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Suggest Your Favorite: Pepper(s)

 
gardener
Posts: 1179
Location: Eastern Tennessee
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I thought it might be fun and helpful to do a few 'suggest your favorite' type posts for different vegetables. When someone's first trying to get started, there's an endless stream of which plants to grow (carrots, leaf lettuce, etc), but if we're honest, that narrows it down to several dozen or even several hundred options. (I'm looking at you tomatoes!) Those of us who've had a chance to grow a number of varieties often find ourselves drawn to one or two varieties specifically that we return to every year. If you have a favorite pepper or two, why not suggest them and explain what it is about them that makes them your favorite. Of course, I will go first since I'm opening the show.

Sweet Peppers: Gypsy Queen
Why: So what is it about this pepper that puts it at the top of my list? I worked for several years in a greenhouse. I like peppers well enough and use green peppers and sweet peppers regularly enough in my cooking. That said, I honestly could take or leave them in many cases. They added texture and a bit of flavor, but if they were missing I wasn't going to shed any tears. Being a greenhouse, everything was raised with hydroponics. Sure, the plants grew in a soil medium, but it didn't contribute anything to them. All they got was the big three in terms of nutrients. We mostly sold small starter packs, but also grew out some larger pots with tomatoes, peppers, and similar vegetables.
    As you can imagine, they generally tasted pretty basic. On par with a lot of what you find in grocery stores. Peppers would taste bland to mildly sweet at best. Still, I hate waste and one of my jobs was to remove any fully ripe fruits so that they wouldn't fall and rot. In some cases, this also encouraged further production which encouraged sales. Rather than pitching things, I was allowed to take them home. The final year I worked there, the owners began growing something called a gypsy pepper. It was a hybrid that could be picked at yellow stage and beyond. I found that at yellow stage, it was as sweet as the best sweet pepper, but at red stage, it was nearly candy sweet. This shocked me considering (as I said before) they didn't have any nutrients beyond the basic 3 needed to look good and grow well.
    When I bought one and planted it, it became even better! I loved it. However, I make a point of generally favoring open pollinated plants and the hybrid nature of it meant it could be snatched away any year by a company that didn't feel like carrying it anymore. I decided that I would dehybridize it once I had more than a porch garden to work with. Several years had passed and I didn't even have access to a porch garden anymore when I discovered a company had beaten me to the punch. Redubbed the Gypsy Queen, it was most of the way to a stable variety with the flavor trait I loved so much. Once I have a full garden again, I doubt I will dedicate a lot of space to peppers, but this one is going to be taking up the majority of that space. Zucchini relish just isn't the same with any other pepper and it's a real stand-out on my salads.



Hot Peppers: Undecided
Why: I'm still searching on this one. I use hot sauce for a few things, but don't have much use for hot peppers beyond that. I'm mostly unaffected by an average hot pepper and don't particularly crave spicy in my foods. More than anything, I will generally use hot peppers as a deterrent for pests by making it into solutions that can be sprayed on other plants. Still, since I do use hot sauces in a few dishes, I am on the lookout for a good pepper to ferment and turn into homemade hot sauce. It would also need to be a variety that makes a decent chili powder. So far, I'm favoring the more decorative varieties like the Chinese 5-color or the Fish Pepper, since they would be nice for landscaping and still bring some heat and flavor. There's a lot of options and since I have so little use for hot peppers, it will take me a long time to go through and find the right one for me. Maybe some of the favorites of others will inspire me to try a variety that ends up making my list.
 
gardener & hugelmaster
Posts: 3697
Location: Gulf of Mexico cajun zone 8
1972
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https://www.centraltexasgardener.org/resource/chile-pequin/

https://www.foragingtexas.com/2011/09/chile-pequin.html

I like these spicy peppers. Great flavor. The heat is short lived but intense. Good fresh or dried. They make excellent salsa. One pepper per tomato is a good place to start. Fermented makes a potent bug deterrent & will dissolve metal rings from canning jars. Potent stuff. Baker Creek sells seeds. Or at least they did. YouTube has some hilarious videos of people underestimating them. Enjoy!
 
pollinator
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Location: South-central Wisconsin
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D. Logan wrote:

Sweet Peppers: Gypsy Queen



I don't eat peppers (allergic) but I have family members who do. I'm always on the lookout for a better one. Adaptive Seeds isn't taking orders yet. If they end up not offering this variety, would you have seeds you'd be willing to sell?
 
D. Logan
gardener
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Location: Eastern Tennessee
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Ellendra Nauriel wrote:

D. Logan wrote:

Sweet Peppers: Gypsy Queen



I don't eat peppers (allergic) but I have family members who do. I'm always on the lookout for a better one. Adaptive Seeds isn't taking orders yet. If they end up not offering this variety, would you have seeds you'd be willing to sell?



Unfortunately, I haven't had growing space for the last few years and need to replenish my own stockpile this year in anticipation of space to grow for myself again. :/ I probably need to replace even the seeds I do have since many of them have doubtlessly lost viability over these last five or six years without a yard. If you want to try them and Adaptive Seeds is out, you can at least try the original hybrid under the name Gypsy Pepper. Same flavor for the most part.
 
steward
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I like the Deli-type peppers like Banana Pepper.

I like to dice them and mix them with salad greens.

I also like bell peppers in gumbo, pepper steak, or stuffed.
 
gardener
Posts: 1050
Location: Zone 6 in the Pacific Northwest
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I really like a pepper called cherry bomb. They are sweet with a little spice and small and ripen in my short cooler summer.

Last summer I tried some new peppers and I must have planted some crossed seeds this summer because my cherry bombs are 3xs the size they normally are and a little lumpy looking. They are also slower to ripen this year so I haven't tasted them yet.
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pollinator
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Location: Chicago
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Early Jalapeno is the only pepper that produces for me.  I've got a 3 year old plant that I bring inside for winter.
 
pollinator
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Location: Oh-Hi-Oh to New Mexico (soon)
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Aji Amarillo, difiicult to grow, but worth it. Bright yellow or orange, shining chilli from Peru, banana shaped with heat and a spicy citrus tang, great for almost any type of cooking, but wonderful sliced thin and part of a salad, they are not to be ignored
 
pollinator
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I love growing peppers! I plant about 30+ plants each year. I'm still searching for a favortite bell type.

I love growing pimento peppers. They are fat and squat with thick walls and ripen to red early here in WI. They are fun to stuff and freeze great. My whole family loves them.

A second fave is Shishitos- prolific, also early and delicious sauteed in butter, lard or olive oil. We pick them green usually but they don't have a green pepper taste, which we appreciate.

 
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Location: Northern California 9a/b
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I grow a variety of peppers every year (Bell, Jalepeno, Poblano, Anaheim) and I love to eat them all in a variety of situations and for different purposes.  It's hard for me to say one is better than the other because they are used for different reasons.  But to answer your question, the Shishito is a real gem.  It's so mild that I can use it in so many different ways and it's a delight sauteed.  
 
gardener
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I've had lots of trouble with bell for some reason ( probably inconsistent watering). For some reason I can grow purple bell with no problem. My favorites are the small sweet peppers.  Lunchbox, gypsy, banana.  They seem to be easier for me to grow, and they are so prolific it doesn't matter that they are small.  
I like a little heat, but don't care for super hot.  Strange enough last year I bought a habanero by mistake.  It was wonderful. If I removed the seeds it wasn't super spicy ( I didn't use much) and had a very nice flavor.  It produced a mass of peppers. Unfortunately I don't have one this year.
This year I'm trying cyan, and jalapenos. Also a mystery pepper that was supposed to be jalapeno, but isn't.  I don't know what it is, but it's a skinny little pepper that turns yellow with a mild spice level. What ever it is we are enjoying it.  I think peppers are fun to try in the garden.  Now if I could get mine to survive the winter, I'd be in business.
 
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