Good luck. There are going to be a lot of opinions based on someones taste that is not your own. Over time, by trying new varieties, you will find what's best for you.

john

Well that's not helpful, I guess it is - just not for this year.

My recommendation is pick a few varieties for uniqueness. I'm growing a chocolate, a purple, a cardinal all sweets.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Chili Pepper Institute

This is my first year growing peppers - i'm doing Lemon Drops, peach & red Habaneros, Thai, orange bell peppers, and Candlelight. Going to go for more than 6 plants though, probably more like 12 :)

Lemon Drop in particular seems very popular and well-regarded as far as taste.

I checked out Cross Country Nurseries and have a couple ideas for you:

Chimayo
One of the Chilhuacles
Hawaiian Sweet Hot
Maybe a piquin or Gumdrops. The peppers are small but hot and would be pretty in bottles of vinegar or whatever..
I see they have Datil and Fatalii too if you want some heat.

Since you are limited, I would think practicality of what you would use/share. Also, containers can be elevated as well. You could get a couple ornamentals and hang them.

I am new to chile growing too - just coming to the end of my second summer, but here are a few suggestions.

Pasilla Bajio (Negro) Another mild chile with a beautiful raisin flavour - mix with other chiles to give flavour to meat stews.

Jalapeno Prolific producer, moderate heat and good flavour. Early producer (you don't have to wait until they ripen)! Yes there are 30 or 40 different varieties of jalapeno and I don't know which one I have!

Serrano Very heavy producer and although mine have not yet ripened they seem to have only moderate heat and a very good flavour.

Habanero. One of the hottest but with the most beautiful fruity flavour. I make a chile butter by infusing the hab flakes in softened butter and leaving to mature. Great on toast, or a dob on a salmon steak, but make a caramel sauce from the butter and pour the hot (and hot) sauce over vanilla or chocolate ice cream - mind blowing!! They need a long growing season, and again there are many varieties of habenero.

Brien

i live near phila. some peppers i have grown and would recomend from cc
shishito ~sweet/hot japanese ~this one is good
chilhuacle rojo/amarillo/negro ~mole
czechoslovakian black ~like a black jalapeno
giant szegedi ``~sweet white bell /paprika
cheiro ~tiny, tropical habanero heat
bhut jolokia ~ worlds hottest
bolivian rainbow ~ornamental, purple

Chimayo is excellent for flavor but mild. Low yield by weight. Dries easy and makes a great powder. Serrano and Jalapeno have high yields by weight because they are full of water. fairly good for hot sauce or pickled slices. Lemon drop has high yield grows in tiny pots prolific but very hot.

Hybrid Jalapeno and serrano can do 50 tons per acre and nothing else can come close to that by weight. The non hybrids can do 20 tons per acre.

Now it depends on your use. hot sauce is different from dry powder.

You really should try some New Mexico types. they come from very mild to very hot. These have a high yield.

tiny peppers can have a high yield in number of peppers that add up to nothing. One New Mexico pepper is probably more than a thousand of some tiny peppers.

For raw heat that dry out the cayenne. I dont like the cayenne. but it has high yield and heat and drys easy. Some people like the cayenne.

50 tons per acre * 2000 lb/ton = 100,000 pounds per acre. That is a huge yield.

I like Early Jalapeno because it will ripen red. It is not hybrid. I do not grow hybrids.

We use a lot of green chiles. In cans in the store, 3 or 4 of them cost $1.35. So, we grow a lot of green chiles, peel them and freeze them. I figure one plant is worth about $100 this way! Thai peppers grow like weeds and we like to add them to stir fry. The store well when dried. Jalapenos aren't expensive in the store but yield huge results so we put in 6-10 plants a year for pickling. My favorite is habs. I wish I knew a good way to preserve fresh habs over the year...

I grow a 6 X 10 plot of peppers every year for 6 yrs I have narrowed it down to 4 yellow sweet bell 4 red sweet bell 6 jalepenos 3 bannana peppers. I grew habs for years but couldnt eat as many as i grew gonna skip a year or so as frozen fresh they work in recipes just fine. Sweet peppers are very slow growing. Bannanas are the fastest with jalepenos in the middle. I start from seedlings dont know which are top peppers I grow them to eat and cook with almost out of frozen from last year except for habs ready to start a new plot

Thanks for mentioning Cross Country in your posting. I couldn't remember their name when trying to help someone with a source for hot pepper plants. I bought from them by mail years ago and they were great. I've used these for cooking, only rarely eating straight or in salsas. They don't do well in other than sandy soil. CC may not have every year. 1. Datil - hot, flavorful, also for drying and grinding to powder, Google on Minorcan recipes, 2. Datil Sweet - mild, great for stuffing roasts, 3. Aji Habanero - similar to Datil but milder.