Grow your own , Ceylon Black Pepper

Pepper shrub need a support or another tree to grow. Normally in Pepper plantations the height of the shrub is maintained for 3-4 meters as it's difficult for harvesting. Pepper stem's can be used to produce new plants. The plants produced using seeds grows slowly. But plants from stem cuttings are more productive. Generally we produce black pepper from our cultivation and white pepper can be produced too. But we do not produce white pepper as the process is more complex and time consuming. White pepper means the inner seeds. It can be produced by removing the outer covering of black pepper. This have to be done before drying if you are producing using conventional methods. Following are the steps of producing black pepper

HARVESTING

First we have to identify whether pepper spike are ready to harvest. We can easily identify if it has started turning read or we can test it using our fingers. When the pepper is ready for harvesting we can't crush the seeds from fingers. It's very important to harvest pepper when it's right time , otherwise it will affect the quality of the final product.

THRESHING

In this step , pepper seeds are detached from the spike by hand. This have to be done manually and in large scale cultivation there are machines to do this. But we do it manually in our plantations.
WASHING

In this step , pepper seeds are washed and cleaned. If you can use boiled water for this step it will help you to dry the pepper quickly.
DRYING

Drying is done using sunlight. This process will take 3-5 days to dry them properly. If you wash them using boiled water , it can be dried sooner.

PACKAGING

This is the final step. In this step basically we have to remove the dirt and dust. This can be done manually , but very time consuming. So this is the final step and Black Pepper is ready !

okey guys .. hope you got something for your general knowledge. I will write you again tomorrow. Have a nice day ..