They look a lot like tobasco peppers. Here's some I grew inside last winter under lights... you decide :) If they are tobasco, they get a lot juicer and the taste gets much better when they turn ripe (red). They were much hotter than I was expecting them to be based on the watery commercial sauce.

Nice happy-looking plant. Where is Farris? Down on the coast?

Thank you! So I should let them grow a bit more before I pick some? Mine are still yellow. At least till these green up if they will?

You can pick them at the green/yellow stage and they still have plenty of heat. Most of mine were picked unripe (pale greenish-yellow) because I ran out of winter before many of the peppers had ripened and I needed to reclaim the grow-light space to start my spring bedding plants. I froze the peppers whole and when I wanted to spice/heat up some soup or spaghetti sauce or whatever I would chop up a frozen pepper with scissors into the pot and it would add quite a shot of heat. I just finished them up a week or two ago and they still had lots of heat.

But if you are making pepper sauce or something like that (or you want to collect seeds for next year) then you probably want to wait for the peppers to turn red -- they will turn a deep bright red when ripe. When eating a whole pepper, the green ones tasted kind of mealy and acrid but plenty hot, whereas the few ones that turned ripe red for me had a much nicer pepper flavor and were also plenty hot. Like I say, it doesn't make much difference if you are using them only for heat (like me), but if you want to make a sauce out of them then fully ripe and red will give a much better result.

Thanks. That was a mouth full there friend. The Jalepenos are still producing. Houston heat and humidity helps with that. I usually chomp away at one for each meal. Now I'm thinking of having one of these before they ripen. YUM!

Hi Farris.

It looks like a pequin (aka bird) pepper. They're called bird peppers because they are eaten and dispersed by birds. Great little pepper and very common in Tejas. Some folks let them dry whole and carry around in a snuff can so they always have a little bit of fire with them, wherever they go. Snort at your own risk *lol*.

Enjoy!

Rick

looks like a tabasco pepper here is a pic from wiki commons. There were some that looked green on google but the pics were from flikr and I didnt want to download them.

here is the Texas Piquien aka Bird pepper; they are smaller than a dime, and yes, all the birds around my house love them, but I get them first because they are a tasty and hot wonderful pepper.

Daryll

This is a cool place for sure. The birds have also planted on of those Texas Piquien aka Bird pepper plants for me also. I transplanted it to a pot. Picked a few ripe ones. Now in November it now has more peppers. Jalopenas, Tobasko, and Texas Piquien aka Bird peppers. Life is good.

Definitely tabasco, one of my favorites. Wait till they turn red, 1c peppers to they say 3 cups vinegar (I don't use that much) some salt, boil them awhile, blend to the consistency you like and put in the fridge. Some ferment them, some strain them, but I like to use it as is, just have to shake it up before use. It's amazing how sweet the sauce is considering the liquid used is all vinegar and salt. Wonderful!
Pam

p.s. I never had bird peppers, piquins, tepins, any of the various varieties turn yellow, they are always green then red. Tabascos turn a pretty yellow.

if Pam says it tabasco, it is. The woman's crazy about them. Lol

Am I THAT obvious??! :-) Actually I've been going through withdrawal for awhile. Due to some problems earlier in the year, I lost my first tabasco, luckily I had some more and planted them. But I ran out of sauce in Aug. and the fruit are just now ripening. I dug up this 4ft plant and it's quite happy in the greenhouse, but still not enough ripe fruit to do much (I'm so desperate I actually made 1/3 cup of sauce with the handful of ripe ones I got last week ).
Pam

i can send you some douglahs to make sause with Pam.

haha, that's ok John, I'll stick to my tabasco.

I actually have a Douglah plant, but weirdest thing, it only produces 2 fruit at a time all season. It'd be covered in blooms, but only 2 fruit... once they were picked, it'd put out 2 more.... weird... I am only growing it for seeds and for a friend's hubby.