HelpfulGardener.com

I'll take suggestions for whatever kind you think might be interesting.

Well, since you asked: That Paprika looks interesting.

Richard

I've got heat and bells but there is more to life in the pepper patch!

Versatility, I grow a hot pepper that some folks also want as an ornamental. Pepper Joe says they have one like that: Filius Blue.

Here at home, we have stir-fry often. Sure, you can chop up a big sweet pepper but how about one you can toss in whole. Fushimi Sweet! I've grown it several times.

I probably like jalapenos better than any but there's only one on Pepper Joe's website that I've grown, the Early Jalapeno. I feel like I might be missing out!

That's 3!

Steve

Carolina Reaper for sure.
Scotch Bonnet, they used to be readily available but have become scarce.
Peter Pepper now available in more colors
Cascabel (It is supposed to rattle when you shake a dry pod)
Butch T trinidad scorpion
7 pot brain
Fatali
Filius blue (I have not had a blue pepper yet, and it is supposed to be edible)
Sweet Crimson ( I need more good sweet frying peppers.)
Chinese Giant Pepper (I have grown these before. They are an heirloom pepper and they did well for me. Actually they did better than the modern bells).
Shishito Japanese frying pepper
Hungarian hot wax pepper. I used to grow them before and we would put them in soups and stews. They were mildly hot but had good flavor.
Tabasco is a reliable favorite here for everything from chili pepper water, to marinades, and salsa. The plant is prolific and lives a very long time for me in Hawaii. I actually like super chili better. It has similar heat and flavor and is slightly bigger so the birds don't cap the bush the way they will with the tabasco plant.
Chiltepin - wild bird peppers. A lot of heat in a small package. It has a burst of heat in your mouth but does not have lingering or smoldering heat the way the super hots do.
Korean pepper. The flavor is mild but the plant tolerates cooler temperatures than most other peppers. The fruit is long and thin.

Thanks for the information and keep it coming! I'll be placing orders soon!

I would be happy to try any of the following:

Yatsufusa
Kung Pao (I thought this was a hybrid, though)
Thai Sun
Cascabella
Fushimi Sweet
Chocolate Bell
King of the North
Golden Marconi
TRINIDAD SCORPION CHOCOLATE CAPPUCCINO
Aconcagua

Thanks for mentioning the Pepper Joe Thai Sun! That seemed to be the most popular last year. Maybe because it's a smaller plant.

THAI SUN PEPPER organic
Perfect pepper for apartments and small Gardens. The miniature plant only grows ten to twelve inches high and about one to one and a half feet wide. The one inch peppers grow facing the sun. One plant has literally hundreds of these fireballs. This little devil packs a big wallop. The leaves are tiny so the plant is almost all peppers. It is easily grown in containers put on a porch, patio or deck. Anyone, anywhere can enjoy plenty of hot peppers with the Thai sun pepper. They ripen early and produce all season long. Each pod has a few scarce seeds.

Yatsufusa is an interesting pepper.

The way it grows makes for the opportunity for the artistic amongst us to dry the whole plant or just the branches and work them into arrangements for the winter kitchen .

But, Oh My Heavens are they hot!!

Steve

I read kung pao was the same as Thai dragon. Thai dragon was similar to cayenne, but when I grew Kung pao it did not have much heat at all even though it was supposed to be hot. It might be because of hybridization. Peppers are like that,
the recent hybrids can be more unstable than the old varieties.

Trinidad Scorpion Chocolate Cappuccino sounds interesting
That reminds me
I liked chocolate Habaneros too.

I like the sound of the peach and the lemon habanero.... and the chocolate fatali.

Also, any type of prolific ornamental pepper.

imafan26 wrote:I read kung pao was the same as Thai dragon. Thai dragon was similar to cayenne, but when I grew Kung pao it did not have much heat at all even though it was supposed to be hot. It might be because of hybridization. Peppers are like that,
the recent hybrids can be more unstable than the old varieties.

Trinidad Scorpion Chocolate Cappuccino sounds interesting
That reminds me
I liked chocolate Habaneros too.

Kung Pao is definitely not the same as most of the Thai dragons I have grown! Not as hot, by any means, and not much flavor, either, IMO. I have tried many Thai dragons, and none were as good as the first one I ever grew, which was a hybrid, as I tried growing seeds from it when the place went out of business (Shepherds Farms), and got different peppers altogether. The best Thai dragon I have found (searching around for that original, which hasn't happened) is from Thompson & Morgan - not as hot as some, but great flavor, and huge plants, with numerous peppers.

Chocolate habaneros were delicious, but very late (110-120 days), though they have gotten many habaneros to produce earlier than in the old days. And those I grew were a long time ago! I'd love to find some that are earlier.

Isn't Shepherd's Farms now called Renee's Garden? I used to like Shepherds, they had a good book with recipes for the unusual produce.

imafan26 wrote:Isn't Shepherd's Farms now called Renee's Garden? I used to like Shepherds, they had a good book with recipes for the unusual produce.

Yes, and I even chatted with Renee about the possibility if finding that Thai dragon, but to no avail. The Thai Red Demon that they carry is good, and one I grow every season, but still not the same.

INTERESTING!
I never knew that, but I used to order from Shepherds Garden Seeds and stopped for reasons I can't remember -- maybe that's when the takeover took place?

A quick look yielded this:
Renee's Garden Seeds Equivalent to Shepherd's Seeds Varieties
https://www.reneesgarden.com/hm-gardnr/r ... epherd.htm
Chile Pepper Thai Dragon
in Peppers, "Thai Chile Duo"
https://www.reneesgarden.com/seeds/packp ... r-thai.htm

-- the two varieties in the packet marked "True Thai Chiles" are "Full Moon" and " Vesuvius"

...I wonder -- if the original variety was a hybrid, do you suppose it could have been hybrid of these two?

Apple,

The full moon I got last time in a duo with the Thai Red demon, and it was a large orange Thai. I doubt the origonal was a hybrid of those two, though maybe the red demon was one of the two. As she told me, often those hybrids are only produced by one person, and if they retire or pass on, we often never see them again.

What made that Thai Dragon so unique was that it was incredibly early - full sized greens in late June, and beginning ripening in mid July - plus that it was indeterminate, while most Thai and similar peppers are fairly determinate. The peppers, unlike most of that type, which point either up or down, went every which way, and there were peppers of every size on the plants until they died from cold.

Apple. Shepherd's garden is a family owned business. I don't know why the name changed but Renee Shepherd is still the owner.
I've grown Thai Dragon before. These sites list Thai dragon seeds for sale

https://www.kitazawaseed.com/seed_454-104.html
https://www.tmseeds.com/product/Chili-Pe ... -F1-Hybrid
https://www.westcoastseeds.com/productde ... l4g9Y.dpbs
https://www.lakevalleyseed.com/Pepper_Th ... _p/674.htm

I have grown all of these except the one from Kitazawa seeds, which a friend grew, and told me that it was definitely not the old Thai dragon we used to grow.

From what I heard, Shepherd's was one of those family businesses in which one of the kids - Renee - wanted to keep the family business going, but one wanted to sell out. It took a while to get it going again, but it's good that it is, and that Renee has a lot of similar items.

That's good to know. I had Thai dragon before and I liked them, but I don't remember where I got them. I do buy some seeds from kitazawa. There seems to be a lot of different Thai peppers.

Shepherd's was purchased by White Flower Farm, then closed. Maybe it was one of those hostile takeovers. Renee seems to be doing fine off on her own.

Lots of Thai peppers? There are lots of Thai gardeners and people interested in peppers .

I have grown A Thai Dragon and have Thai Hot every year. Thai Hot probably wouldn't go very far as a descriptive name ... I appreciate that it is early maturing. Quite a few peppers have little chance of maturing in my gardening climate.

The Thai Dragon seed may have come from Thompson & Morgan. I saved the seed. That was something of a mistake since I should have already known it was a hybrid. Even if it wasn't, the plants were growing in the open garden with other peppers. Up, down or sideways - even with the direction of the pods, the offspring was varied! Flavor is difficult for me to discern since these things are hot! I can't tolerate all that much heat so as to really know what I'm up to in the kitchen, at the table or in my pepper patch .

To avoid cross pollination, a few Thai Hot plants have been the only variety I've grown here at home the last few years. Others are in a distant garden.

My neighbors haven't had peppers but I noticed last year one neighbor had bells. I don't know about Asian or Chinese peppers ... figured there was a risk to the Thai Hots so I decided Native American and learned over the fence to demand, "Katimma ish ia? Katimma ish ia?!"

It might not have worked ... I'll find out next year when I plant the pepper seed ...

Steve

I have had thai hots which are very tiny on a plant that is under one foot tall and very hot. Hot thai which has peppers that are 1 inch long and thin pointing up and somewhere around a tabasco in heat. My Thai dragons looked and tasted a lot like cayennes with similar heat levels. There was also the thai bird eye chili that grew in clusters of two or three, pointed down and were very hot.

So I guess there is a lot of variation in Thai peppers.

Red Crimson . I love bells but can't eat spicy.