Help out a poor, teary-eyed Jalapeno growin' rookie...

[COgarden]

I recently developed a fairly serious addiction to jalapeno peppers. I love the flavor and, contrary to the subject of this post, I'd like to find a pepper thats a little hotter than the pickled jalapenos I get at the grocery store. In the past the only hot peppers I've grown have been habaneros which did awesome here. Sliced 'em, toasted 'em, ground 'em, ate 'em. Amazing flavor but way too hot!

What I'm looking for is sort of a Jalapeno support group for those who don't want to ever give up the addiction. Please support my twisted, selfish, newfound need for all things jalapeno.

This will be my first year growing jalapenos. My experience with habaneros tells me to start seed early relative to tomatoes, but plant out late. Habbys planted in containers were much more productive than those planted in the ground. Will these same lessons apply to jalapenos for growing in zone 5?

I've gotten seed for: Jalapeno M, Mucho Nacho Hybrid, and Purple Jalapeno. Are any or all of these a bit hotter than the typical grocery store pickled jalapeno?

A few questions regarding the care and feeding of the pet Jalapeno plant:

1. What size container? ("height X "diameter)
2. What kind of potting medium?
3. How moist should I keep the soil?
4. What kind of fertilizer? alot?, some?, or none?

Well, Mischka, I think I've earned the award for most questions in a single post!

Kurt, Founding Member of JARU (Jalapeno Addicts, Recovery Unlikely)

[alkalidenny]

Kurt,
I live in zone 5 and have had good luck growing jalapenos in five gallon buckets. I use a mix of equal parts of peat moss, vermiculite, and compost for the potting medium. Use just enough water to keep them healthy, over watering will reduce the heat of the fruit. Their care is very similar to tomatoes. Peppers are more sensitive to excess nitrogen than tomatoes so make sure you feed them sparingly with a fertilizer higher in phosphate. They are easy to grow and taste great. I wish I had one right now.
Denny

[barkeater]

Jalapeno is by far my favorite hot flavor, and can't have them hot enough. The hottest I've found is Early Jalapeno, much, mucho hotter than Jal M. The best advice I can give to making them hotter is to stress them. Let them get dry at times.

I hate the flavor of habs but love the heat. So I try to find the hottest non-habs. I got lucky in '04. I saved seeds from Early Jal, and they had crossed with Thai Dragon. They were perfect and HOT. However they weren't stable and last year came out small and twisted.

So this year I'm growing the following:

EarlyJalapeno(15) - First pick 40 days after transplant.

Garden Salsa F1(6)- Friend grew some last year. Hotter than Jal. Fantastic and 8-9" long.

Ring of Fire Cayenne(3) - For drying and stringing. Longer than Thai Dragon, hopefully near as hot.

Cherry Bomb F1(6) - Very hot and great pickled.

Serrano Del Sol F1(3) - Supposed to be hot. New for me.

Jalapa is supposed to be a good one I'd like to try. Mucho Nacho is supposed to be very mild.

[Love2Troll]

The hottest (supposedly) jal is 'Biker Billy' an hybrid from Burpee. I grew in 2000 and 2001 and found them to be not so hot. Other growers had better results than I.

I'm not a fan of the "stress" theory, but there are too many qualified people that are for me to contradict. So stress the heck out of them.

A 5 gal black container works well in the spring because the sun can warm it up nicely. If your summers are hot then I suggest grass clippings etc piled up and around container to keep cooler.

Anyways, just wanted to give you the Biker Billy info.

http://tinyurl.com/45rhx

[grungy]

If you would like to increase the heat of your peppers, try stressing them. We generally go around once a week with a small pair of scissors and trim 1/3 to 1/2 of the new leaves, starting 2-3 weeks after transplant. This mimics an attack by spidermites. Discovered this accidentally when some of my greenhouse peppers were attacked and the resulting peppers were about twice as hot as the same variety that hadn't been visited by spider mites. Hope this helps.

[landarc]

I would agree with the stress idea. We found this out when we tried a bunch of my uncles peppers, allegedly mild Jalapenos, and dsiscovered that, indeed, they were amongst the hottest we had tried to that point. He ahd poor soil, and did not water that regularly, and these were unreasonably hot jalapenos.

Bob

[Love2Troll]

The reason I have not totally bought into the stress theory is how does one explain why one ripe pod picked from the same plant is hot and another ripe pod picked at the exact same time (or give or take a day or two) is not?

Until I see a study performed under controlled conditions comparing purposely stressed plants alongside ones that are not I expect will remain somewhat a skeptic even though is probably true.

It was my very first ripe red rocoto abt 5 years ago that caused me to be a skeptic. Absolutely no heat whatsoever and was sweet as can be. The very next ripe pod blew me away. And I have noticed this many times since.

Can't for the life of me find or remember where I read that ambient temperature at the time the blossom was fertilized might be a factor in determining the amt of capsaicin produced in a pod.

So... all that said, it is probably best to continue stressing plants if you want extra hot pods.

jt

[Love2Troll]

And PLEASE
if you have a long URL go to...

I am so embarrased!

anon

[barkeater]

I'd rather have a long URL than a tiny one! :wink: Where was one in this thread?

[MsCowpea]

Best hot pepper in the world: hot, spicy, delicious--think Jamaican jerk chicken, Jamaican pepperpot soup, Jamaican fricasee chicken, Jamaican rice and peas, Jamaican (oh you get the idea).

Jamaican Scotch bonnet (yellow to orange, bonnet shape)

Some seed catalogs have it confused with habaneros--get the REAL thing.

[landarc]

JT, if I don't operate in my garden on innuendo and unsubstantiated rumor, I have nothing left. I have often wondered how I can end up with such undependable heat from one pepper to the next, glad to know it is not just me.

As for the length of one's url, it ain't whether it is short or long, it's what you do with your url that counts.

Bob

[cdntomato]

My apologies to the very kind, thoughtful and much too humble jt /anon for posting his lengthy but very worthy url on another thread. I did not know how to shorten it.

Bob, re the length of one's url

Jennifer (jeff to jt)

[seeker]

Kurt,

I've grown Mucho Nacho Jalapenos for several years, and they really have been bigger, thicker and hotter than regular jalapenos.

However, there seems to be 2 different peppers going by the same name, and I'm really confused now. Parks, for example, sells a Mucho Nacho Jalapeno that they say is bigger, thicker, and milder than a regular jalapeno. However, Tomato Growers Supply (where I got my seeds) says Mucho Nacho is bigger, thicker, and hotter.
So confusing.

I also grew Biker Billy last year. It was very similar to the TGS Mucho Nacho. Both are very good.

Paula

[duderubble]

I'll second the motion for "garden salsa" definitely hotter than the jalapenos growing next to it last year, but with the same sort of taste. Nice size also and I liked that it ripened to red and preserved its heat and taste. Looked nice in the salsa fresca (had a sort of "stealth heat" property).

Two years ago I got one of the mild "mucho nachos." Looked like a large jalapeno, tasted like a bell pepper. I chalked it up to a wet season at the time.

[windsng225]

I have grown the scotch bonnet and actually hate them. They are way too hot for me. This past season I grew jalapeno's and Hungarian black jalapeno's. They were delicious, both. I found that the Hungarian black had a smokey taste to them and not as harsh as the green jalapeno's. Both are great in fresh salsa. I froze quite a few of both.
joyce