It's the first Saturday I've been home in what feels like months. The Habanero fermentation is bubbling in the kitchen. The fridge is full of hot sauces. This morning I’m going to return to the plants to see which worked best and which I won't bother with again. I’ve spoken about the pepper flavours already, so this is going to be about which plants did best.
Size
In the ground, the largest, hands down, is the Rocoto. It is six feet tall and sprawling, reaching out to all corners of the greenhouse. At the other end of the scale, the Cayennetta is short and bushy, like a little tree, just a couple of feet high and wide, and absolutely covered in peppers. The Ring of Fire is more than a foot taller than the Cayennetta but about the same width, so it appears slender. The Habanero is as tall as the ring of fire but bushy as the Cayennetta, making it an attractive and sturdy plant. The Sugar Rush Peach Stripey is also tall and gangly in the ground. As plants the Baccatums I grew were not so attractive or striking as many of the others.
Tallest to Shortest
Rocoto
Sugar Rush Peach Stripey
Zebrange
Habanero
Ring of Fire
Cayennetta
(Jalapeno, Crystal, Starrburst and Black Hungarian only survived in pots so the sizes are not reliable)
Yield. The Cayennetta matured earliest so we got a very high yield before the mice moved in. The best plant in the ground gave 70 peppers. The best in a pot gave 50. The best Ring of Fire has given around 55 peppers to date and will probably yield a handful more. In the ground the Sugar Rush Peach Stripey has a high yield, but they are proving so slow to ripen that I am probably going to have to bring them all in green, or maybe smoke them and dry them. A large percentage just rotted on the plant. The Orange Habanero also has a high yield in the ground, with over 50 ripe fruits and more still coming. The Zebrange gets a bit of a pass in terms of yield, simply because the fruit is so funky. The yield was medium, but slow maturing, just a handful off each plant. They do look cool though. The Starrburst gets a pass too. We only kept these plants in pots and one of them has yielded maybe 10 peppers, but they were started late so might do better next year. And besides, the Starrburst taste so amazing they’re worth doing again.
Highest to Lowest Ripe Yield
Cayennetta - 70
Habanero and Ring of Fire tied - >50
Aji Crystal – 27
Sugar Rush – 11 (plus more green)
Lemon Starrburst (pot) - 10
Black Hungarian (pot) – 8
Zebrange (pot and devoured by mice) - 2
(Neither the Rocoto nor the FM Jalapeno ripened. The Jalapeno has some green fruit, but it hasn’t even got the signature corking yet. There were three high yielding Cayennetta plants and one high yielding Habanero and Ring of Fire.)
Pot experiments. Greenhouse space is limited so I put lots of peppers in pots ranging from 1L ceramic pots to 15L bags. Results were mixed. The Cayennetta worked well in large bags and large pots but were no good in smaller pots. I won’t do that again. Ring of Fire similar. They both made tidy plants but only yielded a few peppers. The Baccatum – Sugar Rush Peach Stripey and Zebrange - in large bags did okay and a few ripened, whereas none of the ones in the ground ripened, so that might be the way to get a decent plant and an early enough yield next year. But the Habaneros! I put a handful of these in 2 litre pots with no expectations. Then, come October, when it was really a bit too cold for the plants outside, I brought them in and they have been giving small peppers (The right hand side of the photo) ever since. Not loads of peppers, but a little Habanero goes a long way, and it's been a nice addition to the harvest.
Summary
First, to the disappointments. The Rocoto is a beautiful, impressive plant covered with flowers, but ultimately it’s a waste of space. It’s given zero peppers. The other disappointments were the Black Hungarian and the FM Jalapeno. They did not have a good yield, nor very good flavour, and nor were they especially interesting plants. The FM Jalapeno never achieved its definitive corking and just tasted like a slightly shit green bell pepper.
The Orange Habanero strikes a good balance. It is high yielding, attractive, substantial and bushy, with lots of very tasty peppers, and the heat means they go a long way in recipes. From the best plant I would have enough to make sauce for the rest of the season, as well as for Christmas gifts. The Cayennetta, while not the best flavoured of the peppers off the plant, remains one of my favourites. It is high yielding, attractive and easy, early ripening, and it works brilliantly smoked and dried. The flavour of those dried flakes is exactly what I want and these peppers yield enough to make enough for the rest of the year. The Ring of Fire also remains a winner for me. Hotter than the other Annuums I have grown this year, it has the best flavour, an okay yield, and a sizeable but not overwhelming plant. All of the Baccatums (Zebrange, Peach Stripey, Crystal) were tasty and the plants had potentially good yields (before the mice), but they were slow to mature, took up lots of space, and ripened less consistently than the Chinense varieties.
Importantly for all of these, I know I can do better. Better spacing in the greenhouse, earlier awareness of the mice, even earlier sowing will help.
Which would I grow again?
Definitely – Cayennetta, Ring of Fire, Lemon Starrburst, Orange Habanero
Maybe – Zebrange, Aji Crystal, Sugar Rush Peach Stripey, Rocoto*
Nope – Black Hungarian, FM Jalapeno
(*The Rocoto might get another shot, simply because I still feel they should work here once I figure them out, but I’m going to grow them outside so they don’t waste greenhouse space.)
Next time, I'm going to be looking at how I've been preserving these peppers - sauces, drying, smoking - and then I guess I'll be looking ahead to the New Year and the new season.
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