Black Pepper

Product Information

Pepper has been prized since antiquity for both its culinary and medicinal properties. Small flowers are produced along pendulous spikes, elongating as the fruit matures. Berries are fully ripe when red. They can be dried with the skin on and served as black pepper. Immature fruits can be picked when green pepper and preserved as whole peppercorns in vinegar, or fermented to remove the skin and then dried as white pepper. Not only one of the most popular spices in the world, but incredibly versatile too.

A self pollinating tropical/sub tropical climbing vine that will not tolerate frost. May be grown in pots indoors(away from heating and drafts) with good filtered light or greenhouses in cooler climates. Prefers dappled light or part sun position in well drained but humus rich, moist soil with a neutral pH. Pepper likes a cool root run so mulch well. Berries may be picked when fat and green and dried to make black peppercorns or left to ripen on the vine till they turn red. When red berries are dried, the inner seed is what we know as white pepper. Flowers are rain pollinated so overhead water when flowering to mimic this process.