Peppers
(Capsicum sp.)

Cultivars

Peppers fall into two primary categories, generally called "sweet" (or, wrongly, bell) and hot. One supposes that in reality there is a more or less continuous spectrum across all true pepper types, but the terms probably reflect intended culinary use more than innate qualities.

Pepper terminology around the world is quite confusing: pepper, chile, chili, Aji, and paprika are some of the terms used in various areas for plants all belonging to the genus Capsicum (yes, the spice paprika--properly pronounced, we are told, PAP-ri-KAH--is just ground dried pepper). There are five domesticated species of Capsicum:

• Capsicum annuum is the most extensively cultivated pepper species in the world and subsumes most of the varieties known to the home gardener. It includes, for example, the Ancho, Bell, Jalapeno, Paprika, Pimiento, Serrano, New Mexican, and Thai peppers.

• Capsicum baccatum is termed Aji throughout South America. The pods have a distinctive fruity flavor, and can be used fresh in salsas or dried and ground into powders.

• Capsicum chinensis includes the fiery Habanero. The small pods are a flattened bell shape with a fruity aroma, and can be used fresh in salsas.

• Capsicum frutescens includes the Tabasco plant, which is famously used in hot sauces and salsas.

• Capsicum pubescens originated in Bolivia; the common name in South America is rocoto. It is grown in the high-mountain areas of tropical countries and can be stuffed or eaten fresh in salsas.

Sweet Peppers

All bell peppers are "sweet" peppers, but not all sweet peppers are bells: there are other kinds of sweet peppers that do not have the characteristic, blocky, lobed bell shape. Most, but by no means all, of our interest in sweet peppers is in bell types.

The bell-pepper category is simpler to deal with than hot peppers, as there seem not to be that many great variations between varieties; indeed, the biggest obvious variation is in color, with greens, reds, purples, browns, oranges, yellows, and now a near-white. We had thought that several of those color types were available only as hybrids, but there are open-pollinated varieties of each available if you look hard enough.

The "type" versus color issue can be confusing. "Green" peppers are not some distinct type that happens to be colored green: they are simply immature peppers. Virtually all "green peppers" will, if left to grow on, eventually turn color, usually to a red or yellow shade. Naturally, it is only mature peppers that have the full flavor and, above all, avoid the astringent bitterness of the under-ripe "green" pepper--which is nothing but a relatively late-arrived growers' trick to get peppers to market sooner, even if they are quite bitter. If you want good flavor and eating qualities in your peppers, stay away from picking them green (unless you have some definite want for a fairly bitter and not very sweet pepper).

There is a nice list of sweet pepper types at the Backyard Gardener site; we found it quite helpful (especially because it separates hybrid and open-pollinated types clearly). The results of a more or less expert taste test of peppers (both hot and mild) was also of interest and use. (There are reams of discussion and tasting results for hot peppers, but the sweets tend to be neglected, as if their taste didn't matter, so that table is especially welcome.)

Most sweet peppers that are not bell types are generically referred to as "frying peppers", though they have all the same uses as bells. The distinction is probably shape: the blocky bells readily lend themselves to stuffing, whereas most other sweet types, not being "bell-shaped", are long and thin, and so best used for frying. But you can, very obviously, also fry up bells, and you can use either sort effectively in salads.

Either we have been fortunate or peppers are really easy to grow, because we have had repeated success with them, even with our black thumbs and short summers. Anyway, the particular sweet types we settled on to grow this coming season represent the most complete color spectrum we could devise. From very, very extensive searches of the available literature, these seem the best-tasting choices for their color or type.

"Frying" Sweet Peppers

We, like many people, find the Italian types called Corno di Toro (meaning "bull's horn", from their shape) to be the best of their type. They come in both red and yellow shades, and we will plant several of each color.

"Bell" Sweet Peppers

The cultivar selections were influenced by both reported flavor and earliness, since even though we've been lucky so far, there's no pint tempting fate by trying long-season cultivars. The choices are these:

• red: King of the North - a nice, early (consider the name) bell well suited for our area (can be picked early if "green peppers" are wanted)

• yellow: Golden Cal Wonder - the yellow form of a reliable old standard

• orange: Kevin's Early Orange - an early orange pepper

• brown: Meader's Sweet Chocolate - there are many "chocolate" bells, but insist on the one developed by Professor Meader

• purple: Purple Beauty - said to be the best of its color

• white: Diamond - an unusual but reportedly flavorful type

• multi: Roumanian Rainbow - characteristically shows swirls of several colors at once; some say one of the best-eating bells of all

Be aware that, if you are growing sweet-pepper cultivars for color, you have to take care pick them when they are just the wanted color, or they may go on to a different color (many just end up as some shade of red.)

Hot Peppers

As anyone who has ever taken even the most casual glance at the literature knows, hot peppers are not a vegetable, they are a religion. Here, even more than ever, the observation about taste being a highly personal matter must govern any remarks. That acknowledged, hot peppers strike us as being analogous to roller coasters: most people do the thing not for the enjoyment but to prove something to somebody--perhaps themselves.

Now if you can taste them through the fire, hot peppers really are undeniably delicious, and add a wonderful tang to any number of dishes; but when one gets up into the "Atomic" heat range (as one seed catalogue categorizes some of its listings), a disinterested bystander must wonder how real the joys of consumption--the gustatory joys, not the psychological ones--are. (But chileheads--so they call themselves--will tell you that if you can get acclimated to the heat, you will much enjoy the undeniable fine flavor.)

(One interesting reason why there may be so many chileheads: capsaicin, the substance that is the "heat" of hot peppers, causes the generation of endorphins, natural opiates released by the brain to signal pleasure rather than pain--chocolate is also famous for generating endorphins; chileheads are actually getting a mild natural high.)

Pepper heat is commonly measured in so-called "Scoville Heat Units", which are nowadays measured by a procedure called High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC): the chile pods to be tested are dried and ground up, then the chemicals responsible for the pungency are extracted and the extract injected into the HPLC device for analysis. The scale ranges from zero to many hundreds of thousands of Scoville Heat Units (with the Habanero being the hottest pepper ever measured). One thing we find tending to confirm our opinion is that virtually all the articles one turns up in web searches for "hot peppers" and "taste or flavor" invariably discuss almost nothing but the hotness of the chiles, not their actual flavor (which is a shame, because the flavor is the point, not the heat).

(We say above "nowadays" because once Scoville units were measured in a subjective way: the substance was diluted with water and tasted, then diluted again, and so on, till the sense of hotness just disappeared--the volume of water needed to dilute to just that point of indetectability was the measure of the hotness.)

(A couple of hot-pepper tips: Capsaicin is found in its highest concentrations--about 80% of the total amount--in the ribs and the seeds of peppers; thus, removing the ribs and seeds will much reduce the heat of a chili pepper; but if you do find your mouth burning unbearably, don't drink water or beer, which will just spread the capsaicin around in your mouth--eat rice or bread or a tortilla, or--even better--drink milk or yogurt.)

But even omitting the many varieties that seem, to us, to be mainly machismo testers, there is a quite a panoply of mild to fairly hot varieties available (a couple of sources said 200 or so); the worst thing (well, actually the best thing, but it makes selecting the worst thing) is that they have significantly different flavors. It seems to us that the best thing to do is to trial as many as possible, a few a year, keeping the most useful. We are not going to be growing any hot peppers at all this year because last year a friend gave us the excess of his bumper crop, and we are thus hot-peppered up to the ears. We'd prefer to have more than just a couple of types, but it would be silly to spend garden space on more than we already have.

But, we having done a lot of homework in seasons past, here are the results of our researches for those interested in growing hot peppers in this region. In making this list, we pared down from a much longer one basically by asking ourselves "What kind could we not reasonably omit?" Growing only a half-dozen outdoor hot-pepper plants, these would be our choices:

• Ancho, Mulato Isleno - for use as both Ancho (dried) and Poblano (fresh); the Mulato type is reputed to taste best, with a smoky quality to it

• TAM Jalapeño #1 (not the sweet TAM!) - roasted jalapeños are called chipotles and are also delicious; the TAM #1 is a notably milder-than-normal jalapeño, but not as bland as some grown these days for commercial sauces, such as that "sweet TAM jalapeño" ("Jalapeño M" is a fully hot type)

• Pasilla (aka chilaca and chile negro) - "one of the most distinctive of all the peppers; rich brown color, earthy chocolatey flavor--called chilaca when fresh and pasilla or chile negro when smoked or dried" (one of the three peppers used in mole sauce)--there are sub-varieties, which we cannot judge (we'll guess)

• Guajillo - if one grows Ancho and Pasilla, one pretty much has to grow Guajillo ("sweet flavor with hints of berry"), the third component of mole sauce

• Sweet Datil - the original Datil pepper is a slightly milder member of the C. chinensis pepper group, which also house the notorious Habanero and Scotch Bonnet nuclear weapons--its flavor is described as delicious, "fruity and smoky" in quality; the Sweet Datil is said to have all the flavor without the fire, and is thus, least for us, the logical choice for sampling C. chinensis flavors

In addition, we were growing a Long Thin Cayenne indoors (that variety is easy to grow indoors as a perennial) for when we want some--by our standards--real heat (fresh or ground), especially in hot Oriental dishes. It is a variety especially good of kind for northern gardens; we have had an indoors plant in a large pot that produced for years on end.

We have thought much about growing one or two pepper types for home-making paprika, but--after extensive reading--decided that if one wants the real thing, one must just buy good imported Hungarian paprika from a reliable supplier (Penzey's, for example).

(An aside on paprika: There is a lot of confusion extant about the spice paprika. The Hungarians--Europe's real food connoisseurs--produce several classes of paprika, which are dumbed down for the U.S. market into "sweet" and "hot". Real Hungarian paprika, fresh (meaning ground and packaged but not left on a shelf for a year or three) is precious stuff, with no resemblance to what is sold in stores over here as "paprika", and which various sources have described as "sifted clay" and "ground bricks". The Hungarians have, over centuries, settled on the cultivars that work right--and those only grow properly in specific climates, of which even Hungary has only a couple. No, we'll not venture our own.)

Incidentally, Craig Dremman at Redwood City Seed Company, something of a pepper specialist, claims that The World's Hottest Pepper is not the Habanero but the Tepín. Some thoroughly interesting pepper lists from him are available--food for thought (and, perhaps, for eating).

Planting

Timing

As always with heat-lovers in this climate, choosing the right planting-out time is critical to success. Peppers can take 80 to 90 days from transplanting to fully ripen (many gardeners pick bell types while they are still green, at perhaps 60 days, but well-ripened ones--colored up--are distinctly sweeter and better-tasting), and they grow little if at all at temperatures below 50° F. (and are generally held to not take at all to frost, though a few sources say they can stand a very light one).

We're thinking that June 1st is a good target date for transplanting: the peak of our warmth comes right around August 1st, so the months of July and August are our warmest. The early part of September may also be warm enough, but we feel we'd like to try to concentrate the peppers' maturation in those warmest months. A June 1st transplant date thus means sowing seed around March 1st. But, as your planned transplant date approaches, check the soil temperature: it should be at least 65° F, and if it isn't, hold off till it is (an extra week or two in pots won't hurt the seedlings).

Starting Seedlings

Peppers, like all heat-loving plants we grow in this climate, need to be started indoors and later transplanted out. The seeds germinate optimally at about 85° F., so heat pads are close to mandatory, as germination is much slower at lower temperatures, and will scarcely proceed at all below about 65° F.

When the seedlings emerge and just begin to show true leaves, transplant them into good-size pots, 2 or even 3 inches in size (pepperst pots usually work well). Grow the seedlings at, ideally, 70° in the daytime and 60° at night, providing plenty of sunlight or artificial growing light. It might be wise to plant a few extra of each pepper type wanted, then cull for vigorous, stocky plants (as opposed to thin, tall, spindly ones) at transplant time.

Plan on growing your seedlings a good 8 or more weeks indoors--in this climate, you want the strongest possible seedlings for transplanting out. Ideally, seedlings should have buds--but no flowers yet--by transplant time. (Now you see why good-sized pots are wanted.)

The Bed

It is quite important that you annually rotate your Solanaceae crops: don't grow peppers on soil where any Solanaceae--peppers themselves, tomatoes, potatoes, tomatillos, eggplants--have been grown in any of the three prior seasons. Ignoring that rule can, as with cole crops, cause the buildup in the soil of pests and diseases that, once established, are exceedingly difficult to get rid of.

The outdoors pepper bed should, of course, be in a full-sun location. Peppers want well-drained soil, preferably a light, sandy loam that is slightly acid--say pH 6.3--though that is not crucial. They do, like tomatoes, want rich soil, and especially like a strong phosphorus content in the soil. It is close to mandatory in this climate to use plastic mulch (set out a couple of weeks before the anticipated transplant date); and, because peppers, like tomatoes, abhor wet leaves, a drip watering system is also a wise investment. With peppers as with tomatoes, the new red-colored plastic mulches are said to have a definite beneficial effect on production compared to the old standard black plastic.

Transplanting Out

Pepper plants can, at least in a deep or raised bed, be spaced as close as 12 inches. It doesn't hurt and may help to provide them with some caging; for these, as opposed to tomatoes, the usual store-bought inverted-cone type things are probably adequate, as most peppers don't get anything like the size of a tomato plant.

Several sources suggest transplanting out in the evening or on a cloudy day, so as to reduce the chance of the transplants getting sunscald.

Warmth-preserving devices such as the well-known "Wall o'Water" get a mixed reception. Some feel that pepper plants requiring WoWs have been set out too early and will end up not being as productive over the season as a whole as plants grown well as indoor seedlings and set out at the right time. We concur with that sentiment, but also realize--from exceedingly bitter experience--that killing freezes can occur around here even after June 1st; we thus feel that WoWs have a place in pepper growing, and that place is as insurance for the first week or two for healthy transplants set out at the right time. When the first week or two of June have gone by, then remove the WoWs and put the cages in place. (Some gardeners use a variant technique: they set their cages in place at once, but wrap the cages with transparent or translucent plastic sheeting: that makes a sort of "mini-greenhouse", though it doesn't quite duplicate the heat-retaining qualities of the water cells in WoWs, it's cheaper and a deal simpler--WoWs are a colossal pain in the, ah, elbow to fill and to prop up.)

Growing

Pepper plants require continuous growth for satisfactory results: frequent, regular, slow, deep watering works best, preferably by drip irrigation (especially because it is unwise to get their leaves wet). Cool weather can keep plants from flowering, which is why all the heat-gathering and heat-preserving methods mentioned above are wise. Nonetheless, it can also get too hot for peppers: if the temperature under row cover or a cloche (or within a wall o'water) gets over 85°, it is advisable to remove the row cover of cloche or whatever till the temperature drops into the low 80s.

If you have plastic or other mulch, weeds are no problem--otherwise, cultivate well but very carefully, not below an inch deep at most, because if you cut roots, that may well cause water stress on the plant, which will lead in turn to blossom drop (as can even a short dry period, hence the need for frequent, regular watering).

If your plants don't look robust, or are only a light or pale green, they may be hungry: apply about a tablespoonful of nitrate fertilizer around each plant, after several blossoms have set. But don't fertilize blindly--if your plants look healthy enough, let them be, lest they ignore fruiting for vegetative growth.

Bell peppers typically produce 7 to 10 peppers a plant, hot peppers more. When to harvest is an interesting question. On the one hand, leaving peppers on the vine till they're completely ripe somewhat reduces the total productivity of the plant; on the other hand, immature peppers are notably less sweet. To us, the choice is clear: let them ripen on the vine. We're not commercial growers: if we want more peppers than our plants produce with the fruits left to fully ripen, we'll grow more plants next season.

Peppers are usually picked when they've stopped increasing in size, are firm to the touch, and have reached their expected color. Don't pull peppers, because the plant's branches are rather brittle and you can break them that way: harvest by cutting the peppers off. As the peppers near maturity, inspect your plants daily and harvest what's ready.

Have a care! Hot peppers should be handled with some caution--the hotter the pepper, the more the caution; wear gloves, and do not put your gloved hand on your face anywhere near your eyes. The peppers are, in principle, safe to handle, but a small cut or brusie might get capasicin on your skin, and that you would not like. (With the really hot peppers, truly extraordinary safety measures are needed in the kitchen, but description of those is beyond our scope here.)

More

Relevant Links

Besides any links presented above on this page, the following ought to be especially helpful.

• Plants For a Future Database: Sweet Peppers - tons of data on this type of the vegetable, and links to lots more
• Plants For a Future Database: "Tabasco Pepper" - this is Capsicum frutescens, which includes the Tabasco and others too
• Plants For a Future Database: "Locoto" - this is Capsicum baccatum
• Plants For a Future Database: "Tree Pepper" - this is Capsicum pubescens
• Peppers - Complete Guide - a very useful tabulation of many common and not-so-common peppers by type
• Taste Test of Peppers - by the Santa Clara County (California) Master Growers
• Pepperclicks.com - a terrific gateway site with a large number of hot-pepper web links
• The World's Hottest Pepper - one expert's claim, anyway
• Graeme Caselton - U.K. Chile-Head - a British chile-head with a knockout site loaded with hot-pepper information, including a varieties database of consequence
• The Pepper Hotness Scale - this is the scale devised by Craig Dremann, not the Scoville scale--it makes an interesting comparison with the Scoville type

Odds and Ends

Biology

The peppers, all kinds, belong to the sun-loving Solanaceae family, along with tomatoes, tomatillos, potatoes, eggplants--and the deadly nightshade. The pungency of peppers depends on the presence of a single gene: cultivars lacking that gene are "sweet" peppers, those with it are "hot".

Our present taxonomy of peppers is rather a muddle, and the speciation described earlier will likely change in coming years as research advances. There is a good on-line summary of pepper taxonomy available for the curious.

History

Most experts agree that the wild ancestors of modern peppers first arose in the Amazon basin. Pepper seeds, carried by Amazon and later by Aztec Indians, were then spread throughout South and Central America and north into Mexico. Peppers were bing actively cultivated at least as far back as 6,000 years ago.

The Europeppersn arrival in the Americas soon brought peppers to Europe; not long thereafter, Portuguese traders brought them to India and south-east Asia, in whose cuisines they are now a long-established staple. Thailanders consume more hot peppers per capita than any other people on Earth, about twice as much as the people of India; the Korean people are a fairly close second to the Thais.

Envoi

Those interested in getting more detail on how and why hot peppers do what they do on the human palate and in the human gut can visit this site about The Chemistry of Chilli Peppers.

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