2023 Garden Planning: Pepper Edition
So many pepper seeds, so little time.
The past two years, we end up with a few handfuls of peppers, but not nearly enough for me to feel satisfied that we could get through more than a couple dinners. Like onions, garlic, and tomatoes (the tomato post is coming soon), peppers are one of those ingredients that I just can’t do without. I don’t necessarily NEED a certain type of pepper, just enough to add some pizzazz to our various dishes. I’d love to get to the point that we grow enough to keep us in peppers and salsa the whole year, but for now, I’d be happy with enough peppers to make it through a whole month.
The beginnings of Salsa Navidad.
Last year, I did end up growing enough peppers to make 12 quarts of what I call Salsa Navidad (basically, a red and green blend of all the peppers and tomatoes we pull off the plants before the frost sets in blended up with aromatics and spices). It’s great as a chili base or for enchilada sauce, but I’d like to expand our pepper operation to make a lot more than just one recipe.
So far, my major problems with peppers have been either spacing or temperature. In the 2021 garden season, I placed my seedlings out when our nights were still dipping down into the 40s—combined with the overcrowding, the fact that I ended up with 20 jalapenos is kind of remarkable. Last year’s weird weather ended up killing our seedlings before we could even get them planted (our seedling grow space was just too small for them and they dampened off), and my spacing issues stunted the plant starts I purchased. We ended up with LOTS of peppers, but they were all very small and took forever to develop.
This year, between expanding both our seedling growing space AND our garden space, we’ll be able to hopefully keep our seedlings alive even if we have another weirdly late spring this year, AND we’ll have enough space to give them lots of room outdoors to thrive.
Additionally, I’m giving up on bell peppers entirely. I don’t know if it’s my lack of gardening expertise or if our gardening seasons just aren’t long enough, but I cannot get a bell pepper to ripen into becoming a red pepper (not to mention yellow or orange). Maybe in the future, once I’ve levelled up my green thumb, I’ll revisit them, but for now, I’m focusing more on the following non-bell peppers:
While I will be growing normal jalapenos (from plant starts that I buy locally instead of starting from seed), I want to try my hand at growing this non-spicy variety. I like spicy, but sometimes I want just the flavor and not the heat.
Like the nadapeno above, this is the non-spicy version of the habanero pepper—and I fully admit, this one is because I can’t take the normal habanero heat, but I do like the flavor. I’ve tried to grow this for the past two years and have gotten NOTHING from them, so this is the last year and if I get nothing again, I’ll take it as a hint to just let this one go.
I admit it—I’m literally only choosing this one because it’s pretty. The description sounds like it will be super tasty, so that’s definitely good… but look at how pretty that is! I hope I can grow it.
I think these are those mini sweet peppers that you can get in the grocery store, and if they are, I SO hope I can grow them well! Easily one of my favorite ways to “add more veggies” to almost any dish. Pizza topping, in curry, in stir fry, in pasta sauce, sautéed up with some kale and onions as a yummy side dish. I’m excited to grow these.
One of our favorite YouTube videos are the Veggie Boys’ pepper picking videos. They grow tons of peppers, but every year, Jim and I drool over their “Italianelle” and “Cubanelle” harvests. I couldn’t find a pepper called “Italianelle” this year, but this one looks pretty close and very tasty.
Again, since I couldn’t find any seeds that directly said “Italianelle,” I just looked for Italian sweet peppers that were roughly the same shape as the ones the Veggie Boys pick.
I was, however, able to find some Cubanelle seeds, so this year we are hoping to pick tons of peppers like the Veggie Boys do.
Since I’m buying my normal jalapenos as starts, I want any jalapeno seeds I start to be something that I know I can’t get from one of my local sources. I’m interested in trying them out.
This is another one that I’m literally only getting because they’re pretty. Also, I’m a sucker for purple produce, and I had no choice but to add these to my cart.
In addition to the jalapeno starts I’ll be buying locally, I’ll also be on the lookout for anything interesting that I can add. Perhaps a Poblano or an Anaheim pepper (or both!). I successfully grew Shishito peppers last year and I did like them, but I feel that they’re too limited in usage to give it space in the garden this year—of course, I’m saying that now when I’m not at a nursery looking at all the plants that I want to grow, so I may change my mind about the shishitos later.
For now, though, I’m just hoping to get a really bumper crop of peppers this year.
NOTE: I don’t know if I NEED to say this or not, but those links to the online stores where I bought my seeds are NOT affiliate links, I just included them as a resource to anyone who might be interested.
