Peppers Part I

Something we often did in our newsletters was review varieties for gardeners who might read what we write.  Since the season is concluding on our pepper crop, we thought we do a little bit on them to finish up what turned out to be a series of posts on them this year.

Prior Posts of Interest:

• Summer Crops Winding Down (focus on peppers)
• By The Numbers - Part I and Part II
• Veg Variety Recommendations (Winter 2010/2011)
• Highest Recommendations (Winter 2010/2011)
• 2010 Veg Variety Winners on the Farm
• Prior Year Veg Variety Winners

Criteria for our assessments at the Genuine Faux Farm
We'll discuss this elsewhere, but it may help to see them here.
1. Taste
2. Plant health
3. Production of 'marketable fruit'
4. Period of production
5. Seed supply/availability
6. Niche in our production scheme


Getting an A for the Year

Tolli Sweet

Historically one of our earliest to produce and one of the latest to stop.  The peppers tend to be on the smaller side (and variable), but the taste is excellent.  Prior data suggests about 16 marketable fruit per plant.  They ran at 19 fruit this year in the field and our two trial plants in the high tunnel responded with bigger fruit in similar numbers, even though these small plants were no bigger themselves. (picture courtesy Seed Savers)

 Wisconsin Lakes

We finally give this pepper a place of prominence and look what it does for us!  Picture is from our farm.  One of the earliest bells to turn red.  Fruit tend to be three lobed rather than four, but who cares?  They taste great.  Production was 8-9 fruit per plant.  Prior years suggested four, but we had to admit that it was never given a prominent place.  What that means on our farm is that when the going gets tough, the farmers ignore lower priority varieties or crops.  So, they fight a bit more weed competition, etc.  They showed enough in 2009 to get a promotion, and they actually exceeded the 6-7 marketable fruit we tend to want per plant for our bells.  The two trial plants did well in the high tunnel with slightly larger fruit.  But, they were slower to turn red.  And, did we tell you they turn red early and taste good?  Oh, we did? (picture from the Genuine Faux Farm)

Joe's Long Cayenne

 

 
You'll see a Joe's in the middle of this picture - and it may be a below average specimen at that (not fully turned to red and smallish).  But, you take the picture when you have the camera.  Typically 6-9" long cayenne peppers that ripen in September.  We are often still picking them well into October.  Twenty-five to thirty high quality fruit are normal.  Great taste, and only moderately hot.  Performed similarly in the high tunnel, but sample size was small (one plant).

Don't Come Back Awards:

• Buran
• Jupiter
• Numex Big Jim

Buran was supposed to be a short season,  green bell that was supposed to have high yields of smaller fruits.  Taste is pretty good, production is generally fine.  But, seedlings tend to lie down due to a weak stem at the base (we don't have this problem with other peppers), fruit do not hold on the plant (so you almost have to check them every day it seems) and they really didn't add anything special to our grow list that we don't already have.  They don't really run much earlier than other bells.  Or, if they do, they don't produce enough at that time to make a difference.  We've tried them for four years and decided we lose more fruit on the plants than we pick.

In the case of Jupiter, it's a fine, plump green bell pepper.  We have no real complaints about it - except that our favored seed suppliers do not carry it.  Sometimes, you just have to draw the line.  And, we're happy with our other green bells, so we'll just grow more of them since Jupiter falls into the same niche (production time, fruit type, production levels) as other varieties we are happy with.  Its direct competition in our gardens are Napolean Sweet and King of the North.  It compares with King for taste, but Napolean far outstrips it.  And, we've detected no significant weather pattern preference that differs enough to keep it.

Numex Big Jim?  Both a seed supplier and a niche issue.  That, and we're not as enamored with its taste.  This could be different if we had more demand for hot peppers, but we do not.  We will say that it has been the most successful chili pepper we have grown at the farm.  Others, such as Anaheim College, don't seem to favor our soils or weather.  So, if we hear from enough people that you really NEED us to grow a chili pepper, this is the variety we will bring back.

Thus endeth part I - part II is scheduled to post early next week.