Jay,

Thanks for the pepper report and your peppers look great in the photos!

I don't know how much freezer space you have, but when my peppers and tomatoes are ripe at different times, or if I have a surplus of tomatoes, I just wash the maters after I bring them inside and then pop them into freezer ziplock bags. When the peppers are ready, I pull out the tomatoes and make salsa using fresh peppers and frozen tomatoes. It works just fine for me.

When I have too many sweet peppers, I usually slice some(along with onions I've stored in the root cellar) and freeze the onion/pepper mixture to cook with fajita meat whenever we're in the mood for fajitas. (We like fajitas and eat them a lot.) I also chop up lots of sweet bells to use in cooking, and generally freeze them in 1/4 cup portions in tiny snack-sized ziplock bags and put oodles of those tiny snack-sized bags in a gallon freezer ziplock bag that goes into the top shelf of the deep freeze. That way, I always have chopped peppers when cooking. (I chop and freeze some onions the same way.)

This year, though, we had way too many sweet bells and I have been feeding them to the chickens, so they'll eventually end up back in the garden as composted chicken manure.

I love the smell of roasting peppers and need to roast some of the latest batch of jalapenos. Are you roasting yours in the oven indoors or outside on the grill?

All my peppers produced well this year, including Zavory. It did seem like Zavory didn't set fruit until late June or early July, and they weren't ready to harvest until sometime after mid-August.

For sweet bells, I bought a packet of seed from Renee's Garden Seeds that had 3 varieties of sweet bells (one variety each that matured to red, orange and yellow) and had the best sweet bell production ever. The plants from that packet produced dozens and dozens of sweet bells and I've been harvesting them nonstop for months now. They're still producing well but I'm not sure how much longer the weather will be warm enough for them. We're starting to have some pretty cool nights with temps around 50 and a few nights in the 40s already with more forecast for next week. Since red, orange and yellow sweet bells sell for $1.69 each in local stores, I gloat silently to myself every time I pick them from the garden. I almost never harvest bell peppers green but instead let them color up, preferring their ripe flavor to the slightly bitter flavor of green sweet bells.

Of the peppers you grew, I think the only ones I grew that were the same were Grande' and Senorita. I didn't care for Senorita as it had too little heat (I expected mild, but it was milder than mild, lol) but Grande' produced well as always. Grande' and Mucho Nacho are the two jalapenos I grow every year. I have grown Purple Jalapeno in some past years, but haven't grown it the last 3 or 4 years. It doesn't produce as heavily for me as many others two. One of the prettiest salsas I've ever made though included Purple Jalapeno pepper and orange tomatoes. It was a great combination.

I don't have my pepper list figured out for next year, but it will include Biker Billy jalapeno. I had seed for them this year and for some reason didn't start any of those seeds.

I'm putting more peppers in containers next year as they seem to produce just as well for me, or even better, in containers as in the ground.

All the ornamental peppers are gorgeous right now and add so much late-season color to the flower beds. 'Fish' is one of my favorite ornamental peppers, although technically it is an edible one. I use the peppers for a fermented pepper sauce and both the variegated foliage and peppers are beautiful. Zavory has been very beautiful as well. Some of the Zavory plants are in five-gallon containers and a couple were understory plants in the molasses tubs that have brugmansias in them. Those Zavory peppers in the molasses tubs will get to overwinter since I overwinter the brugs in the garage. I'll see next year if the overwintered Zavory peppers produce earlier than new plants grown from seed in the spring. So far, every pepper type I've overwintered in the garage has bloomed and set fruit in the Jan./Feb. time frameg and I'm usually harvesting them by May. I wish I had room to overwinter all the containerized peppers, but Tim expects for me to leave him enough room in the garage to park the vehicles in there.

I haven't grown one of my favorite sweet bells the last couple of years and need to bring it back next year. It is called Super Heavyweight and it produces huge yellow bells. The only problem with it is that the peppers are so large and heavy their weight sometimes breaks the branches of the plant. I get around that by caging them in a small tomato cage.

I'll probably grow about the same number of pepper plants next year as I have for the past two years. Both years, we've had an abundance of peppers (too many, actually) but I'm afraid if I cut back on the pepper plants, then we'll have a bad pepepr year and not have enough peppers.

Dawn

Which of the Jalapeno peppers produce somewhat heavy, but yet are not extremely hot? My Tams did not produce very heavy.

Charlie

Charlie,
There is no easy answer to that. First climate affects heat levels. Then there is different strains of most of the op varieties. Like Dawn said I've grown Senorita's that basically have no heat. Very comparable to Fooled You( A variety I grow many years for family and coworkers. No heat but jalapeno flavor and large. Not a favorite of mine but many love it.) The strain I grew this year had med heat. I attribute part of that to the hot, dry weather we have experienced since mid July. The Grande I grew this year was on the hot end of the Jalapenos I've grown. Goliath Jalapeno is easily the hottest I've ever grown. TAM's for me can vary in production greatly from year to year and even plant to plant in the same year. Mucho Nacho is one that is usually on the mild side for me and has good size and production. I just looked at 2 of my favorite sources of pepper variety info. One lists it as mild with slight heat and the other slightly hotter than the average jalapeno. Again I would say strain and climate are the reason for the differences. For me it has been mild and even those who can't heat can eat it. I grow it every few years. I just did a quick tally and I came up with at least 13 different jalapenos I've grown. A few you don't see listed very often if at all. The strain of purple I grow is smaller and sets heavier. There is another that sets average to large fruit that don't set as well for me. The Yellow Jalapeno I grew a few years ago was large, pretty and had med. heat with good flavor but low production. Of the ones I've grown the ones I've listed are the mildest. Jay

I grew Fooled You Jalapenos in containers this year and they produced very well but the peppers had no heat. So maybe next year I will try the Mucho Nacho. I want a little heat and something that produces more than the Tam did for me.

Charlie

Charlie,

As Jay said, heat can vary from year to year as can yield. Once I find a variety that has the right amount of heat for our family and that also produces well, I tend to stick with it. The "average" jalapeno pepper, when grown in a typical summer (as in hot and dry) is between about 4000 and 6000 Scoville Heat Units.

Here's a few of the milder jalapeno varieties and their average Scoville Heat Units:

Fooled You -- no heat, so no assigned Scoville Heat Unit number

Delicias -- 200 to 500 Scoville Heat Units, and a medium producer in my garden

Senorita -- 300-400 Scoville Heat Units, and a heavy producer in my garden

Jalepa -- 500-1000 Scoville Heat Units

TAM Mild Jalapeno/also sold as TAM Jalapeno -- 1250-5000 Scoville Heat Units. Doesn't produce very heavily for me most years.

For comparison's sake, here's a few of the hotter ones and their Scoville Heat Units:

Biker Billy -- 4000-6000 Scoville Heat Units (heat varies wildly depending on weather and in the drought year of 2003, I bet mine were closer to 8000 Scoville Heat Units)

Chichimeca -- 3500 Scoville Heat Units

Early Jalapeno -- 4000-6000 Scoville Heat Units

Goliath Jalapeno -- 6000-8000 Scoville Heat Units

Grande' Jalapeno -- 4000-6000 Scoville Heat Units

Ixtapa -- 3000-6000 Scoville Heat Units

Jalapa -- 4500-6000 Scoville Heat Units

Jaloro -- 3500-5000 Scoville Heat Units

Jalapeno M -- 3500-6000 Scoville Heat Units

Mucho Nacho -- 4500-6000 Scoville Heat Units

Ole' -- 2500-4000 Scoville Heat Units

Of the hot types of jalapenos that we've grown, our favorites are Mucho Nacho, Grande' and Biker Billy. All three of these varieties produce so heavily in our garden that I have to cage or stake the plants or the weight of the peppers will cause the plants to fall over.

Dawn

Jay and Dawn

Thanks a lot for the info, gives me a good starting place. My container peppers out did my raised bed peppers by far. But as I said not any heat in the Fooled You's. My container Cukes out did my in ground Cukes also.

Charlie

Charlie,

I would say that as long as a container is large enough to keep the plant roots happy and as long as you have a high-quality soil-less mix, most vegetables in containers have the potential to outperform the same varieties in the ground simply because it is so much easier to control soil fertility and soil moisture. I have 80 containers this year and hope to add more next year. I was very pleased with the performance of Irish potatoes and strawberries in containers this year, and I always grow smaller types of tomato plants and all kinds of peppers in containers.

I haven't tried cukes in containers, but I might next year. We are down to our last dozen jars of pickles from last year, so next year will be a big year here for pickling cukes.

Dawn

Dawn

All I had left were some 3 gal swc's to plant my cukes in, they done wonderfully, however drank water like crazy, next year all cukes in containers but bigger containers.

Charlie

Charlie,

It is good to know they did well in 3 gallon SWCs. I think I'll likely put my cukes in either 5-gallon buckets or in 10-gallon Sun Leaves grow bags next year and run a drip tape on a timer to water them. I'd like to make them as low maintenance as possible.

Dawn

I just got back to reading the latest posts to this thread. I thought I would post a little I posted on another forum about Scoville ratings and how they vary. Like Dawn mentioned above the weather conditions can make a big difference. Again I strongly believe the seed source of op varieties make a huge difference in heat levels. My Senorita seeds came from an online source and are as hot as Jalapeno M.Too hot for most of my coworkers. Mine are small and thin skinned also so maybe be a hotter selection or even been crossed somewhere. It reminds me of when I was a kid. Close by to where we lived was an irrigation canal and lots of small to medium sized veggie farmers. Chilies were the one crop that many had their "own variety" of. They had came from selections ect for size, flavor and heat. I remember one grower who grew mild, med and hot peppers. He said they all came from the same original seeds. The heat levels came from years or selection and also the moisture levels he maintained for each group. The longer I grow chilies and jalapenos the more I come back to that.

I also want to tell Charlie that I went back and checked my source on Macho Nacho. My source didn't mention it being a hybrid and is an op source so I'm guessing it was a stabilized selection. He was the only source where I've seen it listed as mild and a good one for those wanting the flavor and not the heat. After the listing of Dawn's I did some checking and see most sources list it as a hybrid. So probably explains the difference. Might not be a good choice for you after all. I will check to see if I have any of my original seed left. I haven't grew it the last few years and never saved any seeds. It was overall too mild for me. I've sampled some more of the Senoritas over the last few days. They are as hot as my M's for sure. And like Dawn said about Biker Billy in 2003. The year I grew Goliath Jalapeno it was easily the hottest Jalapeno I've ever grown. Most listings for it say 6-8 thousand. I did see one once that said up to 10 thousand. Again if true conditions when grown. I will now copy the post I mentioned.

Every year that I grow chilies, jalapenos and other hot peppers the more I think that climate, moisture and seed source make a lot of difference in the heat levels. And also the more I find that the Scoville ratings of a variety mean very little when grown in my garden. Unless that Scoville rating was from fruit from my seed source. The rating seems to be more accurate on hybrid varieties. Even then I notice some difference which I attribute to the other factors I mentioned above. Anymore I basically rely on what my seed source says and then keep notes of how they performed in my garden. That is why it is always interesting to read the reviews and results of others especially on the same varieties I gro

Jay,

I agree that Scoville Heat Units are so highly variable as to be almost worthless at times, except in the case of newbies who want to know if they are growing a pepper with 300,000 Scoville Heat Units or 30,000, 3,000 or 300 SHUs. Even in my garden on the same plant I'll sometimes have one pepper that is very hot compared to another one grown and picked at the same time on the same plant.

When giving peppers away, I try to "warn" the recipient of the peppers about the approximate heat level. Tim gave a bag of mixed hot peppers to a coworker once and took great care to warn him that some of them were Orange Habanero and some were the yellow Fatali pepper (beware any pepper with the word 'Fatal' in its name). Well, the coworker took them home and before he could say anything to his wife, she opened the bag and popped a Fatali pepper directly into her mouth! With a Scoville rating of 125,000 to 325,000 (too big of a range, I think, to be really helpful) it is a pretty hot pepper and she suffered greatly. Her spouse said her mouth actually had raised up blisters from that pepper, although I've never heard of that type thing occurring except in an allergy-type reaction.

For what it is worth, as grown in my garden, Fatali is definitely hotter than the standard orange hab, so I'd lean towards the higher Scoville numbers for it. The plants are amazingly beautiful when covered with bright yellow peppers, but the heat is too much for most people.

Biker Billy almost killed me in 2003. I didn't eat a lot of hot peppers back then and never had tasted a jalapeno that hot. With this summer's early heat, the jalapenos I was harvesting in June were much hotter than any I grew last year in milder weather, and I was growing plants this year raised from seeds from the same seed packets I used last year. I also think my peppers are hotter in flavor if rainfall is low and I don't irrigate, and milder in flavor with higher rainfall or lots of irrgation. So, I think it must be some combination of heat and lack of moisture that makes them their hottest.

Dawn

Hmmmmmmmm well this is all very interesting as I was in the planning stages of going toward ordering seeds for next year. Maybe I should try the Senoritas I noticed I can order them online from Remeir Seeds. I appreciate all the input you all have given.

Charlie

Charlie I didn't want you to grow something that would be too hot for you. Again mine have been mild but evidently they all aren't. Another good source of pepper and tomato seeds is Tomato Growers Supply. There are several more good sources. When I was buying seeds I bought several from them and also from Totally Tomatoes. I do know a few on the boards who have had trouble with Remiers.

Dawn maybe my drought and hot temps are the reason Senorita and others have been warm to hot here for me. A lady in CO on a forum I post on just gave her pepper review for the year and she stated it was hotter for her this year also. We've had 3 years now of the drought and dry weather. I have noticed Purple Jalapeno varying it hotness more this year than I have in the past.

I also agree that the heat levels do help those new to growing peppers. I'm sure there are many who use them. It is like me. I use DTM's on tomatoes more than most growers do. Many fellow growers don't understand why I do. I use them for a comparison between varieties from the same source. When I have grown others from that same source I get some idea when a variety might mature here. Then again varieties can vary so much from year to year. It is ballpark guess only. Basically what I've found with heat levels. Jay