Hello! I grow jalapeños at home in my window as a hobby. I have a mystery pepper that I'm looking for help identifying. There's kind of a story to it, so I'll give you the long and short version.
Short version: This pepper grew in my indoor garden alongside jalapeños that I planted from seeds, but I didn't plant this one, it seemed to grow out of nowhere. When it matured it gave this pepper, and it's the hottest I've ever had. What is it?
Long version: I got my jalapeño plants from a garden store in the summer in '13. They didn't do well and I only got 2 peppers. But I germinated and planted two seeds and I grew two really nice big jalapeño plants. A few months later, when the jalapeños were already grown, a little sprout came up next to one of them. It stayed tiny until I transplanted my peppers into a big planter, at which point it got really huge.
I assumed it was just a shoot from the jalapeños, but eventually it started to set fruit, and I could tell they weren't jalapeños. I thought they might be habaneros but I never planted any of those seeds, and it seems funny that a jalapeño would send up a shoot that grew a different kind of pepper. I'm not that well versed in the genetics of how cross-pollenating works. Plus, I recently grew some habaneros from seeds and I can tell it's a different kind of pepper. My mystery plant is sprawling and wiry, and my habs are tall and thick. The mystery pepper is diamond shaped, but the habs have that deflated beach ball look.
The mystery ripened to a bright yellow-orange this weekend so I tried it out. I have a really high tolerance for heat, but this is the hottest thing I've had since I had a tablespoon of Dave's Insanity when I was 16. It has thin but firm flesh, and a really delicious candy-like sweetness, but the heat comes on really intensely with that kind of nuclear throb in the chest. The roof of my mouth even got a little irritated and swollen and I was worried that I was having some kind of allergic reaction. After about 20 minutes of bread and milk, the heat and irritation all subsided. But I haven't felt that way with heat in forever. And it doesn't really taste like habanero either.
Also -- it had very few seeds in the fruit. Maybe 5 or 6 and they were small. Not sure if this is important if it's some kind of hybrid.
I tried one a while back when it was green, also - at that point it just tasted grassy and had a little heat, but nothing special.
Here's some pictures -- top left unripe on the vine, top right ripe on the vine, bottom left the same pepper picked, and bottom right some of my unripe habs for reference on what I was comparing them with when I realized they were different.
Short version: This pepper grew in my indoor garden alongside jalapeños that I planted from seeds, but I didn't plant this one, it seemed to grow out of nowhere. When it matured it gave this pepper, and it's the hottest I've ever had. What is it?
Long version: I got my jalapeño plants from a garden store in the summer in '13. They didn't do well and I only got 2 peppers. But I germinated and planted two seeds and I grew two really nice big jalapeño plants. A few months later, when the jalapeños were already grown, a little sprout came up next to one of them. It stayed tiny until I transplanted my peppers into a big planter, at which point it got really huge.
I assumed it was just a shoot from the jalapeños, but eventually it started to set fruit, and I could tell they weren't jalapeños. I thought they might be habaneros but I never planted any of those seeds, and it seems funny that a jalapeño would send up a shoot that grew a different kind of pepper. I'm not that well versed in the genetics of how cross-pollenating works. Plus, I recently grew some habaneros from seeds and I can tell it's a different kind of pepper. My mystery plant is sprawling and wiry, and my habs are tall and thick. The mystery pepper is diamond shaped, but the habs have that deflated beach ball look.
The mystery ripened to a bright yellow-orange this weekend so I tried it out. I have a really high tolerance for heat, but this is the hottest thing I've had since I had a tablespoon of Dave's Insanity when I was 16. It has thin but firm flesh, and a really delicious candy-like sweetness, but the heat comes on really intensely with that kind of nuclear throb in the chest. The roof of my mouth even got a little irritated and swollen and I was worried that I was having some kind of allergic reaction. After about 20 minutes of bread and milk, the heat and irritation all subsided. But I haven't felt that way with heat in forever. And it doesn't really taste like habanero either.
Also -- it had very few seeds in the fruit. Maybe 5 or 6 and they were small. Not sure if this is important if it's some kind of hybrid.
I tried one a while back when it was green, also - at that point it just tasted grassy and had a little heat, but nothing special.
Here's some pictures -- top left unripe on the vine, top right ripe on the vine, bottom left the same pepper picked, and bottom right some of my unripe habs for reference on what I was comparing them with when I realized they were different.
