Hot peppers are distinguished from sweet peppers simply by their pungency or hotness of flavor. There are thousands of hot pepper varieties in the world. (This is the case because peppers easily cross pollinate to produce new kinds.) The hotness of a pepper is determined by number of blisterlike sacs of capsaicinoids on the interior…
Chili Peppers
Blossom End Rot
Blossom end rot is a black, sunken area at the blossom end of tomatoes or peppers. The blossom end is the end of the fruit opposite the stem. Blossom end rot is most often seen on green fruits, usually the first fruits to appear on the plant. Blossom end rot is caused by calcium deficiency…
Pepper Varieties: Best Bets and Easy-to-Grow
Peppers demand a warm location from start to finish. For peppers to prosper: sow pepper seed in a warm seed bed and transplant seedlings into a warm planting bed where the air temperature will remain consistently warm until harvest. Cool weather and soil are a pepper’s greatest challenge. Here are best bet, easy-to-grow peppers, both…
How to Grow Hot Chili Peppers
Hot peppers are most easily grown from transplants. Grow hot chili peppers in the warmest, frost-free time of the year. Start hot pepper seed indoors 6 to 8 weeks before the date you intend to set peppers into the garden. Peppers can be seeded in the garden or transplanted out 2 to 3 weeks after…
Popular Chili Peppers
There are more than 200 varieties of chilies or hot peppers. Sometimes the names of chilies can get a bit confusing because often the same pepper will be known by two or even three different names. Here’s a quick users’ guide to about four dozen very popular chilies and how you can used them in…
Five Ways to Cook Chili Peppers
Chilies or hot peppers can be eaten raw or they can be roasted, grilled, pan-seared, toasted, or stuffed. Chilies can also be added to other cooked dishes; they contain natural chemicals that enhance the flavor of other foods during cooking. Often small, hot chilies—such as the jalapeño, Serrano, poblano, Anaheim, and banana–are used fresh. But…
