This will be my first big foray in to pepper growing because of these two. Jasper (left) and Tin Tin (right) are my official taste testers. I myself have a fairly poor spice tolerance, tabasco is spicy for me but frank's red hot isn't so I'm working on it! The rest of my family have tolerance and my partner also appreciates spice so all is not lost, however.
So far the lineup is:
Annuum:
- Espelette (sourced from a chef friend, the lines go back to the French Laundry chef's gardens in California and prior to that were smuggled out of France - I have 200 of these I'm willing to share while keeping my own stock too!)
- Chile de Comida
- Ancho
- Bola
- Hawk's Claw
- El Incendo
- Fish
- Grandpa's Siberian Home
- Mystery Hot (hot is relative, 1000-5000 SHU)
- Mystery Sweet (up to 500 SHU)
- Florida Bird
- Alligator Tongue (anyone know anything about this pepper?)
- Peach Habanero
- Piri Piri
- Aji Omnicolor
- Aji Fantasy White
I also have a pack of entirely mystery seeds that I'll be germinating this week. Hopefully the Annuums in this mix don't get too big before planting out but you never know! Lots of overlap between my list and growyourown's so it'll be interesting to see the differences and similarities from our grows esp because our overlap is sourced from the same place.
If I grow any superhots out of the true mystery pack I'll give them to a friend who's a true spice fiend, I have another friend who is taking a few seedlings and the rest I'll try and figure out. For this reason I'm going to double cup hydroponic the true mystery pack, hoping they fruit fast and I can figure out what I'm dealing with (is this a good idea? Can you tell from the leaves sometimes which sub variety they are, instead of waiting for flower?) The mystery sweets and hots I'm planning on growing in 1 gallons (I want to try everything and if I really like a variety I'll save seeds for a bigger container next year).
The birds plants are Bola, Florida Bird, Piri Piri, Alligator Tongue and El Incendo. I haven't decided on a final pot size for these yet because they can only eat so much in a day, fresh or dried, but I have a few other parrot owners who would take a bumper crop if I have any. I might not start Grandpa's Siberian Home until fall as they apparently fruit in winter even with the low light. The rest are for your typical uses, I've yet to decide if I want to grow the Hawk's Claw or give them away because I'm up to my ears as a balcony grower already but I also might be moving at some point during the growing season so no matter what I'm all containers.
In any case I'm excited to see what the year holds. Now to figure out how many of each of my known varieties I'm starting!
