They are hotter than Chilpequins right?

How hard are they to grow? I heard they are HARD. And they take forever and may not ever grow.

Are there any of those little birds eye peppers that are easier to grow?

I had a NATURAL chilpequin plant in my backyard years ago, my mom said its because the birds eat the seeds and spread them around in south texas.

Would be agreat treat to have today! lol.

So tell me about Chiltepins.

Cheers

We bought chiltepin plants from cross country nursery and I thought they were easy to grow, no different than any other chili plant. The hard part is picking all those d*&#*&**mn peppers...:) They are very good and very very hot and worth growing if you want to pick the peppers. If you live in the right environment you might get one to survive the winter outside and the birds might spread seeds around and you will get "wild" plants.
I have heard that starting from seed can be difficult but I have not tried it.

kendra

The plant is very tolerant of shade and was prolific. I did not like picking the peppers however and found limited use for them although I'm sure they would be fine ground up coarsely and used as a condiment.

I found them to be extremely hot but without the diversity in flavor I find in chinense varieties. So, I don't grow them.

I know they're easy to propagate however. In fact, I found a wild plant growing next to a building at work that was undoubtedly sown there by a random bird dropping..

anyway, i myself have 2 plants that i grew from seed that are over 3 years old..
i somehow kept them alive this long despite not really having a good regimen to keep them alive....

both plants arent doing so well this year..however i will try really hard to get them through this year and hopefully bring them back to health...

for me, this was my first time at growing chiltepins from seed and i remember it being really hard to keep the tiny seedlings from dying...there isnt much real information out there on the net about the care of a chiltepin so even though i have had my peppers for 3 years, its kind of been a hit and miss type thing..especially living in texas where it gets pretty hot
sometimes i would key in on the leaves, if leaves were a little droopy i would water, but i always worried and wondered if i were watering too much

on one site it said to water them 2 times a week in the summer and once every week or two in the winter...

i hope this helps, if you feel like chatting about chiltepins and want some seeds, i'll be happy to send you some, i have some from west texas that i have stored.

i came across this post as i was searching out information on how to care for them, as even though ive had them for 3 years, i really would like to know the proper way to care for them.

my email address dannyreyna1 at yahoo dot com
if you are interested in sharing information that you find regarding chiltepins ...
Danny

Tepins are easy to germinate, easy to grow and make lots of chiles. The plants are extremely hard to kill. They are my primary hot food intake as I am not much of a fan of hot sauces.

they both do just fine here in zone 5.

ive never encountered a pepper that was 'hard to grow.' the plant already knows how to grow just fine on its own. humans dont usually improve things when they get involved, so i just water and fertilize once in a while and let the plants do their thing.

It sounds like you planted "late" in the season from reading your post.

My experience has been that excellent pod set occurs when plants were established early on. I too have some peppers I planted late. But my strategy all along was to overwinter and get an early start next year.

Your link doesn't work for me. Anyone else?

Mine are just starting to ripen now in the Sacramento area. I pick most of them in late fall so don't give up yet!

My plant is now about 13 years old. It took forever for my seeds to germinate (about two months). I was just about ready to toss out the peat pots when I finally noticed them. Has anyone ever tried to take cuttings? I may try to take both some old wood and new growth cuttings next spring just to get a back-up plant...

Mike

I bought a Pima Bajo variety native to Mexico that I still have in a pot. Hasn't flowered yet.

Maybe I should pick some and put the seeds up for trade. If you're interested in other "weed" seeds I've also got some rain lily seeds I collected about a week ago in a vacant lot, and the wild poppies are setting their seeds now in those cool pepper-shaker like seed pods they have. ;-)

Also I crossed a chilpequin with a jalapeno plant and it is producing about 1 1/4 inch jalapeno shaped peppers that are extremely hot! This plant is also beginning to drop its blooms and not produce.

I have a buddy that grows chiltepins in Portland OR. It doesn't get as cold as Nebraska, but he still needs to bring them inside in winter. He just trims his a bit (maybe to one foot tall) and sets them in a south-facing window. They get a bit leggy in the winter, but perk right back up in the spring when they go back outside.

Next time you put them outside in the summer sun, try putting them in a shaded location. Mine do quite well in the shade of a Coastal Redwood tree, only getting a couple hours of sunlight after 6PM...

It was very late in the season so I was not really expecting much this year and was hoping to overwinter the plants to get an early start next season.

The plants came up within 14 days and are now full of pods, albeit still green. The plants have remained small, about a foot and a half high.

Joseph
z10

My friend gets peppers every year. They ripen later than mine in Sacramanto; his are still green at this point while mine have been turning red since August.

They usually flower in mid spring and start putting out peppers a month later.

I believe he uses a time-release fertilizer like Osmocote in spring.

Yours may not need as much shade as mine do, but when I was putting them in a more sunny location they didn't do as well (even though I tried to acclimate them gradually)