Today I started working on my our Hot Pepper garden. We have this unused space alongside our house and I thought  that I would like to start a Hot Pepper garden to experiment with making some homemade hot sauces.

 This is the before picture I took this afternoon. As you can see there is not much going on here.

Here is another shot from the front porch looking down at the area. Again not much going on here, although the area does get direct sunlight for a good part of the day.

We made a run to Home Depot and my wife found a Green Bell pepper plant that she wanted and I found a Ghost Pepper plant that I thought would make a great fit in the garden. We also picked up a heat resistant tomato plant like the one we got my parents a couple years back that went absolutely nuts and handled the heat of Southern California quite well. I plan on getting some seeds for Golden Habanero peppers as well as some Carolina Reaper  peppers.

I currently have a Trinidad Scorpion Pepper germinating and I hope it sprouts soon so I can transplant it into its larger pot where I think it will thrive.

Here is the end result of my work this afternoon in the 104-degree heat. The plants that I set up today are as follows from left to right. Red Bell Pepper, Green Bell Pepper, Ghost Peppers, Tomatoes.

Today was just the beginning, I broke up the ground and placed the paving  stones in the dirt to give a level place for the pots to sit. I like the stone work that was done around the right edge and I might look to continue that along the back edge and along the right and then slowly work on paving the entire area as I add more plants to the garden. I might eventually have this set up as a spot to sit outside and relax when it is not too hot out, but this is just the start so we will see what we can do as this project progresses. Stay tuned as I will keep posting more photos and progress updates.