Pepper Help Needed

[SQWIB]

I need assistance in picking out a sweet, thick walled, red pepper.


Last year I tried the Ruby King, the pepper was nice but not a heavy producer to say the least, I will however try again next year.







I had great success with the Corno Di Tori Giallo from Rare Seeds and was going to order some Corno Di Toro (it's a red) from Burpee.

Corno Di Tori Giallo




I don't like ordering from Burpee and usually order from Rare Seeds but they don't carry them so looks like I made need to order from Burpee.

I will be ordering my seeds early 2018, but before I do, does anyone have any other suggestions?

[SQWIB]

Forgot to add that I will be trying the Red Marconi as well.

[imafan26]

There are a few places that also have them.

https://www.ufseeds.com/product/corno-d ... per-seeds/

I have better luck with the long sweet peppers. Bell peppers don't produce well for me either. I do like the corno d' toro, cubanelle, hungarian wax, red marconi, Belgian red,shishito, and the only bell that I actually liked was Chinese Giant. It still did not produce a lot of peppers, but it produced more than the others. It seems the bells in general are not as good producers probably because of their size. The longer peppers are more productive and for me they are also bigger plants.

[digitS']

I'm surprised that Imafan' and I have similar choices in peppers. Maybe it's a Western thing but our environments probably couldn't be more different. I think she complains about the birds limiting her pepper success. For me, it's this environment with its cool nights. That's my story and I'm sticking with it, anyway!

I've grown all Imafan mentioned with the exception of Belgian Red. Chinese Giant had like one very large bell pepper per plant and that was it. This isn't atypical of pepper performance in my garden, by the way .

Corno di Toro had almost more peppers than I could deal with. Red Marconi did fine but peppers seldom fully ripen in my garden so they were generally eaten green. Marconi is a favorite and I agree that the sweet Italian peppers do better for me than bells.

I have read that the sweet peppers with Caribbean names are closely related to the Italian. Cubanella did fine. If you want to have stuffed peppers and that is holding you back from long sweets (probably not you, SQWIB), realize that all the ingredients in a stuffed pepper can go in a casserole along with any chopped sweet pepper. Search out one of those casserole recipes, I doubt if you will be disappointed.

Shishito is a Japanese pepper that doesn't look like it should be sweet but is. It is great in stir-fries.

Steve

[SQWIB]

Thanks Guys that helps a lot. My space is limited and my family is finicky with peppers so I have to be pretty selective.

I was looking for a thick walled sweet red for slicing and eating raw like in a veggie dip. I think the Chinese giants, Corno Di Toro reds and the Ruby Kings will be my picks to cover this for 2018

I like the green bells raw and on pizzas and omelets, cooked in stews, Jambalaya, pepper steak, fried pepper and onions for grilled chicken sandwiches, steak toppings, etc.. so I'll try the California wonders again, I did have one plant that was loaded this year

My hots for 2018 will be the Tabasco, Cayenne and Poblanos the Tabasco and Cayenne are usually used for seasoning and hot sauces and the Poblanos are a must, I love smoking and dehydrating these for later dishes like beans, soups, stews and the like. I also like my Chile Relenno

Jalapenos are used for stuffing (ABT's) and smaller ones are sliced and pickled for burger toppings and relish.


2018 Sweets

• Chinese Giant
• Red Marconi
• Corno Di Toro (red)
• Corno Di Torro Giallo
• California wonder

2018 Hots

• Tabasco
• Cayenne
• Jalapeno
• Poblano

I think I'm going to skip 2018 for my Ghost Chili, Anaheim and Datil Peppers. I have plenty of seed stock to grow these in 2019.
I try to grow a plant every other year or so just to make sure I have a good fresh supply of seeds.

My wife and I are the only ones that eat the green peppers raw, mostly everyone else will eat them grilled/fried as a steak topping or on a grilled chicken sandwich.

Most of the family will eat the sweets in any form.
My daughters enjoyed the Corno Di Toro Giallo (raw) but they had to be totally ripe.
My son and I will eat the jalapenos but he only eats them when I make ABT's, he will eat most of the hots when in hot sauces, seasonings or in stew and stuff.

It's hard to make anything spicy in my family because only my son and myself can eat the spicier stuff, my one daughter will on occasion eat the spicy stuff.

[jal_ut]

Emerald Giant, California Wonder, Red Beauty

[SQWIB]

Emerald Giant, California Wonder, Red Beauty

The "Emerald Giant" looks good but I was looking for sweet reds.
The "Red Beauty" looks great too, but I'm on the fence about growing bells other than my "California Wonders". I may try another "Ruby King" if there is enough garden space.

I'm kinda sold on the "Corno Di Toro" peppers and was looking again!!!

Johnny's seeds/

The "California Wonders" are hit and miss with me (probably my fault). Although I had one plant this past season that was extremely prolific.




I really like the Carmen but its a Hybrid and I really am trying to use my own seeds on repeat crops.

To be quite honest, if I could grow Bells like the supermarket Reds, Greens and Yellow, I wouldn't grow any other sweet peppers.

Now I'm all cunfuzed!!!

[digitS']

SQWIB, I didn't have good experiences with California Wonder.

It seems like I grew it in two different decades. It was frustrating because Cal Wonder is very popular and has been for a long time. I'm also a California native son .

These days, I pretty much only have King of the North as my bell pepper. It isn't as though I'm so enamored with it. I'm not. It's just the variety that is a consistently good performer, as measured by everything else.

And Hey! Carmen did just fine in my garden for about 5 seasons, now. If you want to save pepper seed, my experience has been that they cross readily and so I separate whatever variety is desired for seed. That's not too difficult for me since I have gardens separated by miles and the neighbors don't grow peppers ... usually.

Steve

[imafan26]

The Chinese Giants produce very large peppers. I only get 3-5 from them but the peppers are usually on a very compact plant and touch the ground. In the mainland you may have a better experience growing the Cal wonder. It will probably be more productive since it is a smaller pepper.

What limits pepper growing for me is the short days. My longest day is just about 14 hours and the shortest just shy of 11 hours. It means I can grow plants year round but I don't get giants of anything with the shorter days. I grow tropical corn and silver queen corn since they do better than longer day versions. I can grow tropical corn UH #9 or UH #10 nearly year round especially in a warm year like this one. Cal wonder is about a 1/3 smaller than the market version, but Chinese giant is 5-6 inches long and blocky, it would probably be bigger for you. My biggest issue is not so much the weather but disease resistance. There are very few peppers with resistance to nematodes and especially to the fungal and bacterial diseases. That is what ultimately kills them. Hot peppers do fine and Hawaiian chilies can live for years. I have those chilies an average of 8 years if the scale does not bother them. The small leaves help keep water off and makes them more resistant to the fungal and bacterial diseases. California wonder, Keystone, Jupiter are some of the better ones to grow here. We do have a locally bred pepper called Kaala that will live more than a year but the pepper is a miniature (1/3 the size of a normal bell). The frutescens and chinense types usually are longer lived. I don't have a lot of baccatum peppers.

The long sweet peppers are more productive for me. They are bigger plants, longer lived and produce more fruit than bells. I still have to plant a lot of them in pots since I don't know about nematode resistance, but they do have better disease resistance. Not immune, but enough to get a decent harvest from them. Carmen is wonderful and productive. The Hungarian wax or banana pepper is one of my mainstays but some of the Hungarians are slightly hot and some are not.

For hot peppers I stay away from most of the new varieties of Jalapeno. They have been unstable, so I stick with either old
varieties or grow serrano which is much more stable and has not been crossed as much.

Red Belgian is a new one I tried from Baker seeds. It is cone shaped and because it is a bigger pepper there are fewer of them, I have been pleased with how long the plant has survived in less than ideal conditions and managed to even hold on to the fruit. I does take a long time for it to turn red and it is sweetest when it gets there. It starts off yellow and stays that way for a very long time, people ask me if I am sure I have the right pepper because it is yellow for the longest time.

I did have luck with snapper pepper. I was medium sized bell.

I want to try red knight. It has a decent disease package but I don't know how well it grows.

[Gary350]

I buy pepper plants that have the word, sweet in the name. Sweet Bell Peppers. Sweet Red Bell Peppers. Sweet Yellow Bell Peppers. I figured the word sweet was a good indicator that it will be sweet but I don't for sure I have not experimented with other varieties of peppers to learn how they taste. Maybe I try something new next season like KY Wonder. I don't like grocery store bell peppers.

[Dmkent]

I don't mean to hijack this thread, but you all seem pretty knowledgeable about bell peppers. Does anyone know if it would be possible to perhaps cross a bell pepper with a super hot like ghost or scorpion in the hopes of getting a super hot large pepper as big as bell peppers get?