Ancho/Poblano (capsicum annuum)
Multiple-stemmed and compact to semi-erect plants that grow to about 2 feet tall. Peppers are pendant, 3 - 6 " long and 2 - 3" wide, and mature from dark
green to red. 100 to 120 days to maturity, approximately 15 peppers per plant. 1000 to 1500 SHU. Commonly used green ("poblano") to make chiles rellenos, and dried ("ancho") to make mole sauces.
"Fairly mild". Seed Source:Pepper Joe, $2.99/15.
Cubanelle (capsicum annuum)
A variety of the Cuban type. Plants are typically 2 to 3 feet tall. Peppers are pendant and about 6 inches long, maturing from yellow to red. No pungency. Typical yield 12 or more peppers per plant. Seed Source: Reader-contributed seeds, leftover from last season
Fatalii (capsicum chinense)
From the Central African Republic. Peppers are 3" long and thin-walled, maturing from green to yellow. Plants grow to about 2 feet tall. Extremely prolific, grows well in pots. "Extremely pungent". Seed Source:Pepper Joe, $3.99/10. Author's Notes:Fruit: pendant, campanulate (bell-shaped), non-deciduous. Most productive two plants averaged 45 peppers per plant. Some fruit have elongated pointed ends, others do not.
Green when immature, ripen to a nice bright yellow. Extremely hot. Typically 1.3" to 1.8" long; pod size was comparable to Scotch Bonnet under identical conditions. Habit: normal, erect habit; comparable to Scotch Bonnet.
General: Germination and initial growth were slower than Scotch Bonnet plants under identical conditions, but
not dramatically so. Harvest timing and size were comparable to what I've experienced in the past with Scotch Bonnet peppers, if a bit slower. Heat level was comparable to Scotch Bonnets and Habaneros that I have grown in the past. As with the Scotch Bonnet varieties that I have grown, this variety did well in partial
sun as a container plant. These plants seemed to have toughness typical of a pepper plant, and were a bit more cold-hardy than Scotch Bonnets; both varieties survived night-time lows in the mid 30's (mid-October), but where an overnight low of 28oF in late October killed all of my Scotch Bonnet plants, two of the
Fataliis survived.
Hot Lemon Pepper
Peppers have a spicy lemon scent. Medium-sized, bushy plant. Heat level 9. Seed Source:Pepper Joe, $3.99/15. Author's Notes: These plants are *incredible* ! Fruit: pendant, elongated pods with pointed ends; thicker and shorter than a Cayenne, typically 2" to 2.5" long. Pod walls are of medium thickness; fleshier than a typical Cayenne. Ripen to yellow. Prolific; averaged 84 peppers per plant. Produced until late in the season; I was still harvesting ripe peppers in mid-November.
Habit: Unbelievably bushy habit; almost more like blackberry or blueberry runners than normal pepper plants. These plants outgrew every pot I put them in; even in heavy 10" diameter clay pots, I had to keep these plants at the back of the porch leaning against a wall, otherwise the wildly-distributed weight of the fruit would tip the pots over in the slightest breeze.
General: Fast germination and initial growth. Harvest timing comparable to what I've experienced with various Cayenne varieties, except that the Hot Lemon pepper plants continue to produce much later than most pepper plants. These plants are very tough and first-season cold-hardiness is unequalled by any other pepper plants I've ever grown; these plants were still alive and well in December, after multiple nights having lows in the mid-20s.
The peppers themselves survive extended freezer storage better than most varieties that I have frozen; I have some that have been in the freezer for over 2 years, and other than a bit of color loss they look exactly like they did the day I froze them.
This variety did very well in partial sun as a container plant– perhaps too well as noted above under Habit. I shudder to think what they would do in a garden in full sun; visions of Hot Lemon Pepper plants taking over the entire garden by force and attacking passersby come to mind (*grin*).
Jalapa (capsicum annuum)
A Seminis Garden hybrid Jalapeno that is more productive than a standard Jalapeno; also, the Jalapa plant is more compact and its foliage is a darker green. Seed Source:Tough Love Chile Company, $1.00/12.
NuMex Big Jim (capsicum annuum)
A type of New Mexico or Anaheim pepper, named after the late Jim Lytle. Developed by Roy Nakayama (New Mexico State University's Chile Pepper Breeding Program) and released in 1975. Produces the longest pods of any chile pepper plant (up to 13 1/2"), listed in the Guiness Book of World Records. "Medium heat". Seed Source: Reader-contributed seeds, leftover from last season
NuMex Twilight (capsicum annuum)
Piquin pod type. Plants grow to about 18". 120 days to maturity. Peppers are 3/4" long, maturing from purple to yellow to orange to red. Grows well in pots. Developed by New
Mexico State University's Chile Pepper Breeding Program in 1991. "Very pungent". Seed Source:Tough Love Chile Company, $1.00/22. Author's Notes: This is a quite attractive plant, with a nice array of pod colors showing at the same time during ripening. It does not, in my opinion, beat the Bolivian Rainbow for "Best Looking Pepper Plant". Fruit: very numerous (more than 250), erect, non-deciduous, elongated teardrop shape.
Ripen from purple to yellow to orange to red. Unlike most varieties for which I have data, this plant showed a marked change in pod size at a point in the harvest season,
going from a consistent median pod length of 1 - 1.1" through mid-August to an equally consistent median pod length of 0.75" for the remainder of the harvest. Habit: Compact. General: Germination and initial growth rates average, but germination percentage itself was very poor (22%).
Many varieties that I've grown produce the bulk of their peppers in August and September; this plant (like the Bolivian Rainbow plants that I grew in 2000) was a steady producer August-November, and did not reach 50% harvest until early-mid October. This plant exhibited typical toughness and cold-hardiness for a Capsicum and
did very well in partial sun as a container plant.
Prairie Fire PVP
Plant Variety Patent. Plants grow to 6" - 9" tall. Peppers mature from white to purple to yellow to red. Seed Source:Tough Love Chile Company, $1.00/22. Author's Notes: If there is such a thing as a dwarf pepper plant, this is it! Fruit: numerous (average 130 per plant), erect, non-deciduous, shaped like a short, fat Tabasco or a skinny Bolivian Rainbow. Mature from white to purple to yellow to red. Fruit size *very* consistent, typically 0.8 ± 0.1". Harvest timing typical; ripe fruit from late June to late October
with 50% harvest in early August. Habit: Ultra-compact; *very* small plant. General: *The most consistent* Capsicum plants I've ever grown: all seeds sprouted within a day of each other, the three plants showed first flowers within 2 days of each other and showed first ripe fruit the same day. Fruit size showed little variation from harvest to harvest and from plant
to plant, and the harvest timing of the two plants I kept were almost identical, as can be seen from the uncanny congruence of the harvest curves on the Harvest page. This variety did well in partial sun as a container plant and showed typical toughness and cold-hardiness for a pepper plant.
Scotch Bonnet (capsicum chinense)
The Jamaican equivalent of the Mexican Habanero. Capsicum chinense tend to germinate slowly, grow slowly, and do best in humid areas with warm nights.
80 to 120 days to maturity (or more depending on environment). Plants are typically 2 feet tall in US gardens. Peppers mature from green to yellow or red. Yield varies dramatically with environment. "Very pungent". Seed Source: Reader-contributed seeds, leftover from last season Author's Notes (from 2000):Flowers: small (1/2" to 3/4" across), with 5-6 white corollas (no spots). Anthers are light sea-green in color and the filaments are white. Fruit: pendant, campanulate (bell-shaped), non-deciduous. Averaged 40 per plant. Some fruit have elongated pointed ends, others do not.
Fruit drop in clusters at nodes, typically 3-6 fruit at a given node at the same time. Green when immature, ripen to orange. Extremely hot. Typically 1 1/4 to 1 3/4" long. Leaves: large, medium-green, ovate, toothless. Average first year leaf 3-4" long by 1 3/4 - 2 1/4" wide, some will be much larger than this. Habit:
normal, erect habit. Plants grew to about 20" in an 8" standard clay pot (first season). General: This variety did well in partial sun as a container plant; these are the best results I've ever obtained with a variety of Capsicum chinense. These plants seemed to have toughness typical of a pepper plant, but
were notably less cold-hardy than the average pepper plant. Also, in general, I have found that Capsicum chinense do not do well in hot, dry, full-sun conditions. Author's Notes (2001): The main differences exhibited by these plants between the 2000 and 2001 seasons are, I believe, primarily attributable to two factors: germination temperature and start date. The first difference was germination rate and initial development, which was better during 2001, even though the seedstock was older (44% germination in 2000 vs. 89% in 2001; average first harvest 154 days vs. 144 days). In 2001 I started using a heated box for germination and the initial
growth period (up through first repotting)– see Conclusions for 2000 for a discussion of the need for this box. Given the well-established effect of temperature on germination and early growth of Capsicum plants, this improvement was no surprise to me. The other big difference between the two seasons was total harvest size; the two plants I tracked in 2000 produced 39 and 42 peppers, while the two plants
I tracked in 2001 produced 49 and 50 peppers. I started the 2000 plants on 20 March (see Conclusions for 2000 for discussion) and the Scotch Bonnet plants produced the bulk (60%) of their harvests in the first three weeks of September; in 2001 I started the plants on 6 March and the Scotch Bonnets provided the bulk of their harvest from the second week of August to the first week of September. As noted in the 2000 Comments
above, I have observed that Scotch Bonnet plants are more strongly affected by cooler temperatures than are most pepper plants, so it is possible (though not provable by a season-to-season comparison) that the earlier start in 2001, which allowed the harvest period to occur during warmer weather, had a positive influence on the size of the harvest. It is interesting to note that the average days to 50% harvest was the same for both seasons (171 days vs. 171.5 days).
Thai Hot (capsicum annuum)
Small, prolific, 8" to 12" tall plants. 68 days to maturity. Peppers are erect and about 3/4" long, maturing from green to red. Used in many Asian dishes. "Quite hot". Seed Source:Tough Love Chile Company, $1.00/21. Author's Notes: These seeds were either inadvertently admixed with other seeds prior to shipment, or there was a problem with cross-pollenation of the parent plant, as the three plants that I started from these seeds all produced different pod types– one plant produced the short, erect red-at-maturity pods that I expected, another produced pendant conic pods that matured to orange, and the third plant produced pendant pods that resembled Cayenne Long pods.
When I plant my seeds, I never have but one seed envelope open at a time, and I return all unplanted seeds to the open envelope and seal it beofore opening the next envelope, so I am certain that the mix-up did not occur on my end.
Yellow Corno di Toro (capsicum annuum)
AKA Italian Frying pepper. Corno de Toro is Italian for "bull horn". Peppers are pendant and about 6 inches long and 1 1/2 inches wide, maturing from green to yellow. "Non-pungent". Seed Source: Reader-contributed seeds, leftover from last season
Last updated 31 January 2015.
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