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Best Hot Peppers to Grow in the Northeast

14 years ago

I usually plant a patch of hot peppers in the ground in my garden. This year and last year have generally been cool wet summers. I'm hard pressed to get a good crop of hot peppers before frost. I did use black mulch paper this year which I think has helped. Can anyone recommend some good hot peppers that will produce in the NE zone 5? I like a variety of heat up to habaneros ( the Naga / Bhut Jolokias are just too hot for me.) I'm looking for about 10 varieties to try. Thanks for your suggestions.

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Comments (3)

fiedlermeister
14 years ago
I have poor performance with most in the ground but all do well in pots. Have you tried that?

john
booberry85
Original Author
14 years ago
Hi John,

Right now I have habaneros in pots. I've been doing that the past few years, but just with the habs. Even so, this year they are slow. I just picked my first ones of the season this week.
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I am growing a number of hot peppers this year, and have in previous years. I do fairly well with them. I am quite north in Maine so i put out the ones that can be covered with hoop covers a number of weeks ago but the ones that cannot be actually went out this week. I grow them in the ground, (though of course start indoors). this year i am using basic amended soil in a raised bed. Probably will side dress with some compost. I sometimes use the epsom salt trick to help them with setting. I Love hot food and they are a huge part of my salsa garden, looking towards trying some more unusual peppers as well.
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I had great results with the round, squat, pimento type peppers I got from Tomato Grower's Supply. They were called Pritavit Hybrid (and another that they seem to no longer carry). Seed Saver's Exchange has something similar -- looks like a tomato. Nice thick, sweet flesh. Prolific producer and few blemishes. Pretty. : ) I put compost/manure around the plants and mulched with old leaves and grass clipping. Supplied the whole neighborhood and had a freezer full by end of year.
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Reimer's has a well-established history of unbelievably, insultingly poor customer service, AND they sell seeds that are way, way beyond fresh, to the point of zero percent germinization. Don't take my word for it. There are many others who would say the same. I suggest you check out Dave's Garden website for more instances of customers' reaction to Reimer's. Gardeners and/or market gardeners should avoid Reimers, they're nothing but crooks. Reimer's sleaze harms all of the honorable suppliers who market via the web. Suggest you try: FedcoSeeds.com; Johnnyseeds,com, Harrisseeds.com, Stokeseeds.com, Shumway, Cooks, Pinetree, Dixondale Farms (for onion plants) and many others. I have 45 years vegetable gardening experience, and have been a commercial market gardener since 1991. There are lots of good online seed sources. Reimer's is definitely not one of them!
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I can't find any information about poppies' containing any toxins other than morphine and codeine, and nothing about their releasing these toxins into the soil. Even if they did, the concentrations in your peppers likely would be way too low to catch a buzz, much less experience any harmful effects. The pepper fruits themselves contain small amounts of nicotine, and because it is a nightshade, I would not be surprised if the foliage is significantly more toxic. But as with the poppies, it is the dose that makes it dangerous, and I don't think you have anything to worry about if you're just eating the fruits.
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spiced_ham
14 years ago
I'm on the edge of zones 5-6 and have peppers in ground and in 5 gal pots. The following are ripening alot of peppers by now. They went in ground in late May but didn't start to grow at all until a month later, but are huge now.

In ground- Red Savina, Jamaican Hot Chocolate, Peru White habanero (very early, very productive little plant), Peru Pointer (very productive robust plant), Aji Cristal.

In buckets-Hot Paper Lantern, Cumari (C. chinense... dang hot little buggers, very productive)

I have a few peppers ripening here and there for Fatalii, Yellow Bumpy, Hot Lemon and some others, but the ones I mentioned above are in full swing ripening their peppers. I've been munching on them for several weeks now.

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