vendor Results of my 2016 grow from Pepper Joe

Let me start out by saying that I ordered some seeds from Pepper Joe before coming here. While I won't be ordering from him again, I did have some positives, and a couple shitters. Their website has changed significantly since the time I ordered seeds in mid-February
 
Here is what I ordered:
Scotch Bonnet Rainbow Collection - red, yellow, orange Scotch Bonnets
Pepper Joe's Jalepeño
Pepper Joe Cayenne
Chocolate Ghost Pepper - though it's described as a Bhut-lah and called a cross between a Bhut Jolokia and a Douglah
Ancho/Poblano
 
I'll give the disclaimer that this was my first year growing peppers, and I had some successes and some "I'll learn from these for next year" - so some of the good AND bad could probably be attributed to the seed source (Pepper Joe) and user error/luck (me).
 
Let's start with the bad and move to the good.
 
THE SHITTERS
 
Jalepeño - tiny little peppers, very little heat, mediocre plant. I got a couple pods the size of my thumb, but no bigger. Would not recommend.
 

 

 
Ancho/Poblano - plant grew extremely leggy, crappy, and the only 3 peppers I got remained small and seemed to develop side rot. I gave all my plants CalMag and saw no signs of BER on any of the 20 other plants that I grew.
 

 

 
 
Red Scotch Bonnet - turned out to be Bishop's Crown. I emailed Pepper Joe about it and got the following response:
 

 
Well Nicky, I'm anal and was meticulous as all hell about labeling my plants. I got some other seeds from a friend (who also did not get Bishop's Crowns) and gave him some of mine - they were all Bishop's Crowns.
 
Bonus Shit-baggery: I didn't order the Ghor-Pion Pepper - but it was "developed near Pepper Joe's home town in Eastern Pennsylvania" - sure looks a lot like a pepper from a guy named Jay Weaver that is usually called Jay's Peach Ghost Scorpion... give credit where it's due man.
 
MIDDLE OF THE ROAD
 
Orange Scotch Bonnet - meh. Not the worst, not the best. Flavor was kind of crappy, tasted like a grocery store orange hab but a bit better. Thicker walled though. The pods pictured were some of the largest, but I also pulled a fair amount of pea to dime sized ripe pods of the plant. Lots of pods though, and still ripening several every day in NorCal.
 

 
Pepper Joe Cayenne - I liked these, plants produced a couple times during the year. Sweet like a red bell but only a couple of them had any decent heat. I did have some pretty big ones earlier in the year (first pic) but the later ones are a bit smaller (second pic)
 

 

 
THE WINNERS
 
Yellow Scotch Bonnet - these are hotter and thinner walled than the orange Scotch bonnets, but flavor is out of this world better. Not as good as MOA I got in a couple SFRBs this year, but good. I will be trying to bonsai this plant (it's dark and don't have pics now, but it's a long stick 12" with a nice canopy and pods hanging underneath).
 

 
Chocolate Ghost Pepper / Bhut-lah - I really like this a lot. One of the hottest peppers I've had all year. These things are white with placenta on the inside of the walls and the flavor is great. It was very late to set pods (had some mite issues early in the year that really set it back) and these ones pictured are some of the first to ripen. There are some MUCH larger pods on the plant, and the larger ones are a little more bumpy/gnarly, but not as crazy as the ones pictured on Pepper Joe's website. I will also try to bonsai this, same type of long, thick stem with nice branching 12-15" above the soil.
 
A couple group shots from pods picked in the last few days (well Photobucket is down for maintenance right now, so might add a couple more later)
 

 
FINAL NOTES
 
As I mentioned up top, I won't be ordering from here again, and while I got some crappy peppers I also was pleasantly surprised given Pepper Joe's reputation as a pretty awful vendor. I have saved some seeds from pods I liked out of SFRBs I got this year, I have an order on the way from Justin (whitehotpeppers), and will be placing a few more orders in the coming weeks/months from PepperLover, CCN (chileplants.com), RFC (Jim Duffy), and possibly Semillas Las Palmas and/or The Hippy Seed Company.
 
Hope that helps anyone looking to order in the future.
 
 
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