Peppers

[Zeedman]

Interesting as some seed sellers call it “thick walled”.

I suppose thickness is relative. Most of the peppers I grow have walls over 1/4" thick, so to me, anything less than that is "thin". As I recall, Melrose had walls just under 1/8"... thicker than most hot peppers.

There might be several strains in circulation. I first saw Melrose growing in one of SSE's trial gardens; they were growing seed from several different sources.

 

[Clarity1210]

Amen! I also don't like the monopoly they have on the home gardening industry right now....can't find a single commercial outlet that doesn't stock only Bonnie plants. I go to small mom and pop nursery owners now if needing bedding plants.

Hungarian wax always does well for us here and I love jalapeno as well. Last year tried habaneros and they produced around 100 peppers per plant! Going to try a few of those again this year, as they added such a good flavor and just the right amount of heat to my fire jam.

I grew habaneros one year when I lived in Alabama and the plants crew into shrubs. We didn't even know enough people to give away from our plenitude! Though I have to say that here in Texas I work around lots of young people who claim to be wild about hot peppers... But as I don't currently have much purpose for so many very hot peppers I mainly grow cayenne and jalapeño. Love me some fresh jalapeño on egg and mayonnaise sandwich, and strings of cayenne hung around the house are just so lovely.

 

[Clarity1210]

I never had good luck with bell peppers until last year. It was a fabulous year for sweet peppers in my garden, though not so much so for the hots.

 

[Clarity1210]

I suppose thickness is relative. Most of the peppers I grow have walls over 1/4" thick, so to me, anything less than that is "thin". As I recall, Melrose had walls just under 1/8"... thicker than most hot peppers.

There might be several strains in circulation. I first saw Melrose growing in one of SSE's trial gardens; they were growing seed from several different sources.

I envy you such thick-walled peppers. Temperature and relative humidity must have considerable effect on those qualities - or so I've thought over the past years of trying out different peppers.

 

[flowerbug]

I envy you such thick-walled peppers. Temperature and relative humidity must have considerable effect on those qualities - or so I've thought over the past years of trying out different peppers.

i've found a lot of difference between varieties as to how much fertilizer they like and the results. i always use worms/worm castings as my main fertilizer. the green peppers have seemed to do better on less fertilizer than the red peppers i had usually grown, but last year the red peppers didn't do that great but they were a different variety than normal.

this year i'm growing three types of peppers, nothing hot, i just like the red peppers the most for fresh eating. the greenhouse usually has a nice selection of peppers but this year they must have run out of plants so we ended up 3 each of red, yellow and green.

i know i didn't like the orange peppers for flavor so i didn't get any of those. the yellow peppers i don't recall having much flavor so we'll see how these turn out. i do like a few jalapeno peppers here or there but i'm rarely cooking enough these days to even keep up with a single plant and Mom won't tolerate them at all so not worth the space or effort to grow them.

in the past i usually grow 20-30 red pepper plants because i could eat so many and i would roast them up and then freeze them well packed into pint jars. this past year i put enough in the freezer that i still have a lot left so we downsized how many plants we're putting in. 9 plants is still probably more than we'll use but we have enough friends who will take them or we can make stuffed peppers.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

I suppose that thickness matters a bit if you are planning to dry your peppers. The thicker walled they are, the harder they probably are to dry without molding. I have heard that is one of the reasons you rarely see rocoto peppers dried; they are very thick walled.

I have four pepper plants going now, of a variety Joe Simcox described as "Amazonian Grooved Muskmelon Shaped Pepper."

 

[Crazy Gardner]

I planned my garden all winter, it's about 6 hours away from where I live, so I did a ton of reading and watching YouTube videos all winter and through to this day. I planted 90 or more % of my garden from seed and used our mudroom as my greenhouse, it is about 5' x 9' with an 8' x 5' window facing south. First time ever doing it all myself, we gardened as I was a child up to my teens, but I was just the labour and didn't really enjoy the hours of weeding.
Anyway, I have the late night verbal diarrhea, so will try to keep it short.
I planted the above 2 chili peppers in March in a tray and transplanted in late April to this pot. I watched a guy from California who said to plant 2 peppers together as they will out produce 2 plants, planted separately. Looks like he was right. This is a year of experimentation, but it looks like I'll be adopting this method in perpetuity.
I lost count of the buds, but guessing close to 150 or more on just these 2. Anyone able to comment on how many peppers a typical chili should produce in a 3 month season?

 

[ducks4you]

You should get a LOT. I like to use the tomato cages for peppers. Tomatoes outgrow them, but you can train a pepper plant to grow inside and up and through the cage. Otherwise they will sprawl.

 

[Crazy Gardner]

As crazy as it might sound, I am thinking of overwintering these 2 plants. We'll see how the wife feels, but these 2 are going to be awesome I think.

 

[flowerbug]

the heavy rains have been knocking over peppers plants so perhaps we'll be putting tomato cages around them or having to stake them up in the coming years. the yellow pepper plants are not really yellow peppers so the greenhouse messed up somehow on that and Mom forgot which of the remaining plants are which and didn't mark them so we're just picking them as green peppers. but i'd really like some red peppers eventually. neither of us are huge green pepper eaters so we just give them away to my brother.

as for how productive a plant might be, so much depends upon variety of the plant and your conditions. the small hot peppers can get hundreds of peppers per plant and the larger peppers might have a dozen or two before the frosts come along and knock them out.