Tomatoes and peppers. That’s 90% of why I love gardening. Is there anything to compare to a home-grown tomato? Not even the tomatoes at the farmer’s market are as good as what comes out of my garden. And for unparalleled taste, peppers are a close second. Like tomatoes, the flavor and variety of peppers that come from your garden just can’t be found anywhere else.
That’s why about half of my garden goes into tomatoes and peppers. I typically plant 18-24 tomato plants and 12-18 pepper plants every year.
How to choose peppers
The two questions to ask when deciding on what to plant are “How hot do I want it?” and “What will I use it for?”
I’ll get to the question about heat in a minute, but for right now let’s talk about how you’re going to use the peppers.
Most of my peppers will be used as seasoning: chopped or pureed into recipes. For those purposes, any chili will do. Small chilis (like Bird’s Eye, Jalapeño, Habanero, etc) can really only be used as seasoning, and, since they are small, you’ll spend a lot of time removing the seeds. Yes, you can leave the seeds in but since most of the heat of the pepper is in the seed, you will not be able to control for heat as well if you leave the seeds in.
Safety Warning
Whenever handling hot peppers, always wear disposable plastic or vinyl
gloves. Always. And wash hands thoroughly with soap and hot water after taking the gloves off.
Small peppers are also perfect for pickling. Whole pickled peppers add a nice zing to vegetable and relish trays. You can slice up long peppers, (like Hungarian Wax, Jalapeño and it’s longer (but spicier) cousin, Serrano) into ¼” rings and pickle them as well. Sliced pickled peppers are great on a sandwich or as a topping for nachos.
Large peppers are dual purpose: they can be chopped up and used as a seasoning or they can be stuffed. There are all sorts of recipes for stuffed peppers but Chili Rellenos is our family’s absolute favorite thing. They can also be sun dried (or just plain dehydrated) for use in recipes that call for dried peppers. For drying, thin-walled peppers (like cayenne and Paprika) are better than thick walled (like Ancho and Poblano.)
The Heat Factor
Heat is the biggest feature of peppers. You’ve probably heard of the Scoville Scale. It was invented a little over 100 years ago and measures the amount of capsaicin (the chemical that makes peppers hot) in peppers.
While the Scoville Scale is certainly a good place to start, it can really only give you a range of heat. That’s because within each pepper variety there can be quite a range of heat.
For example, the Banana Pepper is rated between 500-1000 Scovilles and the Habanero can range from 100,000 to 350,000. So when a recipe calls for, say “3-4 chopped peppers” you might be surprised at how hot the dish is if your peppers are in the upper range of Scoville heat.
What makes the difference?
The variety of pepper is just the first key to how hot it will be. There are other inputs that can make a pepper hotter. The biggest one is climate. Hotter temperatures and more sunlight (like in the south) can lead to higher capsaicin levels, giving you spicier peppers.
Another factor is stress. If your pepper plant experiences drought or nutrient deficiency, especially during the flowering stage, it can produce more capsaicin.
The final factor is ripeness. A green or barely ripe pepper hasn’t developed as much capsaicin as a pepper that is fully mature. Depending on the variety, a mature pepper will usually be red or yellow. So a Jalapeño that is picked while still green won’t have quite as much kick as the one that you pick when it’s ripened to red.
All the ways to use peppers
There are so many ways to use peppers and preserve them for use year round, it’s almost impossible to have too many.
I start with a few batches of salsa. Then I’ll make Chili Rellenos at leat 3-4 times during the summer. At the end of the season I’ll want at least five pounds of chilis (mostly Jalapeño) to make a big batch of Sri Racha.
After I’ve gotten my fill of salsa and Sri Racha, there’s still room for preserving lots more chilis.
Chopped and frozen. Just chop up the pepper in a food processor, spread out on a cookie sheet lined with a silicone liner or plastic wrap. Once they are frozen, put the diced peppers into a Ziploc baggie or resealable container. Because they were all frozen into separate pieces instead of a big frozen mass, it’s really easy to just measure out the amount you need for recipes.
Oils. Infuse oils with peppery goodness and use the oil in salad dressing, marinades, sauces and as a seasoning.
Cayenne-infused oil also has medicinal properties. I like to combine it with Arnica- and Feverfew-infused oils and use in liniments, salves or lotions. The cayenne increases circulation and amplifies the pain relief properties of the Arnica and Feverfew. I find it helpful for relieving muscle aches and joint pain.
Powdered. This is one of my favorite ways to preserve pepper goodness. The resulting chili powder is the most brilliantly flavored chili powder you can imagine. Seriously. Take a smell test of your store-bought paprika and compare to your homemade. It’s like the difference between full-colored picture and a black and white one.
It’s super easy to do. Just cut peppers in half and remove the seeds. Dry the peppers in the sun, a dehydrator or a warm oven until they are brittle. Then blend them into a powder. (Be careful not to inhale the powder too soon after stopping the blender!) Reserve any bits of skin and pepper that don’t easily grind into powder consistency and use them as pepper flakes.
Preserved. Just about every pepper shines when it’s pickled and it’s super easy to do. Thick-walled peppers hold their shape better but you can always slice the thin-walled varieties into rings.
Or you can preserve peppers by canning them and using them in soups and casseroles. Just about any variety will can well. It just depends on what you want for heat. Process chopped peppers in small ½ or ¼ pint jars. This is the perfect size for most recipes calling for canned peppers. Since peppers are a low-acid food, they must be pressure canned. It only takes 35 minutes of processing time.
Decisions…Decisions…
In my decades of gardening I’ve tried dozens of different pepper varieties. It’s fun to experiment with all the different shapes, colors and levels of heat. I typically plant six to eight varieties of peppers each year, two to four plants each.
Every year I have my standbys:
Jalapeño for Salsa and Sri Racha. Add to that maybe some Serrano for added heat to the salsa.
Paprika and Cayenne for chili powders. Bird’s Eye and Tabasco are also good for dried powder.
Hungarian wax for Chili Rellenos. For milder Chili Rellenos, I like Poblano or Ancho. They are also good in other stuffed pepper recipes.
And then I’ll grow one or two plants of something really hot to add some extra punch to at least one batch of salsa and to make my Sri Racha pleasantly potent. The first super-hot pepper that I tried was Habanero. My sons—true pepper aficionados—were only moderately impressed. Then I tried the Datil pepper. Meh. They said it was OK.
Then I tried Death Spiral. Even if they weren’t impressed with the pepper, I just liked the name.
Death Spiral.
This one did not disappoint. It challenged my sons’ taste buds on a whole new level. Just one or two of these babies made the Sri Racha really explode.
If I want a batch or two of pickled peppers, the thick-walled peppers (Ancho, Jalapeño, Serrano) hold their shape best. But I like the small, bite-sized peppers as an accent on my relish or antipasto plates. So I’ll plant Peperoncini, Chiltipin, Bird’s Eye or Tabasco. The Brazillian Star pepper is another one I like to pickle. It’s a bit thin-walled but I really like the shape of the pepper.
And you can always slice peppers into rings for pickling. Wax and Serrano are good candidates for that.
Plan for a pepper bounty
So as you plan your garden this spring, imagine what kind of spicy accents you’ll want to add to your menu and plant accordingly. Be adventurous. You won’t be disappointed.
