I like sweet peppers too ! Here in Southern Arizona, they are big on green and red chilis. a lot of people like them hot! I prefer mild so I can enjoy eating it, not catch on fire !!
I'm becoming a Chili fan, as well as a Salsa fan. DH started making some with my jalapenos last year. I had a Salsa Party--first of a now becoming annual party--last October. My good friends (and next-door neighbors) kept bragging about their Salsa recipe, so we built a pot-luck salsa-making party out of it, with a bonfire at night. I provided the tomatoes, jalapenos and onions. They brought Ancho Problanos, which I'm growing AGAIN this year. I was really surprised at how mild it turned out. My friends (and her cousin) super chopped up the hot peppers--I guess THAT is the secret. I only canned 2 quarts. THIS year I'll be canning more, but I'm gonna put them in 1/2 pint jars instead.
FYI: Ancho Problanos look EXACTLY like big, fat sweet peppers. Be SURE to mark them. I grew them a few years back, and harvested a few for stuffed peppers, the ones with the hamburger and rice stuffing. Greedy me, I usually lop off the tops and nibble. It took 16 ounces of yogurt to get the burn out!!
NOW, I take plastic gardening stakes and spray paint them red to mark my hot peppers.
Steve have you ever tried to grow your peppers in the 'walls of water' ? or under row covers...The only way I can get eggplant is to do it with the' wall of water' it keeps the roots really warm...
I always feel in-adaquate when I see your list of what you are growing... I might have 6 pepper plants of 2 kinds of peppers maybe 8 at the most...2 plants each of maybe 7 different tomatoes ...so that would be like 14 plants...I could not even contemplate taking care of that much produce...I would be over whelmed...so hats off to you and the others that have so much space... :weight
It makes sense for, maybe, all of us. Peppers so very much like warmth! Only eggplants, as you note, seem to appreciate it more, of those plants we might have out in our temperate climate gardens.
Of course, I have fun growing the different varieties - there are pepper aficionados who have many more varieties than I do , even if they only have 1 plant of each. There are some varieties like Garden Salsa that always grow a nice crop in my garden. Or, Super Chili that always ripens beyond green . Maybe this year -- I'll have a sweet pepper that always ripens! I've got my hopes pinned on Carmen!
(If I wasn't so busy harvesting them green, some of the Marconi would ripen to red some years . . . I think .)
Sometimes, I'm forced to try something new as a "standard" becomes unavailable. - sharp intake of breath - Yeah, that's me . . . don't adjust to change real well . Still, I've got these others that I've had some success with that can be relied on. If I hadn't tried them, I'd never know! It has been a very long time since I grew Cayenne and said, "well, they did okay." Or, tried California Wonders and said, "I can't grow sweet peppers!!"
Tinkering at the margins has been my technique for a long time.
http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2010/05/23/candied-jalapenos/ is a MUST try recipe for any pepper grower. I'm serious these things are ALWAYS asked for at any function we attend and bring food to. Everybody who tries them flips over them. Give them a go you won't be disappointed.
Im going to try a few italian sweets I've had issues getting my bells to turn color. I think they just take too long but if I can find something with similar flavor even if its not 4 lobed I'm happy. Thanks for the suggestions
I'm growing Orange Sun in containers and Sweet Chocolate in the garden. I have a few Hinkelhatz and Hot Hungarian started but they are still a little smallto transplant. I plan on putting them in containers as well. I was going to plant them in the flowerbed out front, but it seems I've filled it with flowers. How silly of me.
I have abysmal luck with hot peppers and bell peppers up here. Got better last year and had good luck with cubanelles - of course I didn't plant them this year. I did cherry stuffer hybrid, rainbow bell, and a seed from a yellow grocery store pepper (because I was curious). I've never gotten a pepper from any plants in the ground, so they'll all be grown in ghetto cat litter planters from here on out.
I started my peppers inside wicked early, they grow slow for me, so they were seeded in mid-March. Re-potted them a few times and they spent most warm days in the cold frame, cold days in the indoor grow box with heat mats. They got transplanted outside today and I think they look pretty good considering it's me & Maine.
I'm not much of a "processor" of peppers, or most anything. Stir-fries, omelets, pepper casseroles (generally, a casserole version of a stuffed pepper), it doesn't get much more complicated around here . I do need to try more but I am sorely lacking in creative energy by pepper season.
It is still a long way off . . . This will be another very late set-out date for the tomatoes. The Weather Service & other forecasters continue to scare me with predictions of nights down into the 30's for next week! I shook a pepper out of its 4-pack to see the roots -- :/ - surprisingly it wasn't terribly root-bound from about a March 1st sowing.
SCG, I wish my peppers looked as good as the one in the picture. They have just had a tuff go of it with too little light. I've got them out every day now but the afternoon temperatures have dropped into the 60's so they aren't very excited to be sitting somewhere, outdoors. They are so SO ready for more warmth, sunshine and a home in the open garden!
"Hinklehatz," 'redhead? There are some unusual names out there for peppers. Maybe it's from an appreciation for them that goes beyond the usual . .