The utterly delicious thing about growing your own pepper is that you get to eat it fresh rather than dried. Pop a little peppercorn in your mouth and yes, it does taste peppery, but floral and fragrant, all at the same time. It’s soooo much better than dried pepper.

I have read that we can wait until the peppercorns ripen to red, but that never happens on our subtropical vine. The strings/spikes of peppercorns are picked when they are full and flavoursome and I pick ours green, but if your conditions are warm and tropical, they will ripen and turn red at maturity.

While we call it a vine, it doesn’t’ climb as rampantly as vanilla or say passionfruit. It’s more of a scrambler or rambler to my way of thinking. Give it a post or stake to climb on and tie the long hanging branches to the post as they grow.

It will take a few years of nurturing with at least seasonal feeds of organic manures and some regular water but not too water much or the roots will rot.

About 2-3 years after planting, your pepper vine will flower and begin to form fruit. The one little vine here is so prolific that we just can’t keep up with the production. Hence, I think one plant is probably enough for a family as the plant will also repeat flower and fruit through a few late summer and autumn months.

Using your peppercorns

Excess peppercorns go into ziplock bags and are stored in the freezer. It’s interesting to note that you’d think the freezing would spoil the flavour, but they come out just as beautiful as they go in. We used to buy small cans of green peppercorns so Damien could make peppercorn sauce. He loves the sauce with steak. But, I’m vegetarian and that doesn’t work for me, so I enjoy my peppercorn sauce with anything from patties to tofu and beyond. Recently at the Gourmet Gardner Class we harvested some of the peppercorns and made the sauce I’ve just mentioned. It was a tremendous hit of course, served with Sword Bean patties which were succulently good.  So, I thought I’d share the recipe for the fresh peppercorn sauce, just in case you have your own peppercorn vine growing. You’ll find the recipe over at the recipes page here.

Growing your own pepper

And how should you grow a pepper plant if you don’t already have one?  Buy a plant from Daley’s Fruit Trees or from other herb or rare fruit suppliers. (They are expensive, so take good care of it). I will have some available in spring to summer and will advertise them on the Ecobotanica Instagram page.  Grow your plant in a warm spot. Pepper is very appreciative of tropical conditions, so if like us you are in a cooler subtropical area, give it warmth and sunshine. Ours is in a protected garden grow tunnel in a raised bed. But you could consider potting your plant in a larger pot and keeping it on a warm patio for example.

Keep the soil moist, not sodden, and give it organic fertiliser pellets or chicken manure or compost ‘tea’, about 2 monthly. Be patient and look for your little peppercorns a couple of years later in late summer and autumn. They tend to hide under the foliage, so it can be easy to miss your first crops.

If you’ve harvested green peppercorns, this is the super quick and easy recipe for fresh green peppercorn sauce. Enjoy with a steak if you are a meat eater, or if vegan or vegetarian, pour over patties, tofu, tempe or cauliflower or eggplant slices once cooked.

 Fresh green peppercorn sauce

3-4 tablespoons fresh peppercorns, (off the stem)

1 tablespoon butter

½ cup pure thick cream

salt

Heat the butter in a small saucepan. Add the peppercorns and cook in the butter for 2 minutes, crushing some of them with the back of a fork as you cook and stir.

Pour in the cream and about ½ teaspoon salt. Stir until it bubbles.

Simmer gently 1 minute until the cream begins to take up some peppercorn colour and thickens.

Now it’s ready to serve.

It keeps well in the fridge for 3 days and may be reheated