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Introduction
Some like them hot. Some like them sweet. If variety is what you like, the pepper plant is the vegetable for you. Peppers are amazing plants to grow in the home garden. Not only do they ripen into a rainbow of brilliant colors, but the pods also come in many different shapes and sizes. If you're not sure what variety to grow, the Master Gardeners can give you some help. In the 1999 McClellan Ranch vegetable research trial in Cupertino, the Master Gardeners grew over thirty varieties of both sweet and hot peppers.
With a large harvest and over a hundred people attending the public tasting, it was one of our most successful test gardens ever.
Pepper Trial Ratings (Pepper Trial)
From the results of the public tasting, the top five varieties were all hot peppers. The Jamaica Scotch Bonnet, a fiery orange pepper, ranked first. The Habanero rated a close second and has small, wrinkled orange pods that look very similar to the Scotch Bonnet. The Caribbean Red is even hotter than the Habanero and the Francisca is a type of Habanero with a smoky, fruity taste. The Cayenne Long Red Slim has narrow, wrinkled pods and a pungent flavor.
The top ranked sweet pepper was Vidi, a vigorous French hybrid with an elongated bell shape that ripens to red. The Roumanian Rainbow was also ranked highly and has colorful pods that ripen from ivory to orange to red. Red Ruffled Pimiento has an interesting flattened bell shape while Ariane is a blocky, orange bell with thick flesh. Brupa Dutch Chocolate changes color from green to milk chocolate to bright red. Unlike purple bells, which taste bitter until they turn red, this brown bell maintains a sweet flavor during its chocolate stage. Nardello, a red Italian heirloom pepper with a long, thin, tapered shape, was rated the sweetest non-bell pepper. Another sweet Italian heirloom pepper, Corno di Toro Red, is larger than Nardello and shaped like a bull's horn.
Pepper Test Garden Results (Pepper Trial)
The plants were easy to take care of and didn't have insect or disease problems. However, some of the larger pods were damaged by sunscald because the peppers were planted two feet apart which wasn't close enough for the leaves to shade the fruit. In general, the hot peppers had smaller pods than the sweet peppers but were much more prolific. The sweet peppers yielded 30-50 pods per plant while the hot peppers yielded 100-500 pods per plant.
The pepper plants in our test garden had a slow start due to the cool summer and took an extra long time to ripen. Most of the pepper pods, especially the hottest varieties, remained green until the last week in September when the temperature climbed into the 90s and stayed hot for a week. Then the peppers miraculously all started to ripen and change colors just in time for the tasting which was the first week in October.
Pepper Species
Although peppers are perennials native to South America, they can grow very well as annuals here in the cooler climate of the Bay Area. They belong to the Solanaceae or nightshade family that includes tomatoes, potatoes, and eggplants. Peppers are actually misnamed because they are not related to the spice that is used in cooking for seasoning. Garden peppers belong to the genus Capsicum (CAP-see-coom) while the spice belongs to the genus Piper. This misnomer probably dates back to Christopher Columbus who was searching for an alternative source of black pepper and discovered the hot chile pepper in America instead.
Pepper terminology is certainly confusing: pepper, chile, chili, Aji, and paprika are all used interchangeably for plants belonging to the genus Capsicum. There are five species of domesticated Capsicums:
Pepper heat is measured in Scoville Heat Units using a procedure called High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). Chile pods are dried and ground up. Then the chemicals responsible for the pungency are extracted, and the extract is injected into the HPLC device for analysis. The scale can range from 0 to 300,000 Scoville Heat Units with the Habanero being the hottest pepper ever measured.
Planting Seeds
To grow peppers in your garden, start seeds indoors in mid-February and then transplant them outside 8-10 weeks later in the spring. Pepper seeds germinate best if the temperature of the soil is maintained between 70 and 80 degrees F. A growing mixture consisting of equal parts sterile potting soil, vermiculite, and perlite is recommended. The potting soil and vermiculite hold moisture and nutrients while the perlite prevents compaction and aids in drainage and aeration to promote root growth.
Six-pack cells or peat pots can be used with 2-3 seeds planted per cell or peat pot. The containers can be placed on top of heating cables or mats that are maintained between 70-80 degrees F. Or some gardeners have had luck placing containers on top of the refrigerator. When the seeds sprout, leave the strongest seedling in each cell and clip the weaker seedlings with scissors. Keep the cells moist but not soggy.
Inadequate light is the biggest danger to young pepper seedlings and will cause the plants to become weak and spindly. Placing the seedlings in a window often doesn't work because the amount of available light through the window decreases as the sun rises higher in the sky and the days approach the summer solstice. Greenhouses have a much higher success rate as do fluorescent lights set up in a garage. However, the lights must be 4 inches or less above the plants or the light will diffuse too much and the plants will not have enough light.
Two weeks before transplanting, harden off the seedlings so they will not go into shock when they are planted in the garden. Move the trays outside in the daytime for a few hours at first. Gradually, increase the time until the plants are left outside all day and night.
Transplanting
Ideally, you should transplant the seedlings when the weather is cool and there is little wind. If the temperature is very hot during the day, then transplant in the evening and provide some shade in the heat of the afternoon until the seedlings get established.
Plant peppers fairly close to each other, about one foot apart on center. The close spacing will keep moisture under the leaf canopy and result in less sunscald because the leaves will shade the fruit. Dig a hole slightly larger than the root ball of the seedling. Then while holding the plant by the root ball and not the stem, place the seedling in the hole. Fill the rest of the hole with garden soil, press the soil around the root ball, and immediately water.
Apply mulch after the soil warms to increase the yield from the pepper plants. A variety of different mulches can be used. Organic mulch such as lawn clippings or compost can be used to control weeds and maintain moisture in the soil but they do not affect the soil temperature. Black plastic is effective for retarding weeds and holding moisture and it also increases the soil temperature about five degrees.
Another option is to use newspaper to control weeds and maintain moisture and also reflect more light towards the plant. In addition, it can be rototilled back into the soil at the end of the season. However, avoid using colored newspaper because it takes longer to decompose.
Because pepper limbs are brittle and can break under the load of growing fruit, some extra support must be provided for the plant. The most commonly used method is to surround the plants with a metal cage when the plants are small. Cages, however, can sometimes interfere with growth and make it more difficult to thin or harvest the fruit. Instead, some growers prefer to tie the plants to a central stake for support.
The Growing Season
If compost and manure are added to the vegetable bed each year, then additional fertilizing shouldn't be necessary for the pepper plants. However, the seedlings can be fertilized with fairly high levels of nitrogen to encourage vegetative growth in the beginning. Once the plants are established, however, more fertilizer should not be applied unless the plant shows nitrogen deficiency such as yellowing leaves or stunted growth.
In fact, once the plant begins to flower, excessive nitrogen will cause the blossoms and small pods to drop off since the plant will put its energy back into vegetative growth instead of fruit production. For maximum fruit to set, night temperatures should be between 65 and 80 degrees F. Fruit won't set at all if night temperatures rise above 86 degrees F or daytime temperatures rise above 95 degrees F because excessive transpiration results in blossom drop.
The soil around the pepper plant should remain moist but not wet. Flood irrigation using a garden hose in furrows between the rows can be used. However, soaker hoses or drip irrigation lines are more efficient and don't waste as much water. Overhead watering should be avoided because it encourages fungal diseases and the leaf canopy will block the water and result in uneven watering.
Harvesting
A lot of people think that colored peppers (i.e. red, yellow, orange) are a different variety from green peppers. The truth is that green peppers are simply peppers that have been picked before they've reached maturity. If the peppers are left on the plant long enough, eventually the peppers will change color. Mature peppers have the best flavor and maximum heat level.
The term "fruit load" is the maximum weight of fruit that the plant can bear. The fruit load depends on the stem size, amount of foliage, and the root system. When the fruit load has been reached, flowering on the plant will stop. To increase the yield, pick pods in their largest immature green form early in the season. Then the plant will continue to flower and set fruit for a longer growing season.
Be very careful when harvesting or handling hot peppers. The capsaicinoids in hot peppers can cause painful burns on exposed skin. Always wear rubber gloves and don't touch your eyes or nose with your gloves. If you forget, rub isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol on your skin to dissolve the capsaicin and then rub an ointment such as Preparation H over the burned area.
Using Your Peppers
Now that you've harvested all those wonderful peppers, what do you do with them? The possibilities are endless. You can chop them up and eat them raw in salads or salsas. You can cook them with tomatoes in sauces or pickle them in vinegar. In addition, peppers are delicious when they're roasted and the skins are peeled off. To preserve the peppers, some people freeze or can them. Smoking or drying works well too, and dried peppers can also be ground into chili powder. Let your pepper imagination run wild!
Bibliography
Bosland, Paul W. and DeWitt, Dave. The Pepper Garden. Berkeley: Ten Speed Press, 1993.
Creasy, Rosalind. The Edible Pepper Garden. Boston: Periplus Editions, 2000.