Must Grow Peppers and Other Pepper Musings

[Penelope Periwinkle]

So, what peppers would be on my list?

Pimento De Chiero Cherry Chocolate Lemon Drops Grenada Seasoning Fish Corno De Toro Red and Yellow Limon Chocolate Habs

I'll be adding Almapaprika, Trinidad Seasoning, and Dedo De Moca to the list this year.

I won't be growing Puppy, Prairie Fire, or Nosegay again because the peppers on them don't have a good flavor. The plants themselves grew well and were prolific, I just want more taste from my peppers. I won't be growing Hot Red Cheese, either, but not because the peppers weren't good. It just wasn't as useful as I thought it would be, and I would rather give the space to something else. The Wenk's Yellow Hot won't be coming back, either. The peppers were good, but the plant seemed more susceptible to disease than most. I was really disappointed in the Bulgarian Carrot Peppers, they performed poorly, and the peppers weren't all that tasty.

I always grow some sort of jalapeno, and the Jalora jalapeno I grew this year performed well, so I'll probably grow it again. The Greenleaf Tabasco performed beautifully. I mean that both production-wise and ornamental-wise. What a lovely plant, it looks like it's covered in little red, yellow, and orange candles. I'm finding that the ways to use the Tabasco peppers are limited, however, so I don't know if I'll grow it again. When they're ripe, they're ripe RIGHT NOW, and if you don't use them, they quickly go soft.

I also grew Aji Dulcie I and Trinidad Perfume peppers. Both are very nice performing, very tasty peppers, but I don't know that I need 4 kinds of seasoning peppers, what with the Grenada and Trinidad Seasoning peppers already. The Trinidad Perfume peppers are so pretty, too, but I don't know if I want to devote that much of my limited garden space to them.

I've grown Devil's Tongue peppers for the last couple of years, too, but that's mostly for friends who are seriously into outrageously hot peppers. They're nice for making hot pepper oils, but, except for my friends, I could live without them.

Penelope

[GA Pinhead]

Try some Pasillas. Makes the best enchilada sauce. In GA we have fungus problems on them, but still worth it.

Roasted Pimentos, mmmm

The Paprika's did pretty good, great for loin roasts.

The habs did well this year, I them trade for food at the Jamaican place in town. Hey UGA Pepper Mon!

Biker Billy's were smaller this year despite ALL the rain, but prolific.

We have about another month of growing time and they are all still full of flowers and small peppers. Then the sun will go away and they all will die...

[Ken Anderson]

Agreed. Very poor yielding. They are too hot, and their skin is too thick and like plastic. Why would Park's offer them? I'd like to think that a "new" pepper would automatically be a winner. Go figure. Ken

[Penelope Periwinkle]

I'm in South Carolina, so I would probably have the same problems. I haven't grown Pasillas in a few years, though. I'll add them to my potential list.

There's another I haven't grown in a few years. With the problems I've had with bell peppers lately, I'm inclined to try other kinds of sweet peppers.

Habs nearly always do well, don't they? I find most varieties of _C chinense_ to be very hardy.

The angle of the sun has already slipped enough that half of the pepper garden is in shade from about 10 am to early afternoon. It's amazing how fast that happens. I'm still harvesting munches and bunches of peppers, and I usually manage to eke out my harvest until the first hard freeze. Most years that's around Thanksgiving, but I do have to protect the plants from frosts before then.

Penelope

[Penelope Periwinkle]

Hm, I would say that the heat level was what it was advertised to be. I got my seeds from Seed Savers, and I've seen then advertised in other catalogs. I wonder if there are slightly different strains? Your plants weren't heat or water stressed were they? Supposedly that can make a pepper hotter.

And, to be fair, I do know a couple of other pepper growers who are quite happy with their Bulgarian Carrot peppers.

And they're quite welcome to them, too.

Penelope

[Ken Anderson]

I decided to grow Hungarian Hots as my main variety this year. I never had, because they just seemed to common for me. Silly reasoning on my part! They have just the right heat and a good, mild flavor flavor. Amazingly prolific, too. Everybody that likes hot peppers seems to like these. I may not have canned enough!

[SugarChile]

This year for the first time I tried them (Hungarian Hots) as stuffed peppers, instead of bells. (No meat in mine, a mix of brown rice, sautéed mushrooms, toasted nuts, parmesan, garlic, etc., then baked in a marinara sauce.) Wonderful! A little extra zing of flavor, and a nice texture. I let them get red/orange before picking, for that hint of sweetness. They'll be my standard from now on.

Cheers, Sue

[GA Pinhead]

Pasilla Bajio - they are blunt not pointy and do better than the other varieties I have tried.

I have been growing Figaro - they get 6+ feet tall so staking is a must. Thick flavorful. Great for stuffing! I don't even grow bells anymore.

I did chocolate habs for the first time this year. The jamaican place owner said they like them the best, they are bigger!

This is fall planting weekend, spinach, collards, beets, etc.

Gotta go till the garden.

John!

[Penelope Periwinkle]

Are y'all talking about hot wax peppers?

Um, at the risk of being a stogy old pedant, they come in at least a handful of varieties and have a heat range of medium to hot. The Wenk's Yellow Hot I mentioned in the first post is a hot wax type.

What kind did you grow this year?

Penelope

[Penelope Periwinkle]

Six feet is very impressive! Did you grow them from seed, and if so, where did you get the seeds?

I think the chocolate habs add a smoky sort of taste to dishes that you don't get with other habs. I made some poppers out of the ones I picked today. What I have that I need a home for are almost twenty Devil's Tongue peppers. I don't need any more hot pepper oil or dried Devil's Tongues, and these are too hot for me to use in cooking. I gave away about a dozen to friends, but I still have a bowl of them.

Yeah, I need to get going on that myself. I was trimming back some of the rampaging basil this morning, and I found a yellow current tomato vine that was hidden. I picked a handful of ripe ones and ate them on the spot! There are a couple of more handfuls of green tomatoes, too.

Penelope

[SugarChile]

Not stodgy at all, I should have been more specific. I grow Hungarian Semi-hots; I get the seed from Nichol's Garden Nursery:

are reliable, heavy producers for me, doing well in both drought and very wet summers. They are a bit hot, but not panic inducing. They are good stuffed, but also do fine in sautés, omelets, etc. Cheers, Sue

[GA Pinhead]

Shepherds seeds - I have not checked Renee's yet, I buy a couple of year's worth of pepper and tomato seeds at a time. Helps with supply problems... like San Remo tomato that became hard to find last year.

My bamboo stakes made it 3 years but I am thinking of going with rebar, 8' long. Never have to replace them again.

Happy gardening! John!

[Ken Anderson]

> They are reliable, heavy producers for me, doing well in both drought and

I've always heard it said that Hungarians' heat varies due to weather conditions. I don't know if it's true, but it's possible that folks are simply growing different cultivars (?) without knowing it.