain their necessary nutrient supply, etc. Thanks again everyone... I'll keep all the advice in mind!

You might also want to check out chillifarm.com. They are based in SA and have a good selections of chilli seeds.

It sounds like you're growing some GREAT varieties of habaneros too! I'd love it if you could spare some for me! We usually make it into Pretoria every few months as we've got some friends there we visit and also for Peace Corps business. We're planning to be there again sometime at the end of November. I don't mind posting my cell phone # on here, and if you could just send me an SMS, then we can figure whether you could mail some to me or if we can meet. I'll keep your message in my phone and message you back as we get closer to the end of November and maybe find a way to get some seeds (or even some spare peppers if you're producing too many!) from you. ;-) Thanks a lot!

Cell #: 072 784 4100 - Adam Willard

Commercial seed growers keep at least 1/2 mile between their chiles and other varieties. Commercial growers selling the chilis as food might have the habaneros next to a mild variety. Plants grown from those habanero seeds could be anywhere from mild to hot.