Peppers of 2015 - Review

It's pretty ironic I was going to post today's blog post about my peppers, on Scoville's 151st birthday (January 22nd 1865) and google made an amazing doodle! Here are some highlights from the doodle and game! Click here to see the doodle and play the Scoville game.

Here is the concept art for the Scoville Google Doodle.

Last year was an amazing pepper season! I ended up growing twelve varieties as some seedlings were given to me after my 2015 pepper post last spring. In this post I'll do a little review of the peppers I grew last year and some notes on those varieties.

Young plants developing in cages, excellent growth and perfect health all season long!

The season as a whole was great, I expanded my "mineral bed", a non-raised bed garden, where my soil scientist father created and infused sand, manure, regular soil, leaf compost and peat moss, to create the perfect pepper soil. I had about 10ft x 10ft space for my peppers and each one had a cage support, I also spaced each pepper very well, however I could have created more rows in that design as opposed to each plant being evenly spread out in a grid. I weeded that garden like a fiend and it payed off, many of my pepper plants reached about 3 1/2ft tall and maybe about 3ft sq around. 

Here is my dad working in some manure and clover/grass clippings (pre seed) into the one mineral bed.

I'm a big promoter of companion planting and beneficial planting, so I planted a mix of basil and nasturtiums on the outer edges and throughout my grid of peppers, this was excellent at first but my nasturtiums grew astoundingly large. These nasturtiums were so large, probably the biggest I've ever since, aside from southern California. 

I should have put my dog or a chicken by this single nasturtium for scale,
but I assure you it's about 3ft tall and 1 metre in diameter.

These nasturtiums were massive, so I wont be growing them again near my peppers. Three pepper plants close to some of the nasturtiums were stunted and lost the competition, barely sporting any fruit. The basil on the other hand, was fragrant, non-invasive and hosted a plethora of pollinators, from bees to hummingbirds (who also frequented the red nasturtium blossoms).

Notes on the 2015 Varieties

White Lakes - I think I grew 2-3 plants, and they produced very well, taste was average, perhaps a bit sweet. Size was small-ish, but the plants produced clumps of 6-7 each at least 2-3 times. Very attractive pepper if you pick some as white and allow others to go red. I'll definitely grow more in 2016.

Yellow Monster - True to the name, sporting large 4-5" yellow peppers, they take a while to turn yellow, but overall I'm pleased with this relatively novel variety. More support needed for this plant, and watch for low peppers that might contact the soil. Plants produced about 3-4 massive fruit each, with many more on the way too close to frost.

Yellow Monster and a Coturnix Quail

Lilac Bell - Very attractive peppers, a real showcase pepper. Very thin walled and sweet, the colour is stunning and size is smaller then your average bell. Good producer.

Lilac Bell with White Lakes

Midnight Dreams - Thick walled fruit that take a long time to reach harvest size. The plants and robust and are superbly dark and enchanting, excellent for cooking, perhaps not fresh eating. Peppers are very similar to Purple Beauty in size, but a bit more rounded, skin is matte in texture.

Fish - A classic pepper with plenty of ornamental and functional qualities, the heat is intense and not as multipurpose as I need in a hot pepper. They are compact, thick, and robust. Dozens and dozens of peppers per plant, many ripening in concession over several weeks. The flavour is a sharp heat, more bitter then jalapeños or even chiles, traditionally used in southern US dishes and soul food.

Chocolate Beauty - Best performer of 2015 by far. Large size, very consistent and excellent producers. They ripened early and had a truly beautiful chocolate shiny skin with a mocha juicy flesh, tastes much like a red or sweet green bell pepper. Excellent fresh eaten or cooked. 8-10 large fruit per plant. A must grow for 2016!

Purple Beauty - Similar performance to the Chocolate Beauty but with a deep purple colour. Solid performance, effected by the competition between the nasturtiums. I could see purple stripes on the stems of this variety even as a small seedling, which is pretty unique.

Violet Sparkle - Very unique looking pepper with excellent yields, great size for roasting, bbq, fresh eating. Sweet but very firm. Would be good for pickling and sautées very well. Plants were short but produced many uniform fruit.

Monzano Chile - Didn't produce, seed was perhaps not viable. May try again in the future.

*Feher Ozon - Seedling given to me by a local farm. Stunted weekly of a plant and really didn't perform as I had expected. A disappointment really. Might have been a fluke with a week plant, because everything I grew from seed well bushy and yielded very well. 

*Iko Iko - Also received this seedling and was expecting great things, as it was a variety on my pepper wishlist. This plant was also stunted despite plenty of room, it only produced about 2 peppers and they weren't really what companies claim to be the best part of this pepper which is a "Spectacular array of color". The colour was pretty bleh and they tasted normal I suppose. 

*Habañero - Reminded me of the sweet spicy flavour I was missing out on, by not growing some more hot peppers. My family and I used up and enjoyed every morsel of Habañero I produced from one small plant in a planter basket we got at the end of the season. 100% investing in more hot peppers for 2016.

Stay tuned for a post this week with the peppers I will grow for 2016! A very exciting list, and before I know it I'll be starting them inside under my lights! Chiao!