Homegrown Peppers

The yellow cayenne pepper is doing well in my fall garden.  It’s had some setbacks, but my oh my, are there peppers!  I certainly can’t complain that there aren’t enough, or that the peppers aren’t big enough.

Yellow cayenne is shaping up to be a nice choice for the fall garden.

What a Wet September!

I planted the pepper around Labor Day 2014, and after a few nice days, the rest of the month was rain, rain…and more rain.  Even though it was in the greenhouse, it was right by the door, which stayed open for ventilation.  So my poor pepper got very wet.  And then to make matters worse, the sunlight was hit and miss — there were days at a stretch where there was little to no direct sunlight.  No wonder why the plant ended up a little on the leggy side by the end of September!

I planted the peppers in a smart pot, so the roots were able to get enough air and not end up drowning.  I am not sure that the peppers would have made it had I planted in a standard plastic pot, as wet as it was.

October brought more challenges, in the form of an insect attack.  While the insects didn’t bother the peppers, they did enjoy munching on the leaves (groan).  I finally sprayed with some organic neem oil and the remaining leaves weren’t find of that — some of the leaves withered up.  But finally, after some days of sunshine and when cooler nights started, Yellow Cayenne started looking happier.  And now towards the end of October, the ripe peppers are flowing in!

Peppers Galore

Cayenne is what I would call a medium-hot pepper.  Well, compared to things like habaneros, at any rate!  Yellow cayenne is somewhere in the neighborhood of 40,000 Scoville units.

Cayenne Yellow bears fairly early; actually it was the earliest of my fall pepper garden.  The peppers are around three to five inches long.  They start off green, and stay that way for awhile — you can eat them green if you like.  But, if you want them sweeter and hotter, wait until they mature to a golden yellow.  And if you can, I’d recommend waiting until they turn yellow before you pick them.  The green ones taste…well, green!  (They are indeed hot though, even when they are green.)

Talking about golden yellow — it’s a really nice change from red peppers.  Not to mention it looks great in the garden (as well as on your plate).  They kind of remind me of splashes of bright sunshine.

The plant is not stingy in the least with its fruiting — it started bearing early on, and it’s happily continued bearing.  One plant has kept me in plenty of chile peppers that are nice and spicy.