You always have nice harvests of peppers, Maria. Big plants, and peppers. What’s your secret?
2 Likes
I think much of it is a good climate and soil. I also plant them early, feed them and water them well. The larger they get early in the season the more peppers they have later. Peppers are pretty much trouble free plants for me. They do not need intensive spraying and pruning like tomatoes.
3 Likes
Yes for me too, fun to grow different colors, shapes, a blast!
The biggest pepper plant I ever grew was peppadew, plants were 5 to 6 feet tall with about 100 peppers. Also Orange Habanero tree, same height, no where near as many peppers, 25 to 35, very nice peppers, a keeper!
I think I have a photo of the peppadew, hard to tell size from it, see if I can find it…
Not at full height in this photo, it just kept growing all season.
Aji Lemon was a good grower too, as are many hots! This was so prolific I still have some! 2014 growing season.
A close up of peppadew. Pepper are mildly hot.Less than jalpeno, like maybe a wax pepper. Click on it to see better.
4 Likes
Jalapenos are coming in well, although showing more corking than I’d like. They’re pretty cheap in the stores, so I’m not sure whether it is worth growing when there are interesting varieties to try in my limited space. Do people find them better tasting than store bought?
Corno di Torro Rosso are doing well. The bottom one formed early and is sitting in the dirt so I should probably go ahead and pick it.
5 Likes
No not really, I still grow them anyway. I’m just growing a couple El Jefe plants this year. High resistance to bacterial leaf spot races 1-3, 7, 8 and potato virus Y; and intermediate resistance to tobacco etch virus.
I don’t remember how hot they are? I guess I should taste one! I want to pickle them, but probably will dry them unless I can get enough from 2 plants ripe green at the same time. These are going to hang till red (best to harvest seed from first fruit to avoid bees cross pollinating later in the season). I think this is a hybrid? Saving seed anyway.
Here is some from one plant.
5 Likes
Mrs Dood was down in the pepper patch this morn, and said we have little jalapeño’s, pepperoncini, yellow bananas, and a couple little Beaver Dam peppers. I had seen the BD’s yesterday, and they actually look kinda short and squatty, like a bell pepper. Is this what they start out looking like? They’re supposed to look like a banana pepper, sort of.
The Padron pepper plant is huge, almost two feet tall and bushy, but no fruit yet.
The weather has been very sunny and hot the last few days, and both the peppers and tomatoes are loving it.
No new deer browsing last night, so maybe they’ve found someone else’s gardens to raid?
1 Like
Here are some pics of the pepper patch from today. Things are growing well, although some are looking a bit pale. I plan on giving them some liquid fert soon.
A nice row of deep green plants. From right to left: Padron, Bulgarian Carrot, Serrano. I had to stake them, they’re getting a bit top heavy and I’m worried about wind blowing them over
Same plants from another angle:
An Ancho Mulato, no fruit yet, but tall, almost two feet tall:
Some Beaver Dam’s, look a bit squatty, but should grow out more. Supposed to be a banana type.
A few yellow bananas
A fat little pepperoncini:
A few jalapeno’s starting to form up:
3 Likes
The peppers look great. Better than most of mine. I thought beaver dam looks like it should. I like them a lot for stuffing. The cooked flavor is excellent.
2 Likes
Are they (BD) a medium, warm type of pepper? I have read different accounts of them. I mentioned in an earlier post that the Padron and Bulgarian Carrot had no peppers on them, but they actually have some on them. You gotta get down and look low on the plant under the leaves.
1 Like
Yes they have some heat that is mellowed by cooking. Keepers for me sort of the same heat as some wax peppers. Wax peppers can vary a lot though. Those low hanging peppers are usually smoking hot!
2 Likes
My peppers are not very productive this year because they were planted in shade between two rows of tall plants. But they finally started to ripen.
Jimmy Nardello was good last year, but it is not so productive so far.
Very interesting Aconcaqua pepper I have not tasted it yet. It looks really good.
My all time favorite Antohi Romanian pepper will be red soon.
Also the mystery pepper. It is supposed to be sweet orange Mandarin, but it is dark red not orange. They are small squat bell peppers with thick wall. I was thinking that will make a good staffing pepper until I bit into it and it was really hot 
. It might be a hybrid, but maybe somebody can identify this pepper.
3 Likes
Maria, is that pepper thin or thick walled?
1 Like
@JustAnne4 it is thick walled and sweeter than many other varieties that I grew, although less sweet than Jimmy Nardello. It is remarkable that I compared Antohi Romanian and Costa Rica hybrid peppers canned in the same jar last winter. Because of the thick walls and the thin skin Antohi Romanian tasted better than the other one.
1 Like
Are the peppers you grow actually better than what you can buy? I try to stick with things that cause a significant quality improvement, and I would think peppers would be pickable ripe and travel well.
1 Like
I like to grow green Hatch chili peppers. My favorite pepper. And well here, you can’t buy them at all. I just picked 10 Big Jim Legacy peppers, the smell is unreal. I use most for green chili stew.
Also once you make your own paprika and others powders you’ll never buy that crap they sell. How they manage to extract all flavor is a downer, like they are 10 years old. I can freeze powder and once on the shelf remains fresh for over a year. I like to powder green jalapenos and love it as a spicy seasoning.
2 Likes
Some new pics of the pepper patch.
Some of the biggest plants, left to right, Serrano, Bul. Carrot, Padron, unknown yellow banana. All but the BG are at least 3ft tall. The Serrano, Padron and banana are just loaded. The black curtain behind them separate the tomatoes from the peppers, to keep out the deer. So far, after a week, it seems to work.
Pic of rest of the peppers. Most of the plants up next to the curtain are bell peppers or jalapenos. All about 3ft tall. Most of the bells are setting fruit, as are the j’s.
One of two Ancho Mulato’s, they are very tall, over 4ft, but are just now setting some fruit.
Some of the bigger bell’s, I was surprised to see them this big, but I haven’t been in the patch that much lately.
Just one of maybe a couple dozen of decent sized yellow banana’s
My Serrano “bush”, it is yuge and has lots of peppers on it. We put one each in a jar of our dill pickles we just made to give them a bit of a zing.
7 Likes
We picked a few peppers recently, so we tried some out.
Here are some pics:
Our first green bell pepper, and some hot yellow bananas
The bell had a pretty good flavor, almost sweet. The bananas I thought were mild when planted, but somehow morphed into some pretty warm peppers.
And, in front of the tomato, from left to right, Bulgarian Carrot, Beaver Dam, a Habanero, another BG, and some tomato I can’t remember what.
The Bulgarian Carrot is a thick skinned pepper, and even looks like a carrot when cut up. It has an interesting flavor, compared with some of our blander tasting peppers, and is pretty hot, with a consistent heat like a Jalapeno. The Beaver Dam is supposed to look more like a banana, but it was growing upside down, so I guess it got stunted. It also has a good flavor, with an initial shot of heat, but not too bad. The Hab had a bit more heat compared to the first one I tried a week ago, but it’s still not too hot.
2 Likes
I have run across hots not being hot before. Try a different one if you want heat. I have a bunch of scotch bonnets ripe. I need to harvest them soon. I already canned some jalapenos already and the plant is full again, well plants I have two of them.
The scotch bonnets once again are not taking on the scotch bonnet shape but look like habs, this seems to happen a lot, very disappointing.
2 Likes
I’m wondering if it’s something in the soil. Some of my jalapeno’s have been tame, heat wise, along with the hab’s. Maybe they just need to stay on the plant longer? But, some of the j’s are getting that stretch mark look to them, so they prob need to be picked before they get any worse. We have at least 9 (!?!?) J plants and they will need to be picked soon.
I will say that my Serrano’s are hot as ever, and these B Carrot’s have plenty of heat. The pepperoncini are almost right up there with the Serrano, heat wise.
Are you growing the hot scotch bonnets? And, have you harvested any yet?
I like the Beaver Dam pepper we tried, but unfortunately, we only have one plant, and it’s not producing a lot.
1 Like
I’m growing three different strains I never grew before to see if they meet my needs. they are supposed to be hot. Some are ripe on the plants, but I have not harvested any. I was on vacation and came back to harvest nectarines, onions, and corn. Plus I mailed out 3 fig trees, and 2 strawberry plants to other growers, and I have been circling the bonnets, but have yet to pull any. I also harvested and dried Mexican oregano, rosemary, and basil. Been busy, whew! Blanched that corn yesterday too.Not that much. thanks for the photos, I like seeing them, Good job!
2 Likes