Growing Ghost Peppers - Grow Ghost peppers from seed.

The Bhut Jolokia, also known as the Ghost Chilli, bih jolokia, u-morok, Ghost pepper, Ghost chili pepper, red Naga chili, Naga Jolokia, and ghost, is a hybrid chili pepper cultivated in India , or to be more precise in the Indian states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Nagaland and Manipur.

This extremely hot chilli we have grown from seed is one of hottest in the world with a SHU (heat on the Scoville heat scale) value of 1,041,427 which is pretty impressive by any standards and something which could bring a strong man to his knees. In fact, it came to be dubbed the "Ghost Chilli" by someone in Assam, India because if anyone could eat one then they were an apparition, or ghost. I agree with that statement 100% and it is certainly more than hot enough for anyone I know.

How hot are Ghost Peppers?

Well in 2007, Guinness World Records certified that the ghost pepper was the world's hottest chili pepper, 401.5 times hotter than Tabasco sauce; the ghost chilli is rated at more than 1 million Scoville heat units (SHUs).

Ghost peppers grow so easily in the climate of Assam that they are dried and ground to dust for the Indian army to use in crowd control.
However, over the last few years some growers with nothing better to do have come up with the Carolina Reaper at 2,200,000 SHU and secondly the Trinidad Moruga Scorpion  which reaches 2,009,231 SHU, or roughly twice as hot as the Ghost. Personally I haven't a clue how anyone can eat a thing that when you are advised to use thin slices of the Ghost to a meal lest it blows your mind and blisters your mouth parts.

But in days gone by one can imagine that seriously hot chillies were used for more than adding spice to a meal, and in fact they were used as instruments of torture times without number and the imagination doesn't have to overwork when you think of a slice of something as hot as this inserted into your bum, or even worse, the other place! Ve haf vays off makink you talk!

Having experienced something far, far, far less powerful than a Ghost touching a delicate part of my anatomy (accident) I would tell them exactly what they wanted to know.

One of the reasons for writing this page is because today I gave away a couple of ripe Norfolk Naga fruits which are not quite so powerful as the Ghost, with the warning that he or his wife/whoever was doing the cooking later, should wear protective gloves when delving into the middle of my Naga fruits. I also advised him that a glass of milk with the meal may help lessen the pain but he laughed and said that they would be OK. Hmm.

Of course, he is young and carefree (at the moment) but I expect some reaction later when he can talk without it hurting too much.

Please click on the link for our Grow chillies from seed page