Volendam
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Sunday, October 9, 2016
Peppercorn Plant
is a tropical plant
cultivated for its black, white and red peppercorns.
The three colors of
peppercorn are simply different stages of the same peppercorn. Black
peppercorns are the dried immature fruit or drupes of the peppercorn plant
while white pepper is made from the inner portion of the mature fruit.
The
pepper plant is a perennial woody vine growing up to 4 meters in height on
supporting trees, poles, or trellises. It is a spreading vine, rooting readily
where trailing stems touch the ground.
The leaves are alternate, entire, 5 to
10 centimeters long and 3 to 6 centimeters across.
The flowers are small, produced on pendulous
spikes 4 to 8 centimeters long at the leaf nodes, the spikes lengthening up to
7 to 15 centimeters as the fruit matures.
The fruit of the black pepper is called a
drupe and when dried is known as a peppercorn.
Pepper
can be grown in soil that is neither too dry nor susceptible to flooding,
moist, well-drained and rich in organic matter (the vines do not do too well
over an altitude of 900 m above sea level).
Propagation
Growing
black pepper plants are actually vines most often propagated through vegetative
cuttings and interspersed among shade crop trees, such as coffee. Conditions
for growing black pepper plants require high temps, heavy and frequent
rainfall, and well-draining soil.
**You
can propagate from vegetative cuttings
**You
can propagate from seeds, just know that it will be a few years before you get
a harvest of peppercorns. Soak the seeds for 1-2 days to promote germination.
Sow the seeds in a 5 gallon container with a sturdy trellis pushed up against
one of the container’s sides. Sow in equal parts potting soil and peat moss.
Keep the soil very warm (75-85 degrees F) and give the seeds lots of moisture.
Peppercorns take up to 45 days to germinate!
Planting
Instructions:
Black
pepper requires rich soil, plenty of water, humid conditions, and partial
shade. Plant seeds indoors ½" deep. For proper germination the seeds must
be kept damp and remain at 50% humidity or higher and 75 to 85 degrees
fahrenheit. After seeds have germinated, keep soil moist and from drying out.
Transplant in larger pots as seedling grows.
The plants are propagated by cuttings about 40
to 50 centimeters (16 to 20 in) long, tied up to neighboring trees or climbing
frames at distances of about 2 meters (6 ft 7 in) apart; trees with rough bark
are favoured over those with smooth bark, as the pepper plants climb rough bark
more readily. Competing plants are cleared away, leaving only sufficient trees
to provide shade and permit free ventilation. The roots are covered in leaf
mulch and manure, and the shoots are trimmed twice a year. On dry soils the
young plants require watering every other day during the dry season for the
first three years.
Fruit
The plants bear fruit from the fourth or
fifth year, and typically continue to bear fruit for seven years. The cuttings
are usually cultivars, selected both for yield and quality of fruit.
A single stem will bear 20 to 30 fruiting
spikes. The harvest begins as soon as one or two fruits at the base of the
spikes begin to turn red, and before the fruit is fully mature, and still hard;
if allowed to ripen completely, the fruit lose pungency, and ultimately fall
off and are lost. The spikes are collected and spread out to dry in the sun,
then the peppercorns are stripped off the spikes.
BACK TO CONTENTS
Black pepper (unripe drupes)
Black
pepper is a flowering vine, cultivated for its fruit, which is usually dried
and used as a spice and seasoning. When dried, the fruit is known as a
peppercorn. When fresh and fully mature, it is approximately 5 millimetres in
diameter, dark red, and, like all drupes, contains a single seed. Peppercorns,
and the ground pepper derived from them, may be described simply as pepper, or
more precisely as
Black pepper (cooked and dried unripe fruit),
Green pepper (dried unripe fruit)
White pepper (ripe fruit seeds).
Black pepper
1-Black pepper is produced from the still-green, unripe drupes of
the pepper plant. The drupes are cooked briefly in hot water, both to clean
them and to prepare them for drying. The heat ruptures cell walls in the
pepper, speeding the work of browning enzymes during drying. The drupes are
dried in the sun or by machine for several days, during which the pepper around
the seed shrinks and darkens into a thin, wrinkled black layer. Once dried, the
spice is called black peppercorn. On some estates, the berries are separated
from the stem by hand and then sun-dried without the boiling process.
Once the peppercorns are dried, pepper spirit and oil
can be extracted from the berries by crushing them. Pepper spirit is used in
many medicinal and beauty products. Pepper oil is also used as an ayurvedic
massage oil and used in certain beauty and herbal treatments.
White pepper
2-White pepper(darker-coloured skin of the pepper fruit removed)
White
pepper consists of the seed of the pepper plant alone, with the darker-coloured
skin of the pepper fruit removed. This is usually accomplished by a process
known as retting, where fully ripe red pepper berries are soaked in water for
about a week, during which the flesh of the pepper softens and decomposes.
Rubbing then removes what remains of the fruit, and the naked seed is dried.
Sometimes alternative processes are used for removing the outer pepper from the
seed, including removing the outer layer through mechanical, chemical or
biological methods.
White pepper has a slightly different flavour
from black pepper, due to the lack of certain compounds present in the outer
fruit layer of the drupe, but not found in the seed.
Green pepper
3-Green pepper (unripe drupes)
Green
pepper, like black, is made from the unripe drupes. Dried green peppercorns are
treated in a way that retains the green colour, such as treatment with sulphur
dioxide, canning or freeze-drying.
Pickled peppercorns, also green, are
unripe drupes preserved in brine or vinegar.
Fresh, unpreserved green pepper drupes,
largely unknown in the West, are used in some Asian cuisines, particularly
Khmer cuisine.Their flavour has been described as spicy and fresh, with a
bright aroma. They decay quickly if not dried or preserved.
Red pepper
4-Red pepper (ripe drupes)
Red pepper usually consists of ripe red pepper drupes
preserved in brine and vinegar. Ripe red peppercorns can also be dried using
the same colour-preserving techniques used to produce green pepper.BACK TO CONTENTS
Thursday, September 8, 2016
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