Re: which grow best in the woods? (was Re: [CH] Which Grow Best In Pots?)

Love2Troll (Love2Troll@kc.rr.com)
Thu, 13 Mar 2003 11:27:37 -0600 

>  I might buy a Rocoto 
seedling from Susan, perhaps. 


If you do, I would ask her if she had any luck getting first year pods from her plants.  That can be a problem with Rocotos.  I only grew five plants last year and of those only one produced pods during the summer and I harvested about 40 by the end of December from that one plant.  That plant produced a lot of blossoms during the dog days of summer but they didn't set fruit.  Early & late summer it did pretty good.   The other plants gave up about 4 pods each by years end.  I gave a few plants to a couple of chilebuds and they only got a few pods too.       

They will overwinter extremely well in a south window with no supplemental lighting.  None of my five plants blossomed though.  Super Chili & Thai Hot will blossom, set fruit & give ripe pods in abundance in the same south window all winter long here in Kansas City.

Rocotos are worth the wait.  Thick fleshed and great taste.  My fav hot pepper.  (so far)  Most of mine were eaten raw.  The ones (Yellow R.) that I hickory smoked and made flakes & powder out of are to die for.   The heat perception of rocoto varies from person to person as their capsaicin is (so I have read) slightly different than other species.  (I'm Norse & Polish mostly)  My early Yellow Rocotos were hotter than my Red Savinas.  The Orange Rocotos that I harvested in January had no heat whatsoever.

I've only grown C. pubescens for one year now and won't even pretend to know a whole lot about them.  This year I'm growing about 27 varieties of these hairy babes and hope to learn a lot more.  (thanks to PaulK for 21 of them)    

JohnT




 




  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Chad A Gard 
  To: Love2Troll 
  Cc: chile-heads 
  Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2003 9:44 AM
  Subject: Re: which grow best in the woods? (was Re: [CH] Which Grow Best In Pots?)



  On Thursday, March 13, 2003, at 07:36  AM, Love2Troll wrote:
  >
  > Chad,
  >
  > The best for low light in my experience are Rocotos, Thai Hot & Super 
  > Chili.  Surprisingly, every variety that I have tried will do pretty 
  > well with only a couple of hours direct sun.  This will be my first 
  > year for C. baccatum (thank you, Beth) so can't comment about them.
  >
  > Last year I had a Tepin and a Malagueta Pimenta that were almost 
  > completely denuded by hornworms so I put them out of the way against 
  > the north wall of my house and forgot about them.  A couple of months 
  > later they were absolutely loaded with pods.
  >

  Ah!  I love Thai Hots.  They're a staple food for me.  'Course, they 
  dry really really well, and grind into powder well, which is helpful.  
  So, with Thai Hots perhaps from some of my dried pods from the fields 
  and Scott's "KT" peppers (hmmmm...  Change the acronym to "Knobstone 
  Trail" perhaps - would be more hoosier-appropriate.  Then I could eat 
  KT's on the KT!).  That's 2 buckets down.   I might buy a Rocoto 
  seedling from Susan, perhaps.  Maybe I could try a Paprika from her as 
  well....

  OK, 1 bucket left.  Suggestions?


  Chad A Gard
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