After years of growing many vegetables, I have reduced my gardening to a small plot where I grow only hot peppers. I focus on jalapenos, cayenne, hungarian hot and habaneros. I have several neighbors that share the like for capsaicin, they grow ghost peppers, carolina reapers and goat weed peppers. Some of those atomic types are really something - I can see through time after eating them! Anyone else here grow and enjoy hot peppers?

Many years ago a woman from Singapore got me hooked on the hot stuff. She would fix a small dish of chopped Thai peppers in soy with every meal, ate it mostly with rice. Everything else she made was pretty warm too. Ate that stuff so much I started getting nose bleeds. So since I've had a garden I've had 3 or 4 Thai pepper plants and a couple jalapenos every year.

I generally plant twelve pepper plants yearly, usually three each of Poblanos, Jalapenos, Serranos, and Habaneros, but sometimes there's a wildcard or two in there depending on what I find at the garden center.

Most of the yield gets cooked upon picking, but most years I manage to get enough to freeze so as to enjoy them all year. Once frozen, they are too mushy for salsas, but can still be used to flavor cooked dishes.

quote:

Ate that stuff so much I started getting nose bleeds.

I knew a girl like that once, eyes and ears too.

I make and ferment my own hotsauce, but have no space to grow anything at my apartment. If I did I would absolutely start with peppers. FYI if you aren't doing a straight pepper sauce adding one or two tomatillos and a guava into a primarily Thai pepper sauce makes for one hell of a good flavor.

Used to grow a lot of them years ago, but put in some banana peppers and some jalapeños recently.

Looking forward to the crop!

I plant them in pots filled with Miracle Grow potting soil. They yield a lot of peppers into late September and early October. Every day I go out and pick a couple to put on a pizza, salad, or sandwich. My daughter pickles them and sends them to her friend whose parents are stationed in the Middle East. They are very easy to grow.

I have grown Thai hot peppers and jalapenos. I like them in my garden because the bugs leave them alone. You can get dried Thai peppers in Asian food stores, cut them open for the seeds. I always had a surplus, you only need a little bit at a time. Jalapenos are like candy to me.

I typically grow hop peppers in the garden each year. Started from seeds last year, but failed to do so this year. Had Carolina Reapers from Ed Currie (strain creator) last year.

Have grown a lot of super hots over the years. Carolina reapers, moroga scorpions, butch t Trinidad scorpions, multiple 7pods (or 7pots?), various "ghost" peppers (various nagas), fatalii (my favorite), and a few more. In 2011 or 2012 I grew like 25 varieties of chilies.

Currently have a gallon jug of pepper mash fermenting from last season I need to find a sauce recipe for. Mix of reapers, ghost (unsure the exact strain), scotch bonnet s, habanero, serrano, and jalapeno (not 100 sure the last 2 made it into the mash).

Open for recipes on sauces to try. Was thinking of a sriracha type sauce originally, but open to something with tropical notes as well (mango or guava, etc. Could try pineapple, but suspect I wouldn't care for pineapple).

I typically grow a lot of peppers, from mild to superhot. This year is going to be really bad though. I managed to damp off a lot of my seedlings, and we've had some really bad weather that has killed off quite a few more. I think I may end up with as few as 10-15 plants of the 100+ seedlings I had germinate. I haven't even bothered to look at what varieties I still have alive because the weather has been so wild I'm sure I'll lose a few more.

I usually plant about 12 Hungarian hots in the garden. I use them in my homemade giardiniera that I vacuum can in Mason jars the old school way. I only have two jars left from last year. It's a dire situation over here.

Just jalapenos, no use for the super hot stuff. Used to do banana peppers too, but never used many so I stopped.

I grow my jalapenos right next to my regular peppers, people have questioned me in the past saying it will make peppers sweet or mild. Never had that be the case personally. Anyone know if there is any truth to that or some old wives tail?

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Originally posted by Skins2881:
I grow my jalapenos right next to my regular peppers, people have questioned me in the past saying it will make peppers sweet or mild. Never had that be the case personally. Anyone know if there is any truth to that or some old wives tail?

I've never ran into any issue growing them near each other. The heat level is largely due to the environmental factors (temperature, amount of sun, amount of water (too much can cause them to be milder. Stressed plants make hotter chilies). The type of pepper factors in of course, whether they are supposed to be hot or sweet.

That said, if you're saving seeds and planting those the next year - the cross pollination between varieties would impact the following generations as you'll end up with hybrids.

I always grow them, Jalapenos, Thai Chilies, Habeneros, Yellow wax peppers, and I have tried to grow ghost peppers but I have never had them grow.

Maybe because our growing season is so short, I will take them outside next week and see if they make it.

is it too late to grow some jalapenos starting with seeds? I'm in Maryland.

Thanks!

JP

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Originally posted by jprebb:
is it too late to grow some jalapenos starting with seeds? I'm in Maryland.

Thanks!

JP

Maybe, maybe not. They take forever to make fruit in my garden, but they produce until the first freeze.

First time trying to grow for seed, so I probably didn't do something right. These little guys took two weeks to sprout, and are 3 weeks plus total since planting. I'm thinking about tossing them and going to greenhouse to get better starts. I'll make up my mind this weekend.

I'm in NoVA.

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Originally posted by cyanide357:

That said, if you're saving seeds and planting those the next year - the cross pollination between varieties would impact the following generations as you'll end up with hybrids.

No I plant from greenhouse usually, never saved seeds before.

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:
Just jalapenos, no use for the super hot stuff. Used to do banana peppers too, but never used many so I stopped.

I grow my jalapenos right next to my regular peppers, people have questioned me in the past saying it will make peppers sweet or mild. Never had that be the case personally. Anyone know if there is any truth to that or some old wives tail?

I understand this is an old wives tale, but I don't have a source. You aren't going to get spicy tomatoes either, that's another branch of the same tale. You might end up with some interesting crosses in the next generations if you harvest the seeds, but the peppers will be true to whatever kind of seeds you planted.

While on this topic, does anyone know where I can get some sport pepper plants? I really want to grow some of them, but it's too late for me to start from seed and get much production at this point.

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:
Maybe, maybe not. They take forever to make fruit in my garden, but they produce until the first freeze.

First time trying to grow for seed, so I probably didn't do something right. These little guys took two weeks to sprout, and are 3 weeks plus total since planting. I'm thinking about tossing them and going to greenhouse to get better starts. I'll make up my mind this weekend.

I'm in NoVA.

Thanks. I think I'll go the greenhouse route as well.

JP

I grow my jalapenos right next to my regular peppers, people have questioned me in the past saying it will make peppers sweet or mild. Never had that be the case personally. Anyone know if there is any truth to that or some old wives tail?[/quote]
According to my, The World Encyclopedia of Cooking Ingredients, if you want to make your Jalapenos, etc have more heat - make them suffer!
Apparently, the more they struggle to survive, the hotter they will be.
So, ration the water and fertilizer if you want some heat!