Variety Show: Feher Ozon Papricka

This would be my second veggie variety post in a row on the Genuine Faux Farm blog.  It's just like old times - except if this were like "old times" on the blog, these posts would be three to seven days apart!  The motivation behind these posts has more to do with the fact that I had some new pictures from this year's harvest that just begged me to write about them.

Shown above is our first harvest of Feher Ozon Papricka peppers in 2023 (August).  I like to harvest them when they have this rusty orange shade to them, but others might prefer that they turn a full red-orange.  We enjoy eating these in nachos and others have told me they like them on pizza.  You can certainly eat them raw as a snack as well.  They tend towards a sweeter papricka tasste rather than hot.

This is another variety that has responded well to high tunnel production for a few reasons.  First, they don't like wet feet and they prefer warmer, drier conditions.  And second, the plants are small in stature, so they lend themselves to places where space is at a premium.  This year's plants did not quite get to two feet tall and we gave them 18 inches of spacing in the row.  Each plant easily produced fifteen or more quality fruit (plus a few off fruit).

This variety holds most of its fruit with the pointy end up, but they can get so loaded with peppers that they'll just point whatever direction has free space.  The carrot-shaped fruit can be as large as five to six inches long. You could, if you wanted, dry these pepper to create a papricka spice, though we have not tried to do this ourselves.

Keep these peppers off the ground if there is moisture for best results.  Harvest typically requires a pruner or knife since the plants do not give up the fruit easily.  If you try to snap or twist them off, you'll end up with a sizable portion of the small plant in your hand as your reward.