My first big season is winding down, and I’ve learned a lot… both about pepper cultivation and my own personal preferences.
My biggest issue was watering manually and thus unevenly. In the worst of the heat, most containers dried out every day, even watering every morning. It was necessary this year, but I think it caused a lot of nutrient uptake issues, blossom end rot, and similar niggles. I hope to use a dripline, next year, and expect this single change to result in greatly increased performance.
I planted two individuals per container in most cases, to increase genetic diversity. This worked fine, for the most part: with a few exceptions, both individuals grew equally well and the per container productivity seemed unaffected. However, I noticed slightly smaller pod sizes from pairs compared to individuals. I want to maximize pod size going forward, so I’ll be switching to one individual per container next year and using bigger containers in general.
Now, here’s a brief account of each variety which made it to maturity this year…
Resilience: overall health and disease resistance, relative to the rest of the grow
Productivity: usable pods produced, relative to similar varieties or expectations
Convenience: how willing I was to harvest and process pods
Flavor: how tempting it was for its main culinary purpose
Capsicum chinense
Ají Charapita
This has been a fun pepper to grow. It has a lovely, compact habit and is beautiful laden with pods. They also taste great: nice pop of clean, citrusy chinense flavor which really lingers, alongside a fierce but manageable heat. However, they aren’t deciduous, which makes them too annoying for me to harvest in bulk.
Resilience: 4/5
Productivity: 4/5
Convenience: 2/5
Flavor: 4/5
Ají Dulce Iquiteño Red
A really tasty, heatless red pepper with excellent fresh use potential. Just a hint of chinense in the otherwise anonymous “sweet red pepper” flavor. My partner solidly prefers annuum flavors, so this worthy variety won’t be grown again.
Resilience: 3/5
Productivity: 3/5
Convenience: 5/5
Flavor: 4/5
Ají Dulce Margariteño Yellow
This is basically a scotch bonnet, at least as it exists in the anglophone growing community. It looks and tastes just like a good quality bonnet, and in its time away from Venezuela it’s gained quite a bit of heat… at least 50 kSHU, I think, if not closer to 100. Frontera Sweet is very similar, but is truly mild; whatever its source, it may be closer in spirit to the original ADM at this point.
Resilience: 4/5
Productivity: 4/5
Convenience: 5/5
Flavor: 4/5
Ají Jobito
These are really tasty, with a lot of nuance… mild, good for fresh use. The pod shape is really pleasing. I didn’t find a solid use for them in my cooking.
Resilience: 3/5
Productivity: 3/5
Convenience: 3/5
Flavor: 5/5
Biquinho Red
To my mind, these are only useful for garden snacking or pickling whole; they are too small and seedy to bother processing. They’re as delicious raw as their reputation indicates: sweet and sour, hint of warmth, mild chinense flavor. For me, there are just too many seeds.
Resilience: 4/5
Productivity: 5/5
Convenience: 2/5
Flavor: 4/5
Datil
I found these unremarkable. A straightforward chinense flavor with habanero heat… nothing I can’t get from something with larger pods!
Resilience: 3/5
Productivity: 5/5
Convenience: 1/5
Flavor: 2/5
Frontera Sweet
(Somehow never got a photo of these, but they look like especially large and nice yellow scotch bonnets.)
This should be everyone’s go-to heatless scotch bonnet. The flavor is punchy and right up there with Scotch Bonnet TFM, but with nearly no heat. This was a superlative pepper in every sense. I’ve decided to grow Bahamian Goat in preference to classic bonnets, but I’ll be keeping this one in mind if that changes.
Resilience: 5/5
Productivity: 4/5
Convenience: 5/5
Flavor: 5/5
Habanero Marobie
A fairly bland pepper, to my palate. Nice big pods with thick walls, but not much flavor to speak of. Medium heat at most. Unexciting.
Resilience: 2/5
Productivity: 3/5
Convenience: 4/5
Flavor: 1/5
Habanero Oxkutzcabense (or Oxkutzcabian)
This is a really good, unique habanero which I have no use for. Its main feature is a powerful mango aroma which is even present around the plant itself, and which fills the whole house when processed. It was too fruity for me in a sauce, and I would prefer a more classic habanero… but it’s certainly one to keep in mind.
Resilience: 5/5
Productivity: 5/5
Convenience: 5/5
Flavor: 3/5
Naga Smooky Rainbow
This is another pepper which is hard not to love. It’s ornamental-level beautiful, the healthiest plant in the garden, and extraordinarily productive. Faultless growing characteristics. The flavor is good. Just good, really… fairly anonymous red pepper flavor with high heat, about 100 kSHU. The pods were annoyingly small early season, but late season pods have been larger and less annoying.
Resilience: 6/5, bulletproof
Productivity: 5/5
Convenience: 3/5
Flavor: 3/5
NuMex Trick-or-Treat
This is an excellent heatless habanero. Heavy, heavy branching obscures most of the fruit under a thick hedge of vegetation. Extremely resilient, extremely productive. Strong, sweet orange habanero flavor. Fantastic pepper, but I’m going to try Habanada next year for its larger pods… will definitely keep Trick-or-Treat in reserve, though.
Resilience: 5/5
Productivity: 5/5
Convenience: 5/5
Flavor: 5/5
Pimenta Luna / Pink Habanero
This is the one which people say has a “champagne” taste. I can see that… it’s a sort of dry, winey, fruitiness. Hard to place. Mild. Another good pepper, but without much use in my kitchen.
Resilience: 3/5
Productivity: 3/5
Convenience: 4/5
Flavor: 3/5
Scotch Bonnet Freeport Orange / Bahamian Goat
Freeport Orange on the left, Bahamian Goat on the right. In my grow, Freeport Orange had bigger, nicer pods… but they were also in slightly larger pots: 3 gallons vs 2 gallons. Flavor is probably within margin of error, but I felt that Freeport Orange had slightly more funk, which I ever so slightly preferred. The differences I noticed are what I would expect from two seedlines of the same variety, not from different varieties. I suspect these are from the same original population in the Bahamas, but have diverged slightly as they’ve been maintained separately by seed sellers. Superlative peppers in every respect; I’ll never not grow one.
Resilience: 5/5
Productivity: 5/5
Convenience: 5/5
Flavor: 5/5
Scotch Bonnet TFM
Through the season, these suffered in every comparison to Bahamian Goat. They’re good in sauce, but not as good; they’re resilient, but not as resilient; they’re productive, but not as productive. I felt like the pods should be bigger. For my uses, they are an excellent pepper which is nonetheless strictly inferior to the Goat. The flavor is quite different: Scotch Bonnet TFM is brighter, more acidic, more fruity, less funky. It’s meant to be among the greats, and I don’t doubt that, but I think I like my scotch bonnets with a side order of orange funk… so it’ll be Bahamian Goat for me, for the time being.
Resilience: 4/5
Productivity: 4/5
Convenience: 4/5
Flavor: 3/5
Capsicum annuum
Bird’s Eye Baby
A very heavily branched and dwarfed ornamental. I’ve never seen smaller leaves or a fuller canopy. The pods taste good and are about as hot as a chiltepin, but despite appearances this is not a glabriusculum. The pods are not deciduous, which makes them overwhelming to harvest. A bonsai candidate with snackable pods, perhaps.
Resilience: 5/5
Productivity: 5/5
Convenience: 1/5
Flavor: 3/5
Chiltepin Hermosillo Dwarf
This is the only tiny-podded variety I’m definitely growing again. It’s a proper wild with deciduous pods, so it’s easier to harvest than it looks. Also, they taste fantastic dried whole and crumbled directly onto food, as is traditional for chiltepins, so there’s no processing needed: straight from plant to dehydrator for a finished product. These are a satisfying grow, hitting all the notes: easy, pretty, useful.
Resilience: 5/5
Productivity: 5/5
Convenience: 5/5
Flavor: 4/5
Chinese Five Color
There are a lot of different-looking plants which share this name. Mine, from RFC, is a heavily dwarfed rainbow ripening ornamental with fairly tasty pods. It stopped growing like a switch had been flicked at under 12 in (30 cm), whereas I was hoping for a rainbow type with more stature. I’m going to try a couple different seedlines of Bolivian Rainbow next year.
Resilience: 3/5
Productivity: 5/5
Convenience: 3/5
Flavor: 3/5
Jalapeño Zapotec
The best tasting jalapeño I’ve tried so far. I hold one to my nose every time I cut some up… they are the absolute definition of a jalapeño, to me, and if I were single I’d grow them every year. My partner loves jalapeños, though, and these are just too spicy for her to enjoy. We’ll be trying Farmers Market Jalapeño next year for something milder, with larger pods to boot.
Resilience: 4/5
Productivity: 4/5
Convenience: 5/5
Flavor: 5/5
Jigsaw
This was a joy to watch all year long. It’s a variegated ornamental with anthocyanin genetics. At its best, it combines the fascinating, creamy foliage of variegation with splashes of bright purple. At other times, though, the anthocyanin comes across as dirtiness or business and distracts from the variegation. Its pods taste bitter and grassy, so it’s a pure ornamental… I may go back to Fish Pepper for its simpler white-and-green variegation and usable pods.
Resilience: 4/5
Productivity: 4/5
Convenience: 1/5
Flavor: 0/5
NuMex Heritage Big Jim
(No photo.) This is one of several peppers which was unhappy in only 5 gallons, and as a result its habit was squashed and sickly. Very useful in the kitchen, but too hot for my partner. I’m switching to NuMex Heritage 6-4 next year for a milder New Mexican type; and hopefully its smaller pods help it better accept a container.
Resilience: 3/5
Productivity: 2/5
Convenience: 5/5
Flavor: 4/5
Pequin Yellow
This was orange, for me, and even fully ripe its pods tasted bitter and grassy, like an ornamental. Same thing in both containers I grew, so I’m not sure what’s up with it… others seem to have had better luck. I won’t be trying again.
Resilience: 3/5
Productivity: 3/5
Convenience: 1/5
Flavor: 0/5
Quadrato d’Asti Giallo
(No photo.) This yellow bell was another which was unhappy in only 5 gallons, and exhibited the same unhappy, wrong, squashed habit and sickliness that Big Jim and the other bell type did. That said, it managed to produce more than a dozen half-sized peppers, and they were the best bell peppers I’ve tasted. Extremely thick flesh with powerful lemon flavor. I’m trying them again next year in 10+ gallon containers.
Resilience: 3/5
Productivity: 3/5
Convenience: 5/5
Flavor: 5/5
Romanian Rainbow
(No photo.) This is the red bell, and again it had growth issues in 5 gallons. It was tasty, but no more so than a store-bought red bell. We mainly grew this for the Romania connection (my partner grew up there), but next year we’ll try another Romanian landrace which she actually remembers from her time there: Gogosar (which yes just means “pepper”, but that’s what it’s known by). Had to order seeds straight from Romania!
Resilience: 3/5
Productivity: 3/5
Convenience: 5/5
Flavor: 3/5
Capsicum baccatum
Ají Amarillo Baby
This is supposed to be a jalapeño-sized variant of Ají Amarillo, but honestly these pods are tiny and tapered, really annoying to process. They have a subtle mango aroma and a mild, pleasant flavor, but they were the least exciting baccatum overall. It is very early ripening.
Resilience: 4/5
Productivity: 5/5
Convenience: 1/5
Flavor: 3/5
Ají Fantasy Orange
This is an amazing pepper which I heartily recommend, but might not grow next year. Huge flavor and aroma with a lot of detail: orange blossom and tangerine juice are very obvious to my palate. A useful, medium heat, no more than 5 kSHU. I didn’t actually use it much, however… bit too spicy for my partner in fresh usage, which seems its natural fit. Pickled?
Resilience: 4/5
Productivity: 4/5
Convenience: 5/5
Flavor: 5/5
Ají Pineapple
If this were either a production monster or had more generous pods, it would be a yearly grow. The flavor is unique, and I understand what people mean by “pineapple”… it has a detailed tingly flavor right on the front which is reminiscent. It also almost tastes like it’s seasoned with garlic, even eating right off the plant. It really keeps the palate entertained!
Resilience: 4/5
Productivity: 2/5
Convenience: 2/5
Flavor: 5/5
Blended Lemon
This is a well-bred Lemon Drop variant with larger, milder pods. Very clean, sparkling, but anonymous citrus flavor. If Ají Pineapple hadn’t spoiled me for flavor, this would be a yearly grow; as it is, I really wish for Ají Pineapple flavor combined with Blended Lemon growth characteristics. I expect I’ll revisit these two someday.
Resilience: 5/5
Productivity: 4/5
Convenience: 5/5
Flavor: 3/5
CAP 455 / Ají Kaleidoscope
This was my all-star baccatum, and one I’ll go to bat for every day. A truly superlative pepper. It’s completely heatless, sweet (but not as sweet as Sugar Rush), and delivers a really satisfying amount of generic baccatum flavor. If someone asks, “I’ve never tasted a baccatum, what’s the general flavor profile?” you can just point at CAP 455. It was also extremely resilient and easily the most productive pepper of the grow, including chinense! There is one gotcha: do not let it dry out. At the first hint of a dry pot, its entire crop will dry and wrinkle and be useless except for further drying; nothing else was at all similar. Keep it hydrated, and it just goes goes goes. Beth Boyd called this “Ají Kaleidoscope”. I suggest “Clifford the Big Red Pod”. I use this raw or pickled.
Resilience: 4/5
Productivity: 6/5, absurd
Convenience: 5/5
Flavor: 5/5
Sugar Rush Stripey
This absolutely sold me on the Sugar Rush series, but not on Stripey. I had three containers of this, and they were consistently the most diseased of the grow. Also, nearly every pod had some amount of rot to cut away. 2 out of 6 individuals had stripes, but only on a few of their pods. All that said, the flavor is fantastic! So sweet! Next year, I’m going to try Peppapeach / Peachadew as a milder Sugar Rush variant with easier to process pods.
Resilience: 1/5
Productivity: 4/5
Convenience: 2/5
Flavor: 5/5
Capsicum frutescens
Ají Caballero
I didn’t have a ton of expectations for this wild or naturalized Puerto Rican pepper, but it didn’t even meet the least of them which was to make pique. Do people on the island actually have the patience to pick a bottle’s worth of these??? Although longer, these are slender and insubstantial, so they’re actually less productive than chiltepins. They’re deciduous, which helps, but they have an unpleasant, bitter flavor and an irritating burn.
Resilience: 4/5
Productivity: 3/5
Convenience: 3/5
Flavor: 1/5
CGN 22184 / Peach Frutescens
To the best of my knowledge, this is a chinense x frutescens cross. It’s delicious: bright, clean chinense flavor with sweet, peach overtones, almost like a refreshing peach soda. Medium burn which doesn’t last long. The small, non-deciduous pods are annoying to harvest and process, but the unique flavor and attractive appearance make up for some of that. One to keep in mind, if not to grow again soon; haven’t decided. I’m drying the rest of my crop and will see how the flavor translates.
Resilience: 3/5
Productivity: 4/5
Convenience: 2/5
Flavor: 5/5
Capsicum pubescens
Rocoto Mini Olive
(No photo.) Exactly one individual out of four made it to maturity. They were insect resistant, but absolutely hated the hot summer nights. It finally set A Pod in the cooling autumn, and it may have set more but it finally succumbed to the same root rot as the others. I doubt it would have ripened outside, anyway. The summers are only going to get worse, so I doubt I’ll try again with this or other pubescens. Maybe Rocoto Ají Largo, someday; it has a versatile reputation.
Resilience: 2/5
Productivity: ?/5
Convenience: ?/5
Flavor: ?/5
My biggest issue was watering manually and thus unevenly. In the worst of the heat, most containers dried out every day, even watering every morning. It was necessary this year, but I think it caused a lot of nutrient uptake issues, blossom end rot, and similar niggles. I hope to use a dripline, next year, and expect this single change to result in greatly increased performance.
I planted two individuals per container in most cases, to increase genetic diversity. This worked fine, for the most part: with a few exceptions, both individuals grew equally well and the per container productivity seemed unaffected. However, I noticed slightly smaller pod sizes from pairs compared to individuals. I want to maximize pod size going forward, so I’ll be switching to one individual per container next year and using bigger containers in general.
Now, here’s a brief account of each variety which made it to maturity this year…
Resilience: overall health and disease resistance, relative to the rest of the grow
Productivity: usable pods produced, relative to similar varieties or expectations
Convenience: how willing I was to harvest and process pods
Flavor: how tempting it was for its main culinary purpose
Capsicum chinense
Ají Charapita
This has been a fun pepper to grow. It has a lovely, compact habit and is beautiful laden with pods. They also taste great: nice pop of clean, citrusy chinense flavor which really lingers, alongside a fierce but manageable heat. However, they aren’t deciduous, which makes them too annoying for me to harvest in bulk.
Resilience: 4/5
Productivity: 4/5
Convenience: 2/5
Flavor: 4/5
Ají Dulce Iquiteño Red
A really tasty, heatless red pepper with excellent fresh use potential. Just a hint of chinense in the otherwise anonymous “sweet red pepper” flavor. My partner solidly prefers annuum flavors, so this worthy variety won’t be grown again.
Resilience: 3/5
Productivity: 3/5
Convenience: 5/5
Flavor: 4/5
Ají Dulce Margariteño Yellow
This is basically a scotch bonnet, at least as it exists in the anglophone growing community. It looks and tastes just like a good quality bonnet, and in its time away from Venezuela it’s gained quite a bit of heat… at least 50 kSHU, I think, if not closer to 100. Frontera Sweet is very similar, but is truly mild; whatever its source, it may be closer in spirit to the original ADM at this point.
Resilience: 4/5
Productivity: 4/5
Convenience: 5/5
Flavor: 4/5
Ají Jobito
These are really tasty, with a lot of nuance… mild, good for fresh use. The pod shape is really pleasing. I didn’t find a solid use for them in my cooking.
Resilience: 3/5
Productivity: 3/5
Convenience: 3/5
Flavor: 5/5
Biquinho Red
To my mind, these are only useful for garden snacking or pickling whole; they are too small and seedy to bother processing. They’re as delicious raw as their reputation indicates: sweet and sour, hint of warmth, mild chinense flavor. For me, there are just too many seeds.
Resilience: 4/5
Productivity: 5/5
Convenience: 2/5
Flavor: 4/5
Datil
I found these unremarkable. A straightforward chinense flavor with habanero heat… nothing I can’t get from something with larger pods!
Resilience: 3/5
Productivity: 5/5
Convenience: 1/5
Flavor: 2/5
Frontera Sweet
(Somehow never got a photo of these, but they look like especially large and nice yellow scotch bonnets.)
This should be everyone’s go-to heatless scotch bonnet. The flavor is punchy and right up there with Scotch Bonnet TFM, but with nearly no heat. This was a superlative pepper in every sense. I’ve decided to grow Bahamian Goat in preference to classic bonnets, but I’ll be keeping this one in mind if that changes.
Resilience: 5/5
Productivity: 4/5
Convenience: 5/5
Flavor: 5/5
Habanero Marobie
A fairly bland pepper, to my palate. Nice big pods with thick walls, but not much flavor to speak of. Medium heat at most. Unexciting.
Resilience: 2/5
Productivity: 3/5
Convenience: 4/5
Flavor: 1/5
Habanero Oxkutzcabense (or Oxkutzcabian)
This is a really good, unique habanero which I have no use for. Its main feature is a powerful mango aroma which is even present around the plant itself, and which fills the whole house when processed. It was too fruity for me in a sauce, and I would prefer a more classic habanero… but it’s certainly one to keep in mind.
Resilience: 5/5
Productivity: 5/5
Convenience: 5/5
Flavor: 3/5
Naga Smooky Rainbow
This is another pepper which is hard not to love. It’s ornamental-level beautiful, the healthiest plant in the garden, and extraordinarily productive. Faultless growing characteristics. The flavor is good. Just good, really… fairly anonymous red pepper flavor with high heat, about 100 kSHU. The pods were annoyingly small early season, but late season pods have been larger and less annoying.
Resilience: 6/5, bulletproof
Productivity: 5/5
Convenience: 3/5
Flavor: 3/5
NuMex Trick-or-Treat
This is an excellent heatless habanero. Heavy, heavy branching obscures most of the fruit under a thick hedge of vegetation. Extremely resilient, extremely productive. Strong, sweet orange habanero flavor. Fantastic pepper, but I’m going to try Habanada next year for its larger pods… will definitely keep Trick-or-Treat in reserve, though.
Resilience: 5/5
Productivity: 5/5
Convenience: 5/5
Flavor: 5/5
Pimenta Luna / Pink Habanero
This is the one which people say has a “champagne” taste. I can see that… it’s a sort of dry, winey, fruitiness. Hard to place. Mild. Another good pepper, but without much use in my kitchen.
Resilience: 3/5
Productivity: 3/5
Convenience: 4/5
Flavor: 3/5
Scotch Bonnet Freeport Orange / Bahamian Goat
Freeport Orange on the left, Bahamian Goat on the right. In my grow, Freeport Orange had bigger, nicer pods… but they were also in slightly larger pots: 3 gallons vs 2 gallons. Flavor is probably within margin of error, but I felt that Freeport Orange had slightly more funk, which I ever so slightly preferred. The differences I noticed are what I would expect from two seedlines of the same variety, not from different varieties. I suspect these are from the same original population in the Bahamas, but have diverged slightly as they’ve been maintained separately by seed sellers. Superlative peppers in every respect; I’ll never not grow one.
Resilience: 5/5
Productivity: 5/5
Convenience: 5/5
Flavor: 5/5
Scotch Bonnet TFM
Through the season, these suffered in every comparison to Bahamian Goat. They’re good in sauce, but not as good; they’re resilient, but not as resilient; they’re productive, but not as productive. I felt like the pods should be bigger. For my uses, they are an excellent pepper which is nonetheless strictly inferior to the Goat. The flavor is quite different: Scotch Bonnet TFM is brighter, more acidic, more fruity, less funky. It’s meant to be among the greats, and I don’t doubt that, but I think I like my scotch bonnets with a side order of orange funk… so it’ll be Bahamian Goat for me, for the time being.
Resilience: 4/5
Productivity: 4/5
Convenience: 4/5
Flavor: 3/5
Capsicum annuum
Bird’s Eye Baby
A very heavily branched and dwarfed ornamental. I’ve never seen smaller leaves or a fuller canopy. The pods taste good and are about as hot as a chiltepin, but despite appearances this is not a glabriusculum. The pods are not deciduous, which makes them overwhelming to harvest. A bonsai candidate with snackable pods, perhaps.
Resilience: 5/5
Productivity: 5/5
Convenience: 1/5
Flavor: 3/5
Chiltepin Hermosillo Dwarf
This is the only tiny-podded variety I’m definitely growing again. It’s a proper wild with deciduous pods, so it’s easier to harvest than it looks. Also, they taste fantastic dried whole and crumbled directly onto food, as is traditional for chiltepins, so there’s no processing needed: straight from plant to dehydrator for a finished product. These are a satisfying grow, hitting all the notes: easy, pretty, useful.
Resilience: 5/5
Productivity: 5/5
Convenience: 5/5
Flavor: 4/5
Chinese Five Color
There are a lot of different-looking plants which share this name. Mine, from RFC, is a heavily dwarfed rainbow ripening ornamental with fairly tasty pods. It stopped growing like a switch had been flicked at under 12 in (30 cm), whereas I was hoping for a rainbow type with more stature. I’m going to try a couple different seedlines of Bolivian Rainbow next year.
Resilience: 3/5
Productivity: 5/5
Convenience: 3/5
Flavor: 3/5
Jalapeño Zapotec
The best tasting jalapeño I’ve tried so far. I hold one to my nose every time I cut some up… they are the absolute definition of a jalapeño, to me, and if I were single I’d grow them every year. My partner loves jalapeños, though, and these are just too spicy for her to enjoy. We’ll be trying Farmers Market Jalapeño next year for something milder, with larger pods to boot.
Resilience: 4/5
Productivity: 4/5
Convenience: 5/5
Flavor: 5/5
Jigsaw
This was a joy to watch all year long. It’s a variegated ornamental with anthocyanin genetics. At its best, it combines the fascinating, creamy foliage of variegation with splashes of bright purple. At other times, though, the anthocyanin comes across as dirtiness or business and distracts from the variegation. Its pods taste bitter and grassy, so it’s a pure ornamental… I may go back to Fish Pepper for its simpler white-and-green variegation and usable pods.
Resilience: 4/5
Productivity: 4/5
Convenience: 1/5
Flavor: 0/5
NuMex Heritage Big Jim
(No photo.) This is one of several peppers which was unhappy in only 5 gallons, and as a result its habit was squashed and sickly. Very useful in the kitchen, but too hot for my partner. I’m switching to NuMex Heritage 6-4 next year for a milder New Mexican type; and hopefully its smaller pods help it better accept a container.
Resilience: 3/5
Productivity: 2/5
Convenience: 5/5
Flavor: 4/5
Pequin Yellow
This was orange, for me, and even fully ripe its pods tasted bitter and grassy, like an ornamental. Same thing in both containers I grew, so I’m not sure what’s up with it… others seem to have had better luck. I won’t be trying again.
Resilience: 3/5
Productivity: 3/5
Convenience: 1/5
Flavor: 0/5
Quadrato d’Asti Giallo
(No photo.) This yellow bell was another which was unhappy in only 5 gallons, and exhibited the same unhappy, wrong, squashed habit and sickliness that Big Jim and the other bell type did. That said, it managed to produce more than a dozen half-sized peppers, and they were the best bell peppers I’ve tasted. Extremely thick flesh with powerful lemon flavor. I’m trying them again next year in 10+ gallon containers.
Resilience: 3/5
Productivity: 3/5
Convenience: 5/5
Flavor: 5/5
Romanian Rainbow
(No photo.) This is the red bell, and again it had growth issues in 5 gallons. It was tasty, but no more so than a store-bought red bell. We mainly grew this for the Romania connection (my partner grew up there), but next year we’ll try another Romanian landrace which she actually remembers from her time there: Gogosar (which yes just means “pepper”, but that’s what it’s known by). Had to order seeds straight from Romania!
Resilience: 3/5
Productivity: 3/5
Convenience: 5/5
Flavor: 3/5
Capsicum baccatum
Ají Amarillo Baby
This is supposed to be a jalapeño-sized variant of Ají Amarillo, but honestly these pods are tiny and tapered, really annoying to process. They have a subtle mango aroma and a mild, pleasant flavor, but they were the least exciting baccatum overall. It is very early ripening.
Resilience: 4/5
Productivity: 5/5
Convenience: 1/5
Flavor: 3/5
Ají Fantasy Orange
This is an amazing pepper which I heartily recommend, but might not grow next year. Huge flavor and aroma with a lot of detail: orange blossom and tangerine juice are very obvious to my palate. A useful, medium heat, no more than 5 kSHU. I didn’t actually use it much, however… bit too spicy for my partner in fresh usage, which seems its natural fit. Pickled?
Resilience: 4/5
Productivity: 4/5
Convenience: 5/5
Flavor: 5/5
Ají Pineapple
If this were either a production monster or had more generous pods, it would be a yearly grow. The flavor is unique, and I understand what people mean by “pineapple”… it has a detailed tingly flavor right on the front which is reminiscent. It also almost tastes like it’s seasoned with garlic, even eating right off the plant. It really keeps the palate entertained!
Resilience: 4/5
Productivity: 2/5
Convenience: 2/5
Flavor: 5/5
Blended Lemon
This is a well-bred Lemon Drop variant with larger, milder pods. Very clean, sparkling, but anonymous citrus flavor. If Ají Pineapple hadn’t spoiled me for flavor, this would be a yearly grow; as it is, I really wish for Ají Pineapple flavor combined with Blended Lemon growth characteristics. I expect I’ll revisit these two someday.
Resilience: 5/5
Productivity: 4/5
Convenience: 5/5
Flavor: 3/5
CAP 455 / Ají Kaleidoscope
This was my all-star baccatum, and one I’ll go to bat for every day. A truly superlative pepper. It’s completely heatless, sweet (but not as sweet as Sugar Rush), and delivers a really satisfying amount of generic baccatum flavor. If someone asks, “I’ve never tasted a baccatum, what’s the general flavor profile?” you can just point at CAP 455. It was also extremely resilient and easily the most productive pepper of the grow, including chinense! There is one gotcha: do not let it dry out. At the first hint of a dry pot, its entire crop will dry and wrinkle and be useless except for further drying; nothing else was at all similar. Keep it hydrated, and it just goes goes goes. Beth Boyd called this “Ají Kaleidoscope”. I suggest “Clifford the Big Red Pod”. I use this raw or pickled.
Resilience: 4/5
Productivity: 6/5, absurd
Convenience: 5/5
Flavor: 5/5
Sugar Rush Stripey
This absolutely sold me on the Sugar Rush series, but not on Stripey. I had three containers of this, and they were consistently the most diseased of the grow. Also, nearly every pod had some amount of rot to cut away. 2 out of 6 individuals had stripes, but only on a few of their pods. All that said, the flavor is fantastic! So sweet! Next year, I’m going to try Peppapeach / Peachadew as a milder Sugar Rush variant with easier to process pods.
Resilience: 1/5
Productivity: 4/5
Convenience: 2/5
Flavor: 5/5
Capsicum frutescens
Ají Caballero
I didn’t have a ton of expectations for this wild or naturalized Puerto Rican pepper, but it didn’t even meet the least of them which was to make pique. Do people on the island actually have the patience to pick a bottle’s worth of these??? Although longer, these are slender and insubstantial, so they’re actually less productive than chiltepins. They’re deciduous, which helps, but they have an unpleasant, bitter flavor and an irritating burn.
Resilience: 4/5
Productivity: 3/5
Convenience: 3/5
Flavor: 1/5
CGN 22184 / Peach Frutescens
To the best of my knowledge, this is a chinense x frutescens cross. It’s delicious: bright, clean chinense flavor with sweet, peach overtones, almost like a refreshing peach soda. Medium burn which doesn’t last long. The small, non-deciduous pods are annoying to harvest and process, but the unique flavor and attractive appearance make up for some of that. One to keep in mind, if not to grow again soon; haven’t decided. I’m drying the rest of my crop and will see how the flavor translates.
Resilience: 3/5
Productivity: 4/5
Convenience: 2/5
Flavor: 5/5
Capsicum pubescens
Rocoto Mini Olive
(No photo.) Exactly one individual out of four made it to maturity. They were insect resistant, but absolutely hated the hot summer nights. It finally set A Pod in the cooling autumn, and it may have set more but it finally succumbed to the same root rot as the others. I doubt it would have ripened outside, anyway. The summers are only going to get worse, so I doubt I’ll try again with this or other pubescens. Maybe Rocoto Ají Largo, someday; it has a versatile reputation.
Resilience: 2/5
Productivity: ?/5
Convenience: ?/5
Flavor: ?/5
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I'm going to have to add the Trick-or-Treats, Zapotecs, and Hermosillo Dwarf Chiltepins to my "must grow" list.