If no one has them for you, Johnny's has them... http://www.johnnyseeds.com/p-8949-lunchbox-pepper-mix.aspx

I'm growing mini red bell peppers.

Not growing them but just want to say: I have read alot of stories on those bagged peppers. Most of them turn out hybrids when you use those seeds. Its a crap shoot on using those seeds. Sometimes you get lucky and get the mini's, somethings something else.

I did grow those a few a few years ago and got mini but they only produced 1-2 pods. very sad.

I got my seeds from the swap. They are growing quite a few mini bell peppers. I'll be sharing seeds hopefully if we do a swap again.

> I got my seeds from the swap. They are growing quite a few mini bell
peppers. I'll be sharing seeds hopefully if we do a swap again.

cool, please let me know if you do.
in terms of seed trades, I don't have much to offer. i do have some heirloom Tabasco chilies and sweet cherry peppers.

if anyone else has some seeds, please shoot me a message and i'll mail a few dollars for your time.

thanks

I saved some seeds from a few yesterday. It'll be some time before they are fully dry though.

i believe the"Gypsy" are larger. i should have picked one up when i saw them at HD (Bonnie Plants had transplants), but the plants have all been trashed now for the season.. this is the Gypsy: http://bonnieplants.com/product/gypsy-pepper/

perhaps they are just bigger but tastes comparable.. the minis are definitely more slender (another brand same variety): http://i.imgur.com/G7QMeQZ.jpg

welp i think i found the mother (or baby?) of these mini sweet peppers.. these are by far the smallest i've seen. they're about the size of a jalapeno (some even smaller).. picked them up at aldis. this seems to be the only way to source mini sweet pepper seeds without getting scammed for a different type of pepper, begging for some, or paying some absurd amount for a dozen seeds..

i'll take my chances and see what i get from their seeds.. i read someone growing this brand with good success.

Nice find. Hope they grow true for you.

I saved seeds from a pack like that... they grew banana peppers... all of them it's really odd... I wander if it's like 7 pots an unstable hybrid of 3 or more peppers. But the peppers where really sweet almost like candy.

My favorite "sweet pepper" is the original "Cajun Belle" they have a small heat and great taste. The last seeds I got the "Cajun Belle" is hobanero hot. They are also much thicker.

Both versions of Cajun Belle are prolific producers and resistant to most diseases. It is the best producing plant I have seen.

I am crossing them for better producers and resistance. Even if I give up some heat. If I produce 3 times the peppers with less effort. I can always continue crossing untill I achieve success with the heat and flavor.

As mentioned by RonnieB previously, these bagged mini sweets are intentional F1 crosses, which means you don't know what you will get in subsequent F2, F3 grow outs. I am a bit surprised that T S got banana type peppers, so naturally i'm guessing that banana type peppers were used somewhere in a cross with the brand he purchased.

If it were me, and i had the space and inclination, i would grow out a bunch of plants, isolate some flowers on all of them to prevent further crossings from mucking things up. Once ripe i would save seed from only the best and most productive plants, and just keep growing those out till stable.

Steve

i started about 6 seeds of each color pod. i'll probably use this thread to post progress once (if) they germinate.

"Pero Farms" brand is another mini pepper to try. another person on the forum was successful in getting almost identical pods from them. i saw them at Shop Rite earlier, they'll be next on my list if this one fails ;-)

I saved some seeds from Aldi's mini peppers, grew them last season and saved seeds from that crop for this year. So far, through two seasons, they have produced peppers similar to the ones I purchased. Very good peppers! I'll grow them every year.

Last year's peppers:

This year's peppers:

nice. they look identical to the originals. one thing i noticed about the original peppers is that the red ones are very small compared to the yellow and orange that are about 2-3 times larger (wider) so i wonder if the reds are a different breed.

your second year red minis look twice as big, so that's even better considering how tiny they typically are.

also, i actually find the orange and yellow to be a bit sweeter, but they are all very tasty right out of the bag.

in any case.. the good news is some of the seeds already germinated. i didn't bother drying them and they took about 4-5 days to begin sprouting.
i will be growing these hydroponically to maximize growth speed.

I agree that the orange and yellow minis bought in the store and grown in my garden last year were sweeter than the reds. They were also thicker fleshed. For those reasons I planted mostly seeds from the orange and yellows this year.

The second year reds seen above came from plants grown from last year's yellow and/or orange plant's seeds. I guess some crossing occurred or they just don't grow true to color. However, there is only one color pepper per plant. They're also more slender and tapered in shape with a single lobe. The good news is that they're thicker fleshed and sweeter than last year. All three colors are equally tasty this year.

There are also some second year reds that are smaller and double lobed like the originals from the store. I need to confirm which plants they came from, but I'll guess that they came from last year's reds. If so, they won't make it into next years garden. Over the next month or so I'll get a better idea which plants are producing the best peppers with the traits I desire, and save seeds accordingly. I've been holding back seeds from each generation in case I need to take a step back, or perhaps re-introduce a trait that is lost over time. For example, I like the thicker fleshed second year reds, but prefer the double lobed shaped. Perhaps a cross of the smaller double lobed red with the larger, tapered red will result in a thicker fleshed double lobed red.

Good luck with your hydroponic minis. Keep us updated with their progress.

welp, since my last post, this is their growth stage from time they sprouted.. about 2 weeks now, so looks like they're moving along nicely. they are in my temporary seedling propagator before i move them to a bigger reservoir later on.

eager to see what comes out of them...

weekly update - 7 days later.
this pretty much turned into two experiments going on at the same time., actually three experiments. one to see what peppers i'll get, two; tweaking and experimenting on what fertilizer they like best, and three; light. the ones in front are growing under 1/2 the light output compared to the ones in the back, which also have double the nitrogen.. while they're doing great so far, i'm trying to see how fast(er) i can really get them to grow. check them huge leaves on a such a small seedling ;-)

It's getting towards the end of the season so I thought I'd post an update to this year's mini pepper crop. Overall they have performed great with many peppers all season long. They seem a little larger this year than last year, so it will be interesting to see if the trend continues. Flavor is excellent! They're great for snacking and in salads.

Here are some peppers picked today.

And here are some of the plants they came from.

Beautiful looking plants & so great to read success stories with the mini bells.

I'm in the Southern Hemisphere & our summer just started. I've found mini bells at the grocery store and will be starting them this week. They're quite expensive here - equivalent of U$2 for a pack of only three (red, yellow, orange). My season is long - all the way until late April so I should get a crop from them before our winter.

Wish me luck!

zonefive, I am totally intrigued by your 2nd year mini peppers. I am looking to grow something similar, but would like to avoid buying hybrids. If you have any extra seed, would you be interested in a trade? I have a large assortment of all types of heirloom veggies, peppers, and native plants.

kchd, no need to trade. I can send you some seeds from this past season's mini peppers. However, I was lazy and didn't separate them by color, so you'll most likely get all three colors if you plant more that a few. I also have no idea whether the peppers I originally took the seeds from were hybrids. I'd guess not because I see similar looking peppers available from Johnny's and they're not listed as hybrids. Who knows? PM me with your info and I'll send some out to you.

stevie, how about an update on your plants. How did they turn out?

Hey zonefive, I do not see that you have Messaging turned on. Can you either message me, or email me at (deleted) at gmail dot com ?

Sorry about that. Messaging should work now.

Update: We have lift off!

This thread inspired me to try growing my own mini sweets. They've started to sprout. I didn't dry them. Just popped 4 seeds into each cell of a nursery pack I had & covered them with a makeshift humidity dome from a pack of berries. I noted the orange ones germinated first.

lala, your seedlings look great! Before long you'll harvest some beautiful peppers. Please keep us to date with their progress.

Enjoy your summer! It's 15F (-9C) here this morning.

zonefive, thank you for sharing some of your seeds with me. I'm really looking forward to growing them. I was recently reading about how long it takes (how many generations) to isolate seed from hybrids/crosses before you can consider them stable. Found this handy table. Maybe after 4 more grow-outs, you can consider them stable.

Hey kchd, I see you're in zone 7b/8a and wonder if you've started growing the mini peppers yet. I still have a few more weeks before I start mine. Winters are way too long up here in zone 5...

Hi there, zonefive!

yes, I have started sowing pepper seeds inside on a heat mat. I have my greenhouse set up, and I've started sowing seeds in rounds. I'm sowing C. chinense varieties first, then the C. annuum since they germinate faster. I think my grow list is bigger than my garden area. And don't even get me started on the tomato varieties I've selected!

sorry for the delay everyone, i kind of lost track and forgot about the thread.

@zonefive, every single seed i planted came out to be true and identical, all planted color pepper seeds came out true as well (yellow pepper seeds ripened yellow, orange ripened orange).

looks like spring is coming early this year (again!) so i will be germinating some more of these seeds and growing more mini peppers. i will try to get some pics later.

so if anyone wants to grow these mini peppers (delicious!) i suggest buying the sunset ONE brand if you can find them. the pepper plants where extremely prolific too.

Stevie. Thanks for the update on your mini peppers. Your results are much the same as mine, so it's likely that these peppers aren't hybrids. Interestingly, the brand I purchased wasn't sunset ONE, but I don't recall the name. Aldi sources their mini peppers from many suppliers and the current one at my local Aldi is called Mighty Minis from Wilson Produce.

Even more interesting is what I read on this thread from 2012. There the mini peppers grew into shapes and sizes much different than the originals. It's worth a look to see the pictures. I'm glad mine grew similar to the originals and plan on growing them each year, but it would be fun to get an oddball result to play around with each year.

With that in mind, I ordered some hybrid Orange Blaze (a small bell type pepper) seeds to grow this season with plans to save seeds for next year. Hopefully, I'll get something unusual to play with in future seasons. I searched locally for these seeds, but wasn't able to find them, so I had to order online, which I'd rather not do because the shipping charges are more than the price of the seeds. What sealed the deal was a coupon code for free delivery I found with an online search. (I'm not affiliated with any seed company and am not promoting one over another.)

With spring looking to arrive early I started some pepper seeds earlier than planned, including the a dozen of the minis. Let's hope for a good pepper season! Post your results and pics.

The mini sweets I planted in December are doing great...some much better than others as you can see from the image. I'm waiting to observe their colours when they ripen, so I can tell if they're true to seed. It's late autumn now in South Africa and my main chillie / hot pepper season is over, although most of the larger plants do continue producing through winter if they're in a sunny location & there's no frost.

I think these should make it through winter, although I planted them quite late. We start planting in September which is spring for us, and I only started these in December.

Looking good! Save some seeds and plant them in September. I'm sure they'll do even better in Spring/Summer.

The minis I planted in March are ready to plant out into the garden and the weather should be good for that in the next week or two.

It's mid-August, 2016 and this year's minis are growing and producing well. This is the third generation from the original store bought minis and the plants and fruit appear pretty much as in past years. As before, the oranges and yellows (none pictured) are mostly larger and better tasting than the reds.

As previously mentioned, I planted some Orange Blaze peppers this year. They grew well and produced a fair crop of fruit. Not as prolific as the minis, but larger and equally good tasting with a thicker flesh. The photo below is of two Orange Blaze with a mini for comparison. As I have done with the minis, I'll save some seeds and see what the next few generations bring.

Has anyone else grown minis this season? Please post some pictures and info.

I sowed some of the mixed seed you sent me, zonefive. I gave a few to friends and kept a plant for myself. My plant turned out to be an orange one (Yes!!). It's delicious and produces peppers just like yours. I only have 1 fruit to photograph at the moment because I've eaten all the other. They don't last long!

I have four plants going on right now. The one with ripe pods was overwintered. They are all first generation from store bought pepper seeds. The plants grew well, up to 2 feet, before loading up with pods. I'll plant again next year. The walls are thinner than I'd expect and the flavour is unlike most peppers, tastes like an apricot or even a physalis and they are pretty sweet.

kchd- Glad to hear the seeds I sent you produced some delicious peppers. Maybe you'll grow more than one plant next season now that you know how good they are! I grew 12 this year and have little trouble eating them fast enough to keep up with production.

Thanks for the update.

isgen- Your plants and peppers look great!

Thin walls- I agree that they are thinner than some of the larger peppers like bells, but for their size, not bad at all. I've grown much larger peppers with thinner walls than these, Costa Rican Sweet is one.

Flavor- To me the flavor is similar to most sweet peppers, though my wife has commented that they have a unique flavor. Maybe my sense of taste isn't as discriminating. Apricot flavor? Well, I had to bite into one to see if I could sense that flavor. Yes, if it were a little sweeter I think it might get the apricot flavor. I've never had any of the physalis fruits, so I take your word on that one.

Thanks for the pictures, your plants look really nice. I've read that peppers do really well in pots and yours sure prove that. Maybe I'll have a few on the patio next summer.

Cool mini-sweets you guys too!

It's only my second year growing vegetables and first one using containers, namely 5 gal buckets. It's working well for all peppers I have in there. My in-ground tomatoes aren't doing so hot this year, but the two I grew in buckets are doing better, go figure!

It's early October, 2018 and I've had a huge crop of mini peppers this summer. Since my last update in 2016 I've moved from Zone 5b (Northern Illinois ) to Zone 7b (Central North Carolina) and missed the 2017 growing season due to the move.

This was my first season gardening here and WOW, peppers sure grow well in Zone 7b! The plants are at least twice the size as they were in Zone 5 and are much more productive. It is of no surprise that one of the largest pepper producers in the country, Bailey Farms, is a short drive from my house. There are fields of peppers just a few miles from home.

Here are some of the peppers I picked today in my garden.

The two large orange ones are from seeds harvested from Orange Blaze in 2016 and planted in 2018. They seem to have retained the shape, size and flavor of the original Orange Blaze and are very good, though not as sweet as the minis. They are definitely more productive here in Zone 7b.

The smaller peppers are the minis from seeds harvested in 2016 and planted in 2018. Picked late in the season, these are a bit smaller than the norm for this year. The reds are good, but are still a little thinner fleshed than the oranges and yellows and have a slightly different flavor. I still prefer the oranges and yellows which have been amazing this year in flavor, sweetness and crispness. They make great snacks while out doing yard work. It's hard to resist grabbing a few every time I pass the garden.

It's early October, 2018 and I've had a huge crop of mini peppers this summer. Since my last update in 2016 I've moved from Zone 5b (Northern Illinois ) to Zone 7b (Central North Carolina) and missed the 2017 growing season due to the move.

This was my first season gardening here and WOW, peppers sure grow well in Zone 7b! The plants are at least twice the size as they were in Zone 5 and are much more productive. It is of no surprise that one of the largest pepper producers in the country, Bailey Farms, is a short drive from my house. There are fields of peppers just a few miles from home.

Here are some of the peppers I picked today in my garden.

The two large orange ones are from seeds harvested from Orange Blaze in 2016 and planted in 2018. They seem to have retained the shape, size and flavor of the original Orange Blaze and are very good, though not as sweet as the minis. They are definitely more productive here in Zone 7b.

The smaller peppers are the minis from seeds harvested in 2016 and planted in 2018. Picked late in the season, these are a bit smaller than the norm for this year. The reds are good, but are still a little thinner fleshed than the oranges and yellows and have a slightly different flavor. I still prefer the oranges and yellows which have been amazing this year in flavor, sweetness and crispness. They make great snacks while out doing yard work. It's hard to resist grabbing a few every time I pass the garden.

I have stripped mini peppers and Purple Beauty which for whatever reason turned out to grow mini purple peppers that had a mild spice.

To be honest, I didn't like any of the sweet peppers. I rather just grow a bigger pepper to be honest.

I've had bags of those peppers like that lots of times before (also Wilson Produce), and they're about the same size as Sweet Banana and Neapolitan (I've never grown Gypsy F1 before, but I've read about it being compared with Neapolitan; I imagine the size is similar; you'll notice the peppers are smaller than the leaves in algonquinloon's picture, although they probably got a little bit bigger than they were in the picture).

The yellow and orange ones of the Wilson's Produce peppers seemed to be the same species (since they both turn orange and taste/look the same if you let them ripen, which they'll do faster unrefrigerated; you don't have to refrigerate them, but pour them in a bowl or something if you don't), but the red ones are definitely a different breed (however similar, unless it's not a stabilized breed). You might also like Lipstick peppers, which are similar in size/shape, and taste like standard bell peppers (but Sweet Banana and Neapolitan seem more prolific, and each has a unique taste; Neapolitan is sweeter, and Sweet Banana seems more savory to me).

Anyway, all these peppers I've talked about in this post are a little big to be called mini for a gardener; they're medium-sized peppers. I can see why grocery stores call them that, though (since people are used to huge bell peppers when it comes to sweet peppers).

The Wilson's Produce peppers have a trademarked name (I think it's Mighty Mini's or something like that). They didn't tell me if they were PVP or patented, though.

So minni peppers are obviously a very variable hybrid, has anyone thought of overwintering plants that have the smallest fruit like some people do wth hot peppers? Once you get plants you like it might be easier to get larger harvests that way rather than trying to breed what seems to be a lottery of genetics every year... they seem to be a diliberate cross of several varieties so seed saving is probably not the best way to go for consistency. Very interesting though!!

Sadly, the 2019 growing season is winding down here in North Carolina and it's time for an update. Please note that many of my earlier posts in this thread were under username "Zonefive". I updated my profile to display "Zone 7b" when I moved south a couple of years ago.

I only grew six mini pepper plants this year and they were from F5 seeds. Two of them produced fruit resembling the original fruit purchased at Aldi in early 2014. The seeds for these two were taken from a mixed collection of mini peppers harvested last year. The other four were taken from what appears to have been a single orange mini. I say that because there are very few seeds remaining in the seed packet labeled "orange mini 2018".

The plants resulting from these orange mini seeds produced some aberrations. Two produced much larger (3-6 inch), broader, thicker skinned, sometimes multi-lobed, red fruit. The other two produced slightly larger (3-4 inch), thicker skinned, red fruit. One of which produced peppers that contained a fair amount of capsaicin, which was quite a surprise. The ripe fruit of this plant showed a slight amount of corking as is seen in jalapenos.

I suspect that the single orange mini harvested for seed last year had been cross pollinated, resulting in the unusual fruit this season. Last year I grew several pepper varieties, including large bell and jalapeno, so there was plenty of pollen available. Perhaps a bee made its way through various pepper plants and then happened upon a flower on the orange mini plant that had just opened. Its activity there deposited pollen from several different plants resulting in the variations found this year.

I plan on saving seed from some of these plants, especially the spicy one. The fruit of that plant retained the sweetness and crispness of the original orange mini, but in a larger, thicker fleshed, red fruit with a "kick" at the stem end. It will be interesting to see what the offspring of this plant produce next year. I don't expect too much variation since both the mother and the suspected father produce fruit similar in size and shape.

Here's a picture of a couple of the spicy not-so-minis, which I call SweetFire. These two are about 3 inches long, not as long and not as broad at the stem as many were earlier in the season.

If anyone is interested in growing out some of these SweetFire peppers, let me know and I'll send some seeds to you. Maybe we can make this a group effort by selecting promising offspring each season and sharing the seed. After several generations we may have a stable plant.

The best place to get seeds for the peppers you want is to buy the pepper. Dry the seeds and plant them. I've just done this.