From Lowcountry Soil to Hot Sauce Bottles: The First Harvest is In!

There is nothing quite like staring down at a basket overflowing with fresh, vibrant peppers you grew with your own two hands. We have officially harvested our very first round of peppers for this season's hot sauce batch, and I couldn't be happier with how things are turning out.

This is my first year growing down here in Lowcountry, South Carolina, and man, am I blown away by the results. The dirt, the sun, the humidity the garden is doing so much better down here than anything I’ve worked with in the past. Looking at how happy and heavy these plants are right now, my only real regret is that I didn't plant twice as much!

While this first pull is headed straight to the jars, the harvest is far from over. The plants are still loaded down with green peppers waiting to turn, plus a couple of heavy-hitter varieties that are taking their sweet time. We have classic Tabasco and fiery Armageddon peppers yet to come down the line.

When it comes to crafting the sauce, my plan this year is to bring back a few of our tried and true mainstay recipes while mixing in a couple of brand new experimental flavors. Since proper fermentation takes time to build that deep, tangy complexity, it’ll be a few weeks before anything gets strained, bottled, and sealed. Good flavor takes patience, but tasting these fresh peppers tells me it’s going to be well worth the wait.

It isn't just the hot peppers putting in work out there, either. The rest of the garden is thriving in this South Carolina climate. We've got fresh herbs filling out, crisp snap peas climbing, sweet cantaloupe ripening on the vine, and fat green tomatillos doing their thing which might just have to find their way into a roasted salsa real soon.

There is plenty more goodness coming down the pipeline as the season rolls on. I’ll keep y'all updated on how the fermentation develops and let you know the second those new hot sauce bottles are filled and ready to go. Until then, back to tending the garden!