Wow! That's why you are the Mile High Pepper Maven, Bonnie! Just awesome!

When I was sowing, I saw Terry was very generous with the Ros de Mallorca seed. So, I'll get some of those to you, Bonnie, so you can stash those away for next year. Your magnificent obsession has become something to behold over the years. Thanks for sharing the ride with all of us! :)

I did get my modest assortment sown this week: Aconcagua; Aji Colorado; Aji Limo; Botinecka Zuta; Hungarian Hot Wax; Leutschauer; Ros de Mallorca; Serrano Tampequino; and Soroksari.

Couple questions Bonnie... What seed starting soil do you use and how will you keep the pepper plants viable for planting out? Do you have a greenhouse or hoop house?

You never do stop amazing, Bonnie. Simply a beautiful thing to behold. Was curious if you were going to host your pepper swap, what wth a job and everything else!

You got me planting peppers. I only do three kinds and have not ventured into the hots. This year it is Carmen, Fooled You Jalapeno and Yellow sweet. The yellow sweet made the best pickles last year. We still have tons of Carmen and red fooled you in the freezer.

These were started Jan. 14th and transferred to 3" posts Feb. 6th.
The picture makes them look limey but actually are dark green and i am pleased with this years starts. I only need 18 plants and have over 50 pots, so should be some for the spring swap. bonnie

Wow - what impressive pepper lists! We started some superhots about 2 weeks ago and have a few up, and then finally planted a few annuums this weekend. We also got a few seeds from friends that we're trying.

Here's a list of the hopefuls:
red brain strain
orange mushroom
peach bhut
red devil's tongue
bonda ma Jacques
7 pot yellow
NuMex big jim
Jimmy Nardello
manzano mix
orange mini peppers
chocolate bombs
yellow mushroom
NuMex sauve orange
red primo
7 pot orange
yellow devil's tongue
sweet datil
Anaheim
7 pot brown
jalapeno gigante
Hawaiian sweets
Aji pineapple

Posted by jaliranchr
Wow! That's why you are the Mile High Pepper Maven, Bonnie! Just awesome! . . .Your magnificent obsession has become something to behold over the years. Thanks for sharing the ride with all of us! :)

X2! I couldn't have said it better! Now, for my very "modest assortment" - yet to be sown: (because they always do well) Jalapeno M, Garden Salsa, Super Chili, Thai Hot, Marconi & Giant Marconi.

It may well have been Lucky Bottom who gave me the idea for Carmen. It is a real nice pepper and this will be my 3rd year growing it. I hate to grow very many Anaheim, just because I have lots of seed and have now waited too long to ask about some Numex alternatives! I will probably just jump to something new and that seed order had better go out today!

Steve

In the Anaheim/NuMex catagory, my favorite is Sandia. I was also impressed with the productivity and heat level on Lumbre, which I got from Elkwc. Let me know if you'd like seeds to either of those.

I planted mine yesterday. With my marginal climate, I've found great success with growing the peppers in containers - the soil heats up much faster and I get 4-6 times more peppers than if I grow them in the ground.

Last year I tried 'Highlander' from Johnny's, a hybrid Anaheim/NM chili for northern growers. About 1/3 turned red, the rest stayed green, I picked ~ 20 mature chilies from each plant - roasted the green ones and froze in packets, and the flavor is just outstanding. Not too much heat, particularly if we remove the seeds. The red were fermented and turned into hot sauce, along with all the other red peppers.

So I planted a flat of those yesterday - 100 seeds in all, we'll see what comes up.

And then I'm playing amateur plant selector, trying to develop three locally thriving strains. This, er, 'program' started a couple of years ago when I saved some seed from Gypsy hybrids, and they were crossed with at least 4 different peppers including jalapeno, chili, green bell pepper and an Italian frying pepper.

This will be the, er, F3 generation (Anyway, we have one strain that looks like Gypsy but has much thicker walls and when red, is just fantastic.

Another is a 7" long, very thick walled, few seeds at the top hot pepper - jalapeno hot. This one gets cat facing.

Another is a 5" long, very thick walled, few seeds at the top sweet pepper, distinctly larger in diameter than the hot one.

signing off - the next Luther Burbank.

Was just reading about "Stocky Red Roaster" in my Organic Gardening. Anyone have any experience or seeds to share?

Latest I have ever started peppers. I started on Feb 2 and have a six pack of early Jalapeno, Big Chili and Big Bertha with 2 seeds planted per cell but some have only one so far up and one has 3 in it! I need them to make my Jalapeno Jelly. Didn't bother with the others as we have really cut back and my dh doesn't eat any of them.

Oh boy, those look amazing!

I'm feeling behind. I was going to start my peppers at the end of March. I'm new starting from seed, and the packages said 6-8 weeks before last frost.

I got my seed from park seed and am planning to plant two red sweeter peppers - Karma hybrid and Corno di Toro, an Italian frying pepper.

Should I be starting them now?

Should I be starting them now?

Yes, or very soon. Some peppers are very slow growers/germinators..

I agree! 6 - 8 weeks is fine for tomatoes, since they grow so fast, but I try to have the peppers in the dirt no later than mid-February, which is a good 12 weeks before our last frost date.

Okay, thank you! I will get them started!

What I have yet to figure out is why, with the same variety of pepper, in pots side-by-side, I get seed-started plants that grow 3X as fast as their neighbor. I've noticed that aphids really slow things down. But there must be something in the soil mix I'm using, or night-time temps, or some other factor.

I don't understand, David. Do you mean that,

⢠the plants have variable growth but are from the same seed stock?

⢠the plants are in different soil mixes?

⢠you have both over-wintered plants and those that have been started this year?

â something else?

ÿ Steve ?

This post was edited by digit on Tue, Feb 18, 14 at 12:54

Steve, I take a dried pepper from last fall, break it open, pop the seeds into starter trays, put on a dome and slap the tray on a heater mat, and I get germination in 7 - 14 days. I put the tray in the sun, w/o dome. After another month, I separate out the plants, now with true leaves, and re-pot them in 4 x 4 x 5 inch deep pots filled with what ever potting soil I have.

One month later, some of the plants are 3X the others. Side by side.

David - genetics. That is why they select the strongest seed, the earliest and biggest. Sometimes i have seed from same plant come up a week later that the first one and usually smaller. So if you are going to save for better seed then you cut off the weaker ones and just plant the stronger ones. That is the theory. I usually end up planting them all as I can't just kill the weaker ones. (:>)

I believe I reported here how I was able to get my Green Gage plum tree to bear fruit - it hadn't for 10 years, and I thought it never would. So one winter, I had the chainsaw out, and stood in front of it, saw running, for a few minutes, pondering just cutting it down. I didn't and that summer, it bore fruit. I think its the psychology.

So maybe I should take scissors and snip them loudly over the slower growing plants.

I will do a controlled 'speriment here and see what happens.

Oh, I don't know, David . . .

I tried something like that here in my yard, where the lemon balm grows in rampant profusion.

With the weed whacker roaring and belching blue smoke, I stood in front of the lemon balm and thought, "Spearmint, Spearmint."

No, it is still lemon balm . . .

When in doubt, consult your inner child. Preferably, the pre-verbal child because "Goodbye" is not an easy word to say.

Steve

Well I'm bettin' David's Chainsaw Theory works!

About a year ago I saw a program on PBS about how plants "communicate" with each other, and since I don't have any trouble AT ALL with saying goodbye to cottonwood roots, ever since that show when I cut out cottonwood roots I chop them up in little pieces and bury them right around what's left of the root I cut off! Don't really know if it's working in intimidating other roots from growing into that area, but I figure at the very least I'm adding some good organic matter to the soil right there!

I'm no good, either, at saying goodbye to seedlings--they just seem so very small and helpless!--but maybe snipping a scissors loudly enough over the runts might just make them think twice about their lazy habits! Who knows! But after watching that show I do know this, plants are WAY smarter than we humans give them credit for!

Not sure this has anything to do with peppers!

Skybird

P.S. And I do know this! For almost 20 years now I've been pulling out white hairs, and at 70 I still have 99.99999% brown hair. My theory is that I'm terrorizing the brown ones enough that they're scared "to death" to turn white!!!

I hear ya, Skybird! Give grey hairs, don't get 'em!

Scaling back this year and starting late. I managed to get an 18 cell flat started the 23rd. I usually start 36 peppers but don't have room this year in the raised beds till I get these 35 tree seedlings transplanted. I'm skipping the hot peppers this year.

Alma paprika
California Wonder
California Orange
Corno Di Toro
Canary Bell
Marconi Italian Golden
Paprika
Round Tomato shaped Pimento
Sweet Banana
Sweet Chocolate Bell
Yolo Wonder

Kind of boring...but it's a start.

@ highaltitude- what do you do with all those peppers? Last year I planted 21 pepper plants I got from the pepper seed swap you organized. I didn't have a good season with my peppers and eggplants- I think the nights were too cold (????). But, I would get 1 or 2 ripe peppers at a time and didn't know what to do with them. Once everything started ripening, they were wiped out by the flood.

I know realize that I need to plant a few plants of the same variety to be able to use them, but still I'm not sure with what to do with all the peppers other than stuffing and grilling, or adding a little to a dish. Is there a good resource for ideas? My only idea for this year is to pickle jalapenos and dry the paprikas.

Just wondering what I'm missing out on...

Lesuko

I germinated my seeds in those standard 6 packs, 3-4 seeds to a cell, then yesterday sorted them out and put them in larger pots one-by-one. Transplanted 120 into 4/4/5" deep. This morning, I saw that some rodent came along and ate a good dozen of the seedlings in their new pots. :-(

Lesuko, I like to slice sweet peppers up into strips and freeze them in zip locks, then use them in stir fry, on pizza, etc. Or I ferment a mix of sweet and hot peppers, and make hot sauce. Chili's I roast and freeze, add them to beans, burritos, what ever.

Lesuko, after seeding them, ripe sweet peppers can be charred under the broiler so that the skin will come off easily. After that, they can be cooked down slowly on top the stove so as to make a "pepper paste." That can be frozen and later added to all sorts of things. I suppose it is mostly flavor but since it is made from sweet peppers, a lot can be used!

Fresh hot peppers can go in a mortar and be beaten to a pulp with the pestle. That paste can just be frozen in small plastic containers. The paste can be scraped out with a spoon when some heat and pepper flavor would be good in something.

Hot peppers, of course, can be hung and dried. They can then be broken between your digits and crumbled into a dish.

di . . . Steve!

I started peppers VERY late this year but these have sprouted:

2013 favorite*
Ampius
Ankor Sunrise
Arroz Con Pollo
Bahamian*
Bahamian Goat Pepper (YEAH) - will save seeds to share
Beni Highlands*
Conquistador
Criolla De Cocina
Delfina (?)
El Rito Landrace
Emamapa
Friariello Di Napoli
Guindillas De Tolosa
Hernandez Hot
Hot Fish
Jamaican Yellow*
Kashmiri (YEAH)
Lagrimas Do Rio
Leutschauer Paprika
Lombardo
Mareko Fana
Nativo*
Neapolitan*
Petite Marseillai*
Piment D' Espelette
Ros De Mallorca
Scarlet Lantern
Tabago Seasoning*
Tarabuco
Tobago*
Tobago Seasoning*
Tollis Sweet*
Trinidad 281317*
Trinidad Morovas
Trinidad Perfume
Trinidad Smooth*
Zupska Rana