vendor Pepper Joe

mrz1988

mrz1988

I ordered my first season's seeds from pepper joe a while back. He has a small selection that he grows out each year. He will send you seeds in little coin envelopes and always sends some free varieties with each order. I had excellent germination rates from all of his seed with the exception of one variety that I ordered. Considering how it was my first season and I was germinating OUTDOORS in soil (dumb dumb dumb) I was very pleased with the germ rates and I assume most of my problem seed was due to poor growing skills in my first season. I also germinated two more of his seeds the next season that had been stored in a drawer for a year, and both germinated.

I will say that he has a higher rate of hybrids than most growers. I'm not sure how he isolates his plants if at all but I've gotten hybrids from him. I also reallllly wish he would post more pictures of his pods because it's really hard to tell what you're going to get. My Bhut Jolokia seeds that I got from him didn't get a chance to fruit the first year, but the second year the plant I grew out ended up not being a true Bhut. I'm not sure if it was a hybrid or what, because it had a pointed shape that looks like a lot of the smaller bhuts I see on the web and definitely had C. chinenses genetics, but it was nothing like the large, wrinkled, superhots you see coming out of the NMCPI. Also probably around hab heat or slightly above, not superhot. I'll post pics on request.

Overall I'd say he's a good source for novice growers but I wouldn't recommend him if you're trying to get superhots and such. There are more reputable sources out there. Overall probably a C+/B-
 
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My japs and other annuums are starting to bud out like crazy. All seeds from Joe. This is my last box of starts. A few scotch bonnets, mostly bhuts and Butch T's. Recovering very nicely from me trying to kill them off with fert burn. counting down the time to move them into their new homes outside.

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My yellow Bhuts really sucked. Only 4 out of the 10 germinated, and 3 out of the 4 just died upon growing .5", the last one is just staying very tiny. Emailed you guys about it and I'm supposed to be getting a replacement pack.

The Caloro, Anaheim, & Cowhorns all germinated extremely well but are taking their good ol' time getting their second sets of leaves.

Thanks Pepper Joe!
 
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I bought this year's seed selection from Pepper Joe's. I am very happy with the ongoing communication, and I although his selection may not be massive he stocks pretty much everything I wanted. I'm going to list some issues that I had along the way, but I want to stress that I believe all of these things may have been my fault or it may be that I somehow ended up with crappy peat pellets. In any event I did not contact him to complain because I was not sure where the fault was and I wanted to be fair to this seller (I never expect others to pay for my mess ups), plus I was still happy overall because I ended up with about 40 great pepper plants that I love.

My germination rate was low. I started them in peat pellets, which apparently can be a no-no for peppers so I take some responsibility there for not being careful enough with what I was doing. We had a critical illness in our family at the time, so I was not sure that I would be around in the spring to take them outside. This led to me not being as meticulous as I usually am about things. Anyway, I had an overall germination rate of under 30% after 5 1/2 weeks of waiting, and a few types of peppers including the king of the norths did not germinate at all. This is with the peat pellets to start, great quality grow lights and heat matts. Sadly, only one tabasco and one kung pao pepper germinated even though I planted one seed per pellet because I was looking forward to these the most. To put all of this into perspective, I had a 98% germ rate on the tomato seeds I saved from last year, everything else grown from my own seed had germs rates between 95-100%, and leftover odds and ends seeds were still clicking at germ rates of about 75%. To be completely fair to Joe, however, all of those other seeds were started later when things in my household settled down and much greater care was taken with the planting process. I did not use peat pellets for any of the later plantings. Plus pepper plants are tougher to germinate than any of the others I planted, so the difference in percentages can be misleading.

When I recently got the pepper plants that did germinate outside and they started to flower a couple of weird things started to show up. The peppers from the only black jalapeno that germinated are coming in shaped like cayennes. The shape of the plant and leaves always seemed different from a jalapeno, so it made sense in the end that it was something different and I actually ended up with no black jalepenos this year. I did try one of the peppers that came in early from it, and it was a fireball that nearly took the roof of my mouth off even though it was still green so I am ok with this. The flourescent purple ended up coming in like cayennes as well, but a cayenne came in like a flourescent purple so I am assuming this was somehow a labeling error on my part. The only reason I am mentioning it in this review is that it seems like a bit of a coincidence that the cayenne plant is producing purple peppers, even though it is a cayenne blend. On the flip side of that, the plants that did come up are absolutely exploding with pods and I am already making plans for what to do with all of the extra peppers I did not expect to have at the end of the year. The plants themselves are already looking like insanely good producers.

Having said all of this I am happy enough with his communication and with what I got in the end to try him out again for next year, only this time I will avoid the peat pellets.
 
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Hi Stefan, I remember you from our Facebook page and appreciate your review and being a customer and Facebook Fan. We're up to 44,000 Fans on Facebook and have a lot of fun there so I recognize you for some regular posts and pictures.
Although I do appreciate you taking full responsibility for any planting mistakes, I do insist you let me replace those King of the North Bell peppers. We're getting great germination reports from customers and I'd like fo9r yours to grow well too. Just drop me an email at pepperjoe@sc.rr.com with your mailing address.
Fiery Regards,
Pepper Joe
 
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This is the type of classy response I have come to expect from PepperJoe. Speaking of his facebook page, he always takes the time to comment on photos that are posted there, and to answer questions that people have. However, this is not the best part of his business. His webpage is exceptional because the descriptions of the assorted peppers available (and videos as well that are found deeper in the site) are presented in a such a way as to get people really excited about the product. Just to share a quick story about this, my girlfriend and my stepdaughter are not really into hot peppers. I was placing an order with Pepper Joe so I asked them to pick out a pepper each that we could all grow. After a few minutes they were completely hooked, reading through the assorted descriptions and telling me about how great this or that pepper sounds. That is how I ended up growing atomic starfish and flourescent purples this year, and although these would not have been my first choices I'm primed to taste them. To chiliheads who are out for specific things that they already know about this type of thing probably doesn't matter much, but for pepper novices it is an extremely good introduction into our world.
 
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Sure thing. I want to start by saying I'm extremely happy with all of the plants from the seeds I got from Pepper Joe. They are all just exploding with peppers right now! I'm only going to post a few to give a sense of how things are going.

First off is the atomic starfish. It is as tall as I am right now (6'1), but of course that includes the pot depth. This one surprised me because it was the first pepper that germinated (after only 3 days), and I expected it to be in the "long germination" pile. I have taken this same photo weekly, and every time there are more peppers. I only got this one because my step daughter picked it out, but it is now one of my absolute favourites to grow.
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Next is the pepper joe cayenne. I am actually quite shocked at how big these cayennes are. I've grown cayennes a few times now, and none of them came close to the girth of these peppers. I hope this picture does justice to just how completely loaded down the plant is with these guys.
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My cayenne pepper blend ended up as purple, which is pretty (my wife loves it). I sampled a few of these and love the flavour. Once again, the plant is completely loaded down.
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This was the toughest picture to take, and I hope that I get the right impression across with this picture of a section of one of my giant ghost pepper plants. Mental note that I need to ask for a good macro for my camera for Christmas. Anyway, the giant ghost peppers are absolutely filled with flowers that are turning to pods right now. I would say, without exaggeration, that each of my two plants has over 100 little pods forming. Even if some drop along the way I am looking at a pretty huge harvest.
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I'll leave it there, but the pattern continues across the different plant I grew from Pepper Joe's seeds. The kung pao plant has over a hundred pods forming at the moment, the tabasco is filling up with flowers, the yellow wax peppers are as big as a baby elephant trunk, etc. I'm pointing all of this out because I was all right with pepper joe but not 100% happy at first (see above), but I am absolutely thrilled now with how it all turned out. Lesson learned for me about posting a review too early in the season.
 
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To start off, I'm new to growing anything, so I take responsibility for any implied failings in the below paragraph.

I ordered from Pepper Joe and put about 70 seeds down, with about 40 of them actually growing. The trinidad scorpions had about 40% success, fluorescent purples about 30%, and the chocolate habs had 0. The free serranos and jalapenos are growing pretty well, with several working on their 4th set of leaves, and everything else is still just starting on their 3rd after 6 weeks. I emailed Pepper Joe about the habs and am waiting for a replacement packet in the mail, no complaints about the customer service there.

As things stand, I'll be ordering from Pepper Joe in the future.
 
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Hi Wulf,
Thanks for your posting.
For a newbie, that's not too bad...but many folks on this forum get 80% or better germination.....
Check out my FAQ page for some growing tips...and a few other pages on the website may be helpful to you.
Also, on our Facebook page we address all growing issues (which are few....but it is only YOUR irder that is important to YOU) so the cool thing is, many fellow gardeners pitch in and give you input from their perspective. We're 44,000 gardeners strong and hopefully we can help you out a little.
If you don't get your Chocolate Habs promplly replaced by my customer service department (they are usually awesome) email me direct at pepperjoe@sc.rr.com
Fiery Regards,
Pepper Joe
:dance: :P :dance: :P :dance: :P
 
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I bought some seed from pepper joe too. overall every thing was good mostly all of the peppers i had got had a 90% persent germination rates excueding the choc habaneros
I got 0 out of 20 was really disipointed about that. the way am seeing it his habs have poor germination rate although his butch t and ghost peppers i got a 100% germination rate . so would i order from him yes i would mabe not the habanero.
 
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Planted these a week ago.
Big Bertha---sprouted
Peter Pepper-sprouted
Cayenne- " " "
Banana Dulce " " "
Chocolate Bell " " "
Poblano " " "

Paprica-Not yet.
Slim Red- NY
IT Peperoncini-NY
Datil-Last Night !
Giant Halapeno-NY
Purple Jal-NY
Cubanelle-NY
Italian long-Sprouted Yesterday.

BTW, I'm a seed soaker.
 
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Sali Man,
Those Chocolate Habs can take longer to germinate. Give them another week and if they don't come up email me direct at pepperjoe@sc.rr.com and I'll gladly replace them....(or give you a different variety....your call) just give me your mailing address.
You should be real happy with those Butch T's and Ghosts...getting many potitive emails. Actually on Facebook there has been some good feedback on Chocolate Habs as well...but they can be a finicky germinator.
Fiery Regards, Pepper Joe
:dance: :P :dance: :P :dance: :P
 
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