This weekend is planting weekend! Tomatoes, peppers, winter squash, eggplant… and lots more. Among the bazillion plants I’ve got out there so far, I thought I’d take a moment and focus on one crop in particular: peppers.
Most people are familiar with all the crazy varieties of tomatoes out there. Well, there are a lot of unique peppers too, all with different sizes, shapes, colors and tastes. I might have gone a little crazy this year, and ended up starting about 65 plants…
Doe Hill is a small orange bell, very sweet with great flavor. It’s only about the size of a baseball, but with very thick walls. I’ve grown this one before, and saved my own seeds from previous seasons. It’s a great producer, and the earliest pepper I’ve ever come across. While I was planting peppers out, I actually noticed one of the Doe Hill peppers already has a tiny bud on it!
Superette Sweet Banana is a variety I started growing a couple years ago, and nothing beats it for production. It’s got heaps of peppers per plant, producing very early in the season. It’s yellow early on, changing to orange and then to a deep red if you leave them on the plant long enough. At any stage it’s very good though, sweet with nice thick cell walls.
Revolution is a sweet red bell, but one that’ll actually produce huge fruits with nice thick walls in a northern climate. I don’t know why people always try to plant California Wonder bells… this isn’t California! I’ve tried other large red bells that are supposedly adapted to our climate – I’m looking at you King of the North – but this one is far better than anything else I’ve tried. Thick walls at any stage – green or red.
Jimmy Nardello is a red frying pepper – when all other peppers fail, this one will probably still be producing. It’s tough, and produces loads of peppers no matter your soil type. I’ve frozen gallons of just this one variety for using in winter stir fries. It’s got thin walls – a plus for quick cooking – and it’s got a good pepper flavor too. Not necessarily spicy, but rich.
Tolstyi Barin is one of the new varieties I’m trying this year, so I can’t speak from experience yet. It’s a red bell, but a bit smaller than Revolution, and tapers to a point. Supposedly produces well. Being from Russia (the name translates to “Fat Gentleman”) I’m hoping it’ll stand up to cool N.Y. temperatures.
Zolotistyi is a variety from Belarus, big and sunshine yellow. Reportedly produces early and in great quantities. Has some variety in fruit shape, with some longer fruits. Again, coming from Eastern Europe, I’m excited to see how it handles our N.Y. climate.
Petit Marseillais is an unusual one. It’s a French heirloom, yellow, both sweet and spicy, and on the small side. I have a feeling I’m going to have to taste this one to really get a feel for where it falls on the spicy scale. It has thin walls, like Jimmy Nardello, and is well suited for stir fries – and apparently, drying.
Chocolate is a fairly common one you see at nurseries, but I had to add it to my list this year. I’m growing just about every other color pepper, so it only seemed fitting to grow this one as well. (Okay, plus it’s name is chocolate, c’mon!) First year I’m trying it out, so we’ll see how it goes! Apparently, there are different strains of this variety too — my seed is coming from Fedco.
I’ve also got a few Jalapeno pepper plants in my garden as well. I tried to start a few Cayenne, but the seed was old and none germinated, sadly. I’ve grown Serrano peppers before too, but they were much too hot for my taste… I wish I could eat some of the extra hot peppers, they look so pretty on the plants. I’ll have to survive with just Jalapenos for heat this year.
Some old, some new, all delicious, I hope! What we don’t use we’ll cut up and toss into freezer bags, although we do like peppers so I expect a fair number will be eaten in-season. Since I transplanted today, I’d wager we’ll see our first pepper harvest in about 70 days… late July, perhaps? So close, but so far…
Beane Hill Farm 