It's my understanding and my experience that hot peppers, planted right next to non hot and even mingling with them, do NOT make them hot. And they certainly have no effect on tomatoes. The ONLY effect on non hot peppers would be in seed saved; then you might get a cross.

There was in interesting discussion about this topic last year that's worth reading.

Rodney

Here is a link that might be useful: peppers

I've never noticed it and as wuss as my family is, I'm sure they'd tell me when my red bells had the heat of even an Anaheim.

I'm just waiting for the day when bells put out the number of pods as my Bhuts do.

:)

Kevin

Not sure how often but I'm sure there are the occasional accidental hybrid seed or someone accidentally mislabeled the seeds, which could explain people being surprised by a hotter than expected plant.

If that true then would somewhat possible make totomatoe taste like a cantaloupe

Botanically not logical for a neighboring plant to affect the flavor of what is growing next to it. If cross pollination occurs, that would affect the seeds producing the next generation. The intensity of hot peppers is affected more by when you harvest them.

Rodney: I had forgotten that discussion you linked. It made me smile again to read about soilent_green experimenting and eating pepper leaves, stems, flowers, and roots (!) to try to solve some of the sweet-peppers-get-heat questions.

"Botanically not logical for a neighboring plant to affect the flavor of what is growing next to it."

What about corn ;)?

(Just a little tongue in cheek, I know we're talking about peppers here.)

Corn does not cross with anything but Zea mays. However since the seeds are the edible part of corn, cross pollination does affect the current generation. Peppers are not rampant cross pollinators, But when a hot pepper and a sweet pepper of the same species do cross pollinate, it is possible for the seeds to be hot when the sweet pepper ripens.. Does not happen often, but maybe often enough to start these stories. I interplant hot and sweet peppers with no problems.

A lot of cross pollination questions on the site right now.

Most years, I grow a pepper patch of mixed sweet & hot peppers - with the two often directly adjacent - and have not observed any heat in the sweet peppers. I don't entirely discount the possibility that crossed seeds might possess some heat... but sweet peppers are not generally eaten without cleaning them. If there were such heat, I would expect to feel it or smell it during cleaning, which has not been the case.