This year I'm hoping to grow

Jimmy Nardelo sweet

fish

Hinklehatz

its my first time for these as well.

The pepper list sounds good. When you say 5 gallons, those are nursery trade gallons right? As opposed to U.S. liquid gallons?

For peppers and dwarf tomatoes it won't make a big difference whether it is dry or liquid 5 gallon.
One liquid gallon =0.86 dry gallon . So 5 LG = 4.3 DG

In a balcony , in zone 5, with a relatively short growing season you are not going to get huge plants.

Seysonn

Poinsettia was a dud for me for taste last year. They were pretty. For taste they were awful. No taste, other than a mild slightly bitter aftertaste. No heat. No flavor. They were for ornamental anyway. They did fine in a 3 gallon clay pot. Yes they needed daily watering during our 105 degree days. They still had pretty flowers, and plenty of the pretty looking pods. If only they tasted as pretty as they looked.

I like Thai for a good spicy, and pretty pepper with taste.

Calico was a great ornamental that had heat. Though no other taste. They were beautiful plants. The light bulb shaped pods were prolific, and looked great. My wife loved the look of it. I used the pods for when I wanted to add heat to a dish without changing the flavor. They were great with scrambled eggs.

I agree with Nate.
I grew both Thai hot and poinsettia last year. I like Thai Hot much better than Poinsettia. TH also ripened quicker. So no more Poinsettia for me this year.

Seysonn

Agree that Thai Hot is a good pepper. First grew it about 8 or so years ago. Good producer, ornamental, and short so it's great for containers.

Rodney

Here is my 2015 pepper grow out list

TEPIN (ornamental)
CHENZO (ornamental)
THAI BIRD
NUMEX TWILIGHT (ornamental)
TRINIDAD SCORPION
RED SQUASH
THAI DRAGON
ALEPPO
CUMARI DU PARA (ornamental)
GOLDEN CAYENNE
LEMON DROP
RED FATALI
YELLOW FATALI
ROCOTO
SHISHITO (sweet)
PEPPERONCINI (sweet)
MANZANO
BLACK PEARL (ornamental)
HHW
SANGRIA (ornamental) (sweet)
BELINGHAM GARDENS
SCOTCH BONNET
CHOC. HAB
CHINESE 5C (ornamental)

All will go into pots.

Seysonn

I just got two more to add to my list. Any reviews on shishito?

h abernero aji silver

Black pearl

Wild Haired Mavens(Zone 10)

I just got two more to add to my list. Any reviews on shishito?

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I grew Shishito last year and doing it again.

It is an Asian (Japanese ?) favorite sweet pepper, very similar to pepperoncini, in shape, size and flavor. It is mostly harvested green (Like pepperoncini) , eaten fresh, grilled or pickled. But if you leave the pots longer they will turn red..

The plant grows bushy and stocky.

Seysonn

Here is my list for 2015

Carolina Reaper

Moruga scorpion

Butch T

Ghost

Giant Ghost

Orange Scotch Bonnet

I don't have them out for the year yet. Here's a photo from last year that might help.

They have slats with two steel bands around the sides. l've had them for the last 7 years and bought them from lowes'. 5 gal for maters and 3 gal for peppers.

What's the preference on potting mix? Mix your own or store-bought? Nematodes make growing in Florida soil impossible, I've been growing peppers in 3-gallon nursery pots and a homemade mix of peat moss, composted pine bark and perlite. Sure get root-bound toward the end of summer.

Russ central Florida

I just use miracle grow potting mix with fert.

With peat moss you need to add a lot of coarse perlite (~30% by volume) to provide drainage.
You can go to Container Gardening forum and learn more about it.

Seysonn

Thank!! I found a thread about soil mixes here, appreciate the help. I'm thinking about trying tomatoes in pots as well as peppers, haven't grown them in years because of severe nematode problem here in Florida's sandy soils. I'd love to try heirlooms but larger sized tomatoes don't do well in the heat, sure like the old-fashioned taste though. Cherry types still produce flowers and fruit with warmer night temps, so I'll probably grow a few of those. Are there any with old-fashioned flavor? I grew an orange cherry years ago that was excellent but don't remember the name.

Russ, central Fla

Sorry for the off-topic, but I found the name of the great-tasting orange cherry tomato at Container Gardening... Sun Gold.

So what's the "hottest pepper in the world" these days?? Last I heard it was Bhut Jolokia but that was some years ago. Around 10K scovilles are my comfort limit, I've grown habs but they're way out of my league as far as heat.

Russ

Yes, Sun Gold and Sun Sugar are the sweetest cherry types.

Hottest pepper per Guinness is Carolina Reaper . Bhut Jalokia is very close.
Up to this season my hottest pepper had been Habanero ( 200k-300k SHU). I also grow milder ones like Serrano, Jalapeno, Thai, Lemon Drop, Fatalii ... This year I am growing few super hots : Trinidad Scorpion, Scotch Bonnet (not sure a quite a super hot ?),

Seysonn

Thanks Seysonn, I'll have to look up Carolina Reaper. The name suggests that it originates in the Carolinas, which I think is highly unlikely but maybe there's another part of the world with that name. Trinidad Scorpion sounds interesting.

A neighbor took an 'island vacation' recently (don't recall where but not Guam) came back with Guam Boonie pepper seeds and gave me some. I've planted them but no clue what to expect. Are you or anyone here familiar with it?

Russ, central Fla

Russ, ..."Carolina Reaper" is bred by an individual ( Ed ..???). So he gave the name to it. Otherwise, CR is not native to the Carolinas. Maybe the guy is in Carolina. I don't know.

Guam Boonie pepper is an interesting one that I have heard of.
It is a kinda Birds Eye pepper.. I am growing TEPIN with round pods

The Carolina was developed by Ed Currie in Southern Carolina, and seysonn the scotch bonnet is not a super hot it has an equal heat to habeneros

seysonn,

If you want to try something a tad hotter, go with the RED Habanero. 500K + SHU

Russ the Scorpion, sits just behind the Reaper in heat.

I'm trying Aji Limon this year for the first time by seed. I usually just pick up a few different varieties at the local nurseries.

exgwmember,
I am growing Choc. Hab this year. Last year I had both orange and red. I liked red better. I have quite few of mid range on SHU scale. Lemon Drop and Manzano are other favorites with me. I am also growing rocoto, which is a red Manzano, I think.

Seysonn

I grew orange habanero last year from seeds, besides being way too hot (darned near nuclear to me) I just didn't like the taste of them. I ended up giving them all to my neighbor who readily snapped them up. My daily go-to pepper is plain old jalapeno, I like the taste and the heat isn't overwhelming.

Out of curiosity, I picked some seeds out of a bottle of commercial 'crushed, dried red pepper' and planted to see if the drying process destroyed the seeds. It doesn't, they germinated. Anyone know which variety these might likely be?

Russ

Russ,

They might be cyanine peppers.

If habs are way to hot for you, try some of the Thai varieties or cyanine's.

A couple of years ago I purchased a Hungarian Cyanine Hybrid from the local nursery and it was a great tasting not so hot pepper. Grew to almost 12" long and very curly.

Thanks, I appreciate the note. No nurseries in my area here, and big-box store plant depts only carry the usual varieties. I grew a Thai Hot years ago that was okay, just heat though and not much taste. Heat and no taste isn't a bad thing necessarily, I sure don't like the odd flavor of the orange habaneros.

Russ, central Fla

Next step up from Jalapeno is Serrano. Hungarian Hor Wax , Fresno is there too. Try Lemon Drop. It has maybe half the heat of Hab and flavorful too..
Hot peppers like Habs and higher, are just used in cooking, making sauce and powder, not normally for eating plain.

Seysonn

Thanks Seysonn, I'll look for serrano plants to grow but more likely have to buy seeds. Lemon Drop sounds interesting. A number of years ago I grew one with Carrot in the name, maybe Hungarian Carrot. Tasty but very hot.

Off topic: I was able to find Sun Gold and Black Cherry tomato plants yesterday at Lowe's, thought I was going to have to grow from seed.

Russ

Good luck, Russ.
Look around. might be able to find Serrano plant. It is a very common variety sold in the nurseries. I am growing most of my peppers from seed but I might get Jalapeno and Serrano plants from nurseries myself.

Seysonn

Okay, I'll check, thanks. I have about 8 peppers out of twice that which survived the winter. I had to cut branches way back to get to good wood, but there's 2 to 4 inches of new growth. These include jalapeno, a small sweet pepper and a black-leaved ornamental that has clusters of round, red peppers. I grew the latter from old seeds I had in the fridge.

All these are in 3 gallon nursery pots. One thing about old plants is that I probably need to put into bigger pots since they're massively root-bound. If I put them in the ground, the nematodes would get them before summer's end. Thinking about it now, it's probably better to just trash peppers in the fall and get new ones the following spring.

Russ

I also had a couple of datil peppers that survived, which surprised me since they're supposed to be hard to grow outside of St. Augustine Fla. They did fine here 90 miles south but maybe the rumor means outside of Florida. Perhaps places like Washington state :)

Russ

I have what I believe is a datil coming back from an over winter here in N Cal. Marker fell out, and the datil marker was nearby. Any way to tell before flowers?