Pepper opinions

[gardengalrn]

I always want to know what tomatoes everyone is growing but have never asked for a pepper list or why people are growing what. It's only been in the past 5 or so years that I've tried to take care in what I select for peppers and hope that this doesn't develop into an obsession like the tomato

I wanted to grow a variety of colored bells so this year I'm trying the "Beauty" varieties of red, purple and chocolate. Sun Sweet is an orange. Bianca for white or cream colored. Gypsy and Blush Beauty looked pretty in the catalog Cal Wonder and Big Bertha performed wonderfully for me a couple of years ago. Lipstick is delicious IMO and I'm trying Apple for the first time. Hot Lemon is one of my favorites for flavor as is the Habanero (orange). I like the heat but can't handle TOO much so those are used sparingly. Probably 4 each of Jalapeno (I still prefer these in salsa), Tabasco (gonna try hot sauce) and Paprika for dried seasoning. I'm also doing a few multi-colored minis because of their cute value and perfect single salad size. Also some ornamentals for pots. Any comments to this selection or personal experience?

[montanamato]

Lori..That looks like a good mix...

I have found Serrano peppers do well for me and make great salsa in combination w/Jalapenos...They also produce like crazy and take a light frost.
I grew Georgescu Chocolate (source Sand Hill) last year and it is a new favorite...Huge oblong , sweet brown peppers. I have limited sucess with bells, and these were lovely...
I also include some smaller thick walled types for fresh use in salads and canning...Hot cherry peppers, Doe Hill Golden, and Tangerine Pimento.
Frying types are my favorites...Last year Melrose and Golden Treasure performed and tasted great...Lipstick has performed poorly for 2 years...not sure why...
I like some Anaheim style peppers too, for roasting and using green...We like to make a lot of the green chile recipes and New Mexico style peppers are short season for me...I am growing about 5 from Native Seed Search this year...up from 2 last year...Santo Domingo, Alcalde, Chimayo, Velarde and Vallero.
Other favorites are Fresno , Alma Paprika, Neopolitan, Fehrozan and Franks.
Peppers are indeed nearly as fun as tomatoes.

Jeanne

I grow the yellow mini bells too and they are most requested by a few I give plants to.
Apple did poorly for me also last year. Beaver Dam and Wisconsin Lakes poor and late for me too...I have only tried them once, but with so many that do well every year they may not get another go.

[nctomatoman]

Peppers are a lot of fun. I think that the main reason that the visible obsession isn't there parallel to tomatoes is that there is inherently less variation in flavor - in other words, tomato flavors are wildly variable and diverse, whereas sweet peppers pretty much taste like sweet peppers - the unripe ones a bit green/grassy tasting, when at the final color stage a nice overtone of sweetness. And with the hots, you get the variations in heat - of course allowing for the subtle or not so subtle differences in the different families of hots (chinense, annum, etc).

But, I find peppers fun for many reasons - the hybrid bells can be dehybridized and therefore can lead to mysteries and new varieties....peppers also cross easily, so you can easily end up with chance hybrids and further dehybridization projects (I have quite a collection of segregating ornamental hots that occupy my time each summer) - and they are easy in pots.

Sweet peppers, bell - World Beater is a nice OP green to red. Orange Bell is also a wonderful OP - green to deep golden orange. The chocolate I like the best is Chocolate Bell hybrid from Stokes - expensive, but delicious. Blue Jay or Islander, F1s, are spectacular in terms of color changes - the prettiest lavendar I've grown. Early Sunsation is just one of many great green to yellow hybrids. Purple Beauty is an OP that goes from green to black/purple to deep red, and very productive. Gypsy is a cubanelle type that is a pepper machine! The long sweet types - Marconi, Golden Marconi, Corno di Toro, Super Shepherd, Lipstick, Italia, Jimmy Nardello...OPs all - are all wonderful. I am playing around with dehybridizing a number of the hybrids I mention above.

I will leave the world of Hots to others!

[epiphanista]

For hots I have grown jalepeno, serrano, Thai Hot, Bulgarian Carrot, and the latter three are my favorites. They make a fantastic hot sauce! And I made hot pepper jelly from a combination of Bulgarian Carrot and sweet peppers - oh my, spread that on a bagel with cream cheese!

Gypsy has always done extremely well for me, dependable, large, very sweet. Last year I got an enormous crop of Baby Bells (red), and have chopped the plant off and it is re-sprouting. They are popular in give-aways! I have grown the prolific Turkish Cayenne (sweet) and love that for frying up. Aji Dulce didn't do well for me for some reason, but I loved the flavor (like habanero, but very little heat), so I'll try that again. I am also getting into the paprikas, and want to dry my own.

Yep, just as addictive as tomatoes!

~Thalia

[velikipop]

I too love growing peppers because they are easier to maintain than tomatoes and make beautiful plants, plus the infinite variety,shape and colours.

I've alreay started my chilis and have: Trindad Scorpion, Bhut Jolokia, Naga Morrich, Brown Hab, Chocolate Hab, Jamaican Hot Chocolate, Lemon Drop, Takanotsume, Hawaiian Sweet Hot, Black Congo, Red Savina, Fatalii, Scotch Bonnet, Surajmukhi, Trinidad Seasoning , Brazilian Starfish, White Hab and a mystery pepper from Serbia.

Soon I will be starting, Peruvian Purple, Pizza my Heart, Czechoslovakian Black, Slonovo Uvo, Palanacka Babura, Somborka, Jalapeno, Jimmy Nardello and few others yet to be decided.

[PaulF]

After tomatoes, peppers are next (with melons catching up to peppers). I love the variety of shapes and colors. I too am partial to sweets, but grow a few hots for my daughter-in-law who loves them the hotter the better (Thai Dragon, orange habenero, red scotch bonnet, Fish, Fatalii, Punjab Lal) We have to have jalapenos for my wife's salsa.

The sweets I like are Frank's Sweet, orange bell, Cuneo, Giant Arconcagua and Georgescu. Last year I tried all my peppers in large pots. They did OK, but everything is going in the ground again this year. Last year I did get some giant hybrids from TGS because they looked so good; hopefully this year in the dirt they will do better.

[Dukerdawg]

I grew 35 or so varieties last year, mostly hot, and all in pots in my GH. They do so great in there that I always get carried away with peppers. I am a bit distressed right now in the fact I cannot find my pepper seeds. I purchased at least a dozen new varieties last year, and for the life of me I don't know where they are.

Back to my search.


Duane

[feldon30]

As I've posted in other threads, at least for me in Houston, bell peppers are finicky and don't produce much. Fortunately, frying type peppers have the same flavor, can have the same size, and are very productive. They just aren't that blocky shape, so stuffing is difficult or impossible.

I grow primarily Carmen F1, Jimmy Nardello, Golden Marconi. All sweets.

[shelleybean]

I also love frying peppers. Melrose was great last year. Trying Golden Treasure this year. I love Doe Hill and Sheepnose Pimento too. I grow pimentos in place of bells. They do better for me and I'm really the only one in the house who eats a lot of peppers. One pimento in a omelette is perfect for me. That way I don't wrap half a pepper and lose it in the fridge.

Feldon, the cheese type pimentos have a flat bottom and would sit up well on a plate if you made them into stuffed peppers. They're smaller, of course, but you could serve three per person. I think they'd look cute. Have you seen them stuffed in the deli case or on the olive bar at the grocery store?

So this year I have Golden Treasure, Sheepnose Pimento, Sweet Red Cherry (for pickles), Hot Portugal (for fresh and dry use) and Trinidad Perfume. The Golden Treasure and Hot Portugal are new to me this year. Looking forward to them all. Yum!

[Suze]

Lori, looks like a good list to me.

Bells don't generally do well for me here, so I tend to grow elongated or frying types. My most productive sweets last year were Chervena Chushka and Golden Marconi. Jimmy Nardello did well and is a favorite - very sweet. I also liked Red Ruffled (pimento) and they do stuff well.

For hots, I tend to grow way too many really hot ones and decided not to do that this year. I find ones with mild heat or seasoning types to be much more versatile. A favorite is Beaver Dam, another one is Ancho.

[kimpossible]

I find I use hot banana pepper rings like they are going out of style - pizza, sandwiches, salads, etc. I go through a jar every 2 weeks or so, so I like to grow selection of yellow/orange/red, hot banana-types to can up. (That's in addition to all the others - jalapenos, habeneros, Fish, ornamental type hots, variety of coloured bells, etc.)

[feldon30]

Yes, I am considering Pimentos after seeing how they did for Suze.

[Andrey_BY]

For sweet peppers I have almost the same true love as with tomatoes. I grow them every year (20-30 varieties) in the special cold frame... Hot peppers are not so popular here in Eastern Europe. So I used to grow 2-5 varieties of them every year in my tomato greehouses...
There are about 50 sweet pepper+ 5 hot pepper varieties in my collection. They are mainly from Belarus, Russia, Moldova, Ukraine, Poland, Czech Republic, Germany, Bulgaria and former Yugoslavian Republics...

[gardengalrn]

Kim, how do you can your pepper rings? I too use a lot of them but my attempts to can them ended with a mushy, icky ring. The taste wasn't quite what I wanted, either. Of course, this was quite a few years ago and I would like to think my methods have improved somewhat See, with talk of pickled pepper rings and brined cherry peppers, I've already expanded my original list.

[macmanmatty]

[QUOTE=nctomatoman;90064]Peppers are a lot of fun. I think that the main reason that the visible obsession isn't there parallel to tomatoes is that there is inherently less variation in flavor - in other words, tomato flavors are wildly variable and diverse, whereas sweet peppers pretty much taste like sweet peppers - the unripe ones a bit green/grassy tasting, when at the final color stage a nice overtone of sweetness. And with the hots, you get the variations in heat - of course allowing for the subtle or not so subtle differences in the different families of hots (chinense, annum, etc).

I'm sorry but I have to disagree in this statement, I grow hundreds of varieties of peppers and find that there are many different flavors in different peppers. Some taste fruity some, taste smokey, some taste like lemon and some have no taste (C. annum). Each pepper packs it own punch and flavor and no two are the same there is so much variation even in the same species. My favorites are the C. baccatums they grow tall, produce loads of peppers where i live, and have a great fruity taste. I really like lemon drop and aji cristal both with their own unique taste. This year I will be growing the following plus probably a few more I will forget to name and some government peppers

Aji bentio
aji cristal
inca red drop
aji angelo
aji blanco cristal
aji cito
aji colorado
aji panaca
aji amirrillo
aji golden
aji starfish
gumdrop
lemon drop
pimenta cambuci
aji flor
crollea sella
aji hab
jamician bell
fatalii
7 pod
trinidad scoripan
trinidad perfume
aji dulce #2
aji dulce
fatalii
yellow hab
red hab
yuktan red hab
inca glow
red fatalii
red thick hab
chocolate hab
yellow pointed hab
tabasco
rain forest
inca berry
aji northern
peanut
kalediscope
bolvian rainbow
hot tunnis
paper lantern
antills carribean
naga morrich
peter pepper orange
big jim
numex suave orange
arbol purple
fish pepper