Peppers in Tennessee

Pepper Garden Tour Video – July 2020

Pepper garden tour time again!  I am trying to get on a schedule for videos on my pepper garden.  In the video, I take a look at the various plants, talk about them and — best yet — harvest some!Pepper Garden Harvest 2020 July

Harvesting Peppers

Harvesting peppers is always a fun thing, and in this video I harvest plenty!  I’m trying to figure out some of the best uses for the peppers I picked.

Some are sweet peppers, some are hot chiles.  No bell peppers ready for harvest yet, but there are some to show in the video garden tour.  And those were from seeds I harvested from grocery store peppers!

Speaking of chile peppers, in the purple pepper harvest post I mentioned that the Purple Jalapeno and Buena Mulata peppers weren’t all that spicy.  What a difference a few weeks makes!

I cut myself a nice slice of Buena Mulata and ate it…and almost immediately regretted it because it was HOT!  Note to self – cut smaller pieces next time.  😀

If you want to see the difference that a few weeks makes, check out the first pepper garden tour video from a few weeks back.  When I look at a plant like NuMex Suave Orange in that video and compare it to this one…oh my!

Peppers in the Video Tour

Some of the peppers in this video include:

  • Buena Mulata
  • Purple Jalapeno
  • Bolivian Rainbow
  • Cascabella
  • NuMex Suave Orange
  • Datil
  • Caterpillar

And more!  I have several peppers which I plan to compare — some hybrid seeds I bought, versus my grocery store peppers.  Which ones will end up producing the best?

And as a reminder — I grew all my pepper plants from seed, and I grow them all in containers.

Pepper Garden Tour July 2020 Video

I recorded the video on July 5th, 2020.  I hope you enjoy it, and that you’ll come back and see my next pepper garden walk-through video, sometime later this month.  Catch you later!

 

 

Harvesting Peppers – Picking Purple Peppers

Purple Jalapeno Pepper

Harvesting peppers has started with a bang this Summer 2020 season.  I’ve harvested a few in the past couple of weeks, but now the peppers have started growing in earnest.  And picking my purple peppers looks to be next on the agenda!

Purple Jalapeno Pepper

Jalapenos are among the easiest peppers to grow (at least for me).  Although I am growing two types of jalapenos this year (Purple Jalapeno and Tricked You), it’s the Purple Jalapeno chili pepper that is clearly leading the way.

It’s June 26th and I’ve picked about five jalapenos from the plant, and I think I have at least 10 more peppers waiting to be harvested.  The plant is only about 20 inches tall, and it just keeps flowering and setting fruit with abandon.  I am seriously glad that I only planted one of these, because it will provide a ton before the fall frosts show up.

I’m growing Purple Jalapeno in a 3-gallon fabric pot.  I’m trying to remember to give my peppers a light fertilizer feeding every other week (since they are in containers) but I probably missed a week or two.  In other words — no special treatment.

Purple Jalapeno is an open pollinated pepper variety.  I can save seeds from one of the peppers, and I’ll get more of the same next year.

Buena Mulata Peppers

Buena Mulata Peppers

Buena Mulata is a cayenne-type chile pepper that, if possible, is even more prolific than Purple Jalapeno!  The plant is only about 18 inches tall and I’ve picked about seven chili peppers so far.  I easily have 15 more waiting on the plant!

I’ll pick a few more soon (just to keep the peppers coming), but I want to leave some on the plant for a bit to ripen to red.  I decided to grow Buena Mulata for the chili peppers, but this variety can very easily double as an ornamental pepper plant.

Just like Purple Jalapeno, Buena Mulata is open-pollinated and is growing in a 3-gallon fabric pot.  For that matter, they are actually growing side-by-side.  😀

Picking Purple Peppers

I started picking purple peppers early this month (June).  To be honest, the peppers have not been very spicy yet.  Why not?

Part of the reason is that it hasn’t been that warm yet here in East Tennessee.  While we’ve had one or two days around 90 so far, most of the days have been in the mid 80s.  We had a cool April and May, so the peppers haven’t had the opportunity to “chile up” and get spicy.  But, as we get more into the hotter days of summer, the peppers will start turning their own heat up.

In addition, as they ripen to their final color (in both cases the color is red), the hotter they become.

I’ll be doing a harvest video soon, with not only these two chile pepper varieties but also some others.  I’ll post the link here as soon as I have it posted.

Meanwhile, feel free to wander around the site and enjoy the info (and the peppers).  See you soon!

 

Pepper Garden Walk-Through Video – June 2020

A pepper garden walk-though and tour is what I have for you today.  I thought you might like to see my container garden full of pepper plants — and some peppers as well!  Growing peppers is a whole lot of fun, and I enjoy growing all kinds of different peppers.  You’ll even see some peppers that I grew from seeds which I harvested from a grocery store pepper!

Growing Peppers in Containers

I grow all my peppers in containers.  For one, the soil here in my Tennessee zone 7A yard is hard clay and rocky — I literally have to dig holes for plants with a pick axe!  While I have planted a few things in the ground, they have mostly been perennials.

My yard is also sun-challenged (i.e. I don’t have any spots with all-day sun).  The trees that I loved when we moved in end up shading my yard way too much.  (I’ll do a video and post about growing peppers and other veggies when you don’t have at least 6 hours a day of sun, and will link it here when it’s up.)

Anyway, containers allow me to move the plants around if I need to.  Some of the peppers seem to do OK with the semi-shade, while others most definitely need as much sun as I can give them.  Growing peppers in containers gives me the most options.

Plus, as the sun angle changes during the year, I can move the container peppers as needed in order to follow the sun.

Enough about growing peppers in containers — on to the pepper garden tour and walk-through!

Pepper Garden Tour and Walk Through

I shot this video on June 14, 2020.  I am going to try and do a garden tour every couple of weeks throughout the pepper-growing season, so you can see what the garden looks like, and the kind of harvests I get.

Peppers you will see in this pepper garden tour are:

  • NuMex Suave Orange
  • Buena Mulata
  • Tricked You Jalapeno
  • Grocery Store Peppers
  • Bolivian Rainbow
  • Sweet Banana
  • Purple Jalapeno
  • Super Heavyweight Hybrid
  • Cascabela

Wait until you see Buena Mulata — it astounds me how many peppers I have on that plant, so early in the season!

So, here we go with the pepper garden tour — I hope you enjoy it!