Pepper count anyone?

[ApertureF11Sniper]

I buy plants or starts as some call them. Right now I have 207 with a goal of 300 plus whatever seeds do well. I have a variety from sweet bell to the Reaper. I don't think that Pepper X is too readily available yet and in fact most people do not know about it....I saw a question on Google, how many SU's can a person endure. The answer was 16 Million. How scientific that answer was I am not sure. Myself I will stick with Jalapenos....

[webmaster]

Do you eat Pepper X?

I like hot flavors and at one time I could chug hot sauces. Despite my enthusiasm, I always stopped at the Reaper pepper. And now there's something stronger?

[imafan26]

I like to grow peppers and I do have seeds for some hot ones. Red Savina Habanero, Bhut jolokia a couple of different colors, 7 pot hot, Trinidad Scorpion, and Carolina Reaper. I don't eat any of them. I do give them to people who like really hot peppers. For me a cayenne is about as hot as I want to get. Jalapenos are for the most part not very hot fro 0-8000 SHU. When I go to Subway they always ask if I want Jalapenos, theirs is not that hot, its just very salty.

Bird peppers are hot. I can only put one of those in salsa or fenadeni.

I don't grow anywhere near 300 peppers in my small yard. The peppers I grow most are super chili, Hawaiian chili, Thai peppers (there are many kinds some are hot some are not so hot), Jalapeno (Wailua pepper), and bird peppers. The sweet peppers that grow best for me are Carmen, cubanelle, and Rooster spur. I am still working on getting giant alcongua to grow. I finally was able to source some seeds, they were always sold out. I planted chiltepin seeds , but what grew looked more like solanum americanum which is good for making dye, but is otherwise a weed. I have gotten a Jimmy Nardello to grow, but I did not transplant it in time so it did not live long. I also want to get another 7 pot hot going even though it takes a long time to germinate.

I have a lot of duplicate plants of Hawaiian chili, super chile, and Thai chilies. In all I only have about a dozen. I prefer the longer pendulous peppers because the Hawaiian chili and other small peppers will be picked clean by the birds. They only leave the caps. Super chili looks like a Hawaiian peppers (similar to tabasco), but it is a little bigger, so once it gets to a certain size the birds can't eat it.

The only bell peppers that managed to get any fruit was Chinese Giant, Revolution, Great Stuff, King Arthur, Burpees experimental #5, and Majestic Red. I tried to grow Charleston bell which is recommended for the south. It did produce a small pepper, but it is not resistant to pepper spot. Neither is Chinese Giant but it produced the largest peppers, but did not last long because of disease.

King Arthur, Revolution, Majestic Red, King Arthur, Aristotle, Burpee's experimental #5 had good disease tolerance. I just have to figure out when I should grow them.

I am being more selective about the peppers I grow so I have gotten some varieties I haven't tried yet but are resistant to black spot and phythopthora which are the main problems. Since I grow the peppers in pots, nematodes are not a problem. If I grow peppers in the ground, they need to be nematode resistant. I haven't started many peppers yet because we have had weeks of rain.

[ApertureF11Sniper]

I grow peppers more for the joy of it and not eating them. I give them away though this year I will try more of them. Not the hot ones...By this time next week I should have over 300 plants...Today I went to a place called Flower World... I bought 2 - 4 packs of Hungarian Hot Wax peppers and two medium size Jalapenos that were in 4 inch pots. I also worked on building my benches for my pots. Building them with scrap wood from a near by construction site.

Webmaster....Pepper X is 3 million plus SU's

[imafan26]

I have grown Hungarian Hot Wax before they are good, not that hot. I only grow Mucho Nacho, Biker Billy ( I haven't found it lately), and Wailua pepper. These are the only jalapenos that I find with consistent heat. Early Jalapeno is not that hot and Jalapeno M has had inconsistant heat on the same plant. Nada to mild, I tried a few times thinking it was just bad seed, but it was consistently inconsistent so I don't get that one any more. I haven't tried the nadapeno, but then I probably won't like it. I also like the Fresno and Serrano peppers. They are a little hotter than a jalapeno but they have not been hybridized into different cultivars as much so the heat level is stable. I would rather grow the Thai peppers, even though there is a lot variation with those too. The ones from Renee's garden, Vesuvius and Full Moon are nice and hot with a little sweet flavor. It is one of those that tastes sweet initially until it heats up. The one from Baker creek was not that good as other varieties and not that hot. 7 pot hot, is very hot, not a pepper for salsa, it needs to be diluted in a larger volume.

[pepperhead212]

I only grow 20 something, as far as number of plants, and only 17 varieties this season, with 2 varieties not germinating. But I eat most of mine; any extra ones of some varieties I take up to the Mexican grocery, and he likes getting those, along with my extra epazote.

Here's an example of almost all of the peppers I grew a few years ago. I probably missed a couple, but this was a year I was trying to photograph all of them.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/91097628@ ... 9058946617

[ApertureF11Sniper]

I love to grow them and I give them to people I know and people I do not know...This year, unlike last year, I am set for my peppers. I will have a good season and I plan on freezing some and drying some....Question though, why you dry a pepper does it lose some of the heat it has?

[imafan26]

Actually, drying peppers makes them hotter because when you take out the water, it concentrates the oils. You can leave them whole or grind them into a powder or just flakes. It is better to keep them in the freezer because they will go rancid.

[hendi_alex]

Bell pepper and jalapeños are all we grow, but a bunch at 15-20 plants each. We eat them fresh in season and give away the extras.

[imafan26]

Hot peppers are prolific, but bell peppers are not for me. I do grow a few Jalapenos but it is not my favorite pepper. It is not very hot and it has limited use for me.

[PaulF]

Eighteen plants in the ground, all sweet, with a couple already with peppers on them. We eat what we want and give the rest away. Most years production is fairly low and ripe production even less because of the shorter growing season than what they need. Grow peppers just for the fun of it.

[applestar]

I’m hesitating to make a contribution in this discussion because, in my mind, I’m not “officially” growing them until they are secure in their permanent growing space for the season, and my pepper seedlings are still waiting to be planted.

But FWIW — This year, I’m trying to grow enough bell peppers to not need to buy them once they start producing, and hopefully, also build a stash of chopped and frozen for the post-season.

To ensure the plan, I limited starting seeds for hot peppers and ended up with only Fish — to continue pursuing my (ExVar: extra-variegated) and (SuperVar: super-variegated) saved seed lines. In the past I’ve positioned Fish as comparable in heat to jalapeños. But I mainly use them fresh or dehydrated and ground.

Other hots failed to germinate and/or sprout.

Manganji is variously described as “sweet” or “mildly spicy”. Some folks seem to be saying it has more heat when red, but it’s supposed to be eaten while green.

I’m thinking neither Largo de Reus nor Yellow Cap is considered a bell pepper, but they’re supposed to be sweet.

Here is my pepper list for this year (failed varieties are crossed out) — 2 (3) hots and 8 (7) sweets (depending on how you count Manganji). 16 plants of one and 34 of the other…. But I’ve managed to share and find homes for some of them elsewhere.

* ExVar Fish
* SuperVar Fish
* GOLDFISH
* Prairie Spice F9
* ChocCakeX? (Ingrid x Marconi?)
* Giant Sweet Devil’s Horn Aug’20
* Manganji (18~24”)
* World Beater (Ruby Giant) 36”
* Yellow Cap
* California Wonder (18~24”)
* ChocCake Not
* Largo de Reus (18~24”)
* Not ChocCake, Not KOTN (Ingrid x Marconi?)
* Yellow California Wonder
* Yolo Wonder (24~30”)

[pepperhead212]

I saw my first open blossoms on a pepper plant yesterday - a Superchili, which is always my first pepper, usually around 6-20 for the first full sized, and about a week into July to get ripe. A lot of them are unopened, including one chinense variety which surprised me - the Datil - as usually chinense are much later to blossom.

[imafan26]

I haven't started my hottest peppers yet, but I should be able to start them now that the temperature is consistently in the 80's in the daytime and 67-68 degrees at night, which is their best temperature for germination. I do have a Hawaiian chili that is producing now, and a Thai pepper that looks to be on its last legs.

I just bought more perlite and peat moss, so I can make more media. I just have to dump out more containers and clean them up.

I have grown yolo wonder before it is not a large pepper but it is suitable for my climate. I used to grow California wonder, but I like Revolution, Aristotle, and Majestic Red better. They have better disease resistance than California wonder.
That being said, getting them to produce more that a couple of peppers is still a challenge. I think my pots are too small. It is fine for hot peppers for the first fruit, but the bell peppers stunt more.

What kind of fertilizer are you using and the pot size for bells? Mine probably stay too long in the 4 inch pots. They start to flower and even if they are transplanted they remain very small. So small that the one pepper they have touches the ground.