Tulsastorm, You're welcome. It took me years to figure out that peppers produce less well if they get too cold too early in their life. When I lived in Texas in zone 8 where the air and soil warm up about 4-6 weeks earlier than they do here, I could transplant tomatoes and peppers at the same time, most likely because once it warmed up, it tended to stay that way. The peppers and tomatoes would flower and set fruit at the same time. After moving here in 1999, I learned I couldn't plant them at the same time here because tomatoes are a lot more cold tolerant and can handle our wildly fluctuating spring temperatures here, but peppers cannot handle the recurring cold nights. Tomato plants will tolerate temperatures in the 30s (as long as they stay above freezing and are free of frost, which can form at temps as high as 38 or 39 degrees under some conditions). Peppers, though, if exposed to soil temperatures below 55 degrees for even just a few days, can be damaged. You may not see any visible damage on the plant, but the plant growth often will stall and then once the plant begins growing again, it just never really kicks into production very well. I am very careful to keep my pepper seedlings inside when the weather is cool, and even if I carry them outside to soak up the sun every chance I get, I still carry them back inside on any night when the forecast low goes below 55-60 degrees. I get huge yields from my plants and I believe that's because I never let my pepper plants get cold. I also harvest peppers amazingly early....last year I got the first big harvest of sweet bell peppers on June 22nd, when I harvested 6 lbs. and the first big harvest of jalapenos on June 15th, when I harvested 10 lbs. 2 oz. Last year, I stopped weighing the pepper harvest at some point (probably early August) because I just thought to myself "enough is enough" but I know I had harvested well over 75 lbs. of hot peppers and over 30 lbs. of sweet peppers by late August and continued to harvest from in-ground plants until the first frost in October. I harvested my last pepper from container-grown plants that I was overwintering (in the garage at night, out on the sunny patio on days when temps were above 40) in January, and then the plants in the garage froze this week. I'm giving you those numbers to show it should be easy to get good pepper yields from plants transplanted into the ground in late April or early May after the soil and air temps are in the right range. Peppers are prone to many kinds of diseases including those that make the leaves puckered, twisted and mottled. Pepper Mosaic Virus is often the cause of these issues. You also will see yellow or brown splotches on the leaves, and these are caused by many different bacterial and fungal diseases. Also, if you have sandy soil or sandy loam, root knot nematodes can cause the plants to stunt and be unproductive. One way to know if you have root knot nematodes is to check your plant roots when you pull up the plants in the fall. If you see knots and galls on the roots, you have nematodes. You can do everything right in terms of meeting the plants' needs, but if you have root knot nematodes, you may not get many peppers. I am confident that if you make sure your young pepper plants never are exposed to cold temperatures early in their lives, you can get a really good harvest from them. Dawn

I was raised in New Mexico, and I sell the seeds, and now grow Hatch strains at my Southern California home. The strain of seed is completely different. "Hatch chile is, like almost all green chile in the state, a catchall term for a number of varieties of pepper developed and standardized by New Mexico State University. These include Big Jim, Sandia and Joe E. Parker peppers, which should be familiar to anyone who has ever stood in a roasting line." That said, these are not Anaheim strain. All these varieties owe their existence to one Dr. Fabian Garcia. He worked in the early part of last century to standardize the disparate kinds of heirloom New Mexican chiles into a form with consistent shape and predictable heat. His hybridized pepper invention, the New Mexico No. 9, was such a success that it grew to dominate the state’s culinary landscape and eventually formed the basis for most of the varieties of chile sold today. Where you grow it really only effects the size and how prolific.

Enjoy your trip! Ashamed to say we have not tried the burgers at the Buckhorn & have lived here over 50 yrs. & hubby goes back 7 generations in NM. Albertson's earlier this Fall had the 30 lb. bags of chile roasted for $15 but I see our local chain of John Brook's stores had the 'Sandia' (35 lbs.) x Sickler Farms in Los Lunas, NM for $19 roasted this past weekend so the chile seems to be running higher $$ this Fall for some reason lately yet the crops all over seemed to be great. We just harvested the few Bhut plants we grew & are drying & grinding them for powder. We also did some green chile the 'pre-freezer' way: roasted, peeled & dried the green fresh in both dehydrators & on the clothesline (the real old way!)! That dried chile keeps forever & when we want to make some chile stew we just grab a handful from the plastic bag the dry chile is kept in, rehydrate it for several hours in water & then drain, chop it up with scissors, add onions, garlic & pieces of cooked beef, etc. for a stew. The flavor of 'chile verde seca' has a really different good flavor I think! Your trip will be in the midst of the chile harvest! Have you ever visited the NM State U. Chile Institute near Las Cruces? Might be interesting! My favorite nursery there in S.Fe is 'High Country Gardens' & they have a small outlet here on San Mateo with the Jackalope store.

Thank you! Glad to know I'm not crazy and there are orange anaheims. They were hotter than they typical jalapeño I buy at the store, which means nothing. I'd consider these to be "medium" heat and not the "mild" on all of the grow sheets for the variety. Tempted to throw some of the seeds in my garden just to see what happens. They were good, it would be nice to have them again.