At the beginning of 2020, I began to be a gardener, planting a lot of peppers is on the top of my garden list.
I started quarantine in early March, one day a website named Sance Piquante came to me, which sells many kinds of chili sauce also pepper seeds and pepper plants, so I ordered four kinds from their websites and I was told to receive them from May. ( At this time there are not too many plants to choose but next spring you can see more)
In May we still in quarantine and I received all my peppers plants, they were in safe packages and looked quite healthy.
After three days, I found there were many white spots and white powder which can not be cleaned appeared on peppers plants leaves, it looked like Powdery mildew or sunburn. I guessed it would happen cuz before we received those plants, there was a whole week of heavy rain, plants were in a very moist environment for too long, after I received them, I just took them out of the box to enjoy the strong sun of South France.
So pay attention!
If you just transplanted your little pepper plants to other pots or places, give them a little shadow for some days, imagine you explored a baby who lived in 26 ℃ warm house to strong wind and strong sun, it is dangerous.
Actually even you found peppers plants got Powdery mildew or sunburn, you don’t need to be too worried, plants have strong vitality from nature, just take off the infected leaves, move it to a cool place, don’t water too much(only you see the soil is try), if you have baking soda, you can spray low concentration soda water on the plants, after some weeks you can see they grew new leaves, it totally recovered.
Sick plant
Recovered and grew well after some months
Pepper production:
Cayenne pepper > Rooster Spur> Medusa>Habanero>Carolina reaper
Cayenne:
Cayenne pepper has a huge production, one plant is almost enough for a family. Till today there are still more than 30-50 peppers wait for me to pick and it still continues producing. And my cayenne peppers are much bigger compared to what I can found in market, they are around 25-30cm long.
Rooster Spur
This plant keeps full of peppers since August. Once you ate, it grows, until the end of October, leaves become yellow, the plant produced much less, in mid-November, it stopped producing.
Medusa:
I don’t know why this pepper called “Medusa” but it is actually as pretty as Medusa in the story. Like frame like a flower. Its body almost stopped to grow from April to May, but with this little body, it continues to have more and more flowers. It is really pretty as an Ornamental pepper for me.
Habanero:
This pepper takes a long time to becomes red, from end-July to August, I picked 12 peppers from it, and now it still producing a few. This pepper’s flowers are easier to fall off, so during pollination, take care to give less water and avoid the strong wind.
Even it produces much less than other pepper plants, but one pepper is hot enough for a whole plat for 4 people.
Carolina Reaper
During its pollination, I left it at home with an automatic watering machine, which gives too much water and there was strong wind in October, flowers all fall off, it was very pity, I got zero pepper from this plant 🙁
SHU Scoville Heat Unit:
Carolina reaper > Habanero> Rooster Spur> Cayenne pepper > Medusa
I don’t have any results from Carolina reaper, so I can not describe how hot I feel. So let’s start with Habanero.
I am a person who can really eat very spicy levels in Chinese food, but this pepper is really really hot. I remembered one afternoon, I tried to cooked salads with it, I cut this pepper without a glove, the whole afternoon my fingers were burning, I put fingers into sweet water or cold water or any water, it tortured me for the whole afternoon.
Rooster Spur can be spicy when you eat it directly, but when you cook it with other food, you need to put more than 3 to really feel it is spicy. Compared to the little chills a Vietnamese restaurant will serve you when you eat Pho, it much weaker.
Cayenne pepper has a very acceptable hot level for most people in my view. I also like to cook it when it is green, green peppers have a more fresh taste.
Medusa is not spicy at all, almost no taste, only goof for it is appearance.
Here are my tips to grow pepper plants:
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You can water more before the peppers have grown flowers, but after the flowers of the peppers appear, you must water it less, water the soil after the surface is dry. Less watering is conducive to pollination, the grown peppers will be spicier and it will reduce the occurrence of powdery mildew.
- The yield of ground plants is much greater than potted plants.
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Must be placed in a well-ventilated place
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Pay attention to sun protection when the temperature is higher than 30 degrees. The most suitable temperature for growing pepper is about 26 -28 degrees.
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The lower the yield of peppers, the easier it is to drop flowers, so pay more attention to these kinds of plants. If you find that the flowers are falling seriously, you can check if the soil is too wet for a long time(change the soil), if the sun is too strong, or manually help pollination.
How to preserve seeds:
Take out the pepper seeds and put them in a cool place to dry. After one day or two, store the dried seeds in the refrigerator, in this way the germination rate of the seeds in the second year is still high.
How to cook peppers:
I have a lot of recipes to cook with peppers, or you can eat with salad or meat in BBQ.
I also have a lot of recipes to do chili sauces and pickled peppers, I will share when I have time…
