They are all excellent choices! Some of them did not produce that well for me however. I love the fact that you can get the chinense flavor but with no heat.My family loves St.Lucia, Grenada, Trinidad Perfume and aji bolsa de dulce.I prefer amazon chile roma

The thinner skinned peppers are better for drying than the thick skinned varieties. But, most peppers can be dried and if you like they can be ground into flakes or even powder.

jolokster: thank you! so the peppers do have reasonable or quite a bit of variation in flavor. I wish I knew more. I wish I could visit a garden and see them and smell them. At this point I can only order a plant or two and hope for the best. That they grow enough to give me peppers and the ones I get I like the flavor. I am going to order today from superhotchiles.com. Now they only have Trinidad perfume and Arroz con Pollo peppers. I will try those.

esox07: hi there again! Thank you for the tip on drying peppers. If I get sufficient then this will be the first time I dry peppers. I have used and loved dried peppers all my life but this is a whole new territory. I can't wait.

K.

Hi i did grow the Trinidad smooth in 2013 and it ended up being one of my favorite tasting non hot peppers. this is how they grew for me in 2013. Also this is the only chinense pepper i actuallly loved using green also because it had such a different profile than any of the habs i grew at the time.

Hi merlinjr! I am on my computer at the same time. Thank you so much for posting those pictures. That's a healthy plant and beautiful peppers. I hope mine look good like that. I would use chillies green and ripe. I like the different flavors.

I went and ordered Trinidad perfume and Arroz con Pollo from superhotchiles.com today as that is all he had. I am so excited to try this. Both for the love of gardening and a fragrant ing in my cooking. He was slightly trying to deter me from getting these as I am growing peppers for first time this season and I might not succeed. They take a long time to grow and they would not bear fruit for me by the end of the season. What do you think?

I just have a couple of questions since you have done this. Dos this pepper grow just fine in pots (as yours) or will it do better in the soil? Or do you only grow in pots? Can I grow in the soil then repot it to bring it in? Or can I treat as an annual? If its best I grow it in a pot, what growing mix do you use?

Thank you so much for helping me out like this.

Oh I ordered Brazilian Star Fish, on a whim, getting carried away. That's almost a fragrant pepper too right?

K.

Thai Hot, chili pequin, tepin, and Lemon Drops are my favorite seasoning peppers. They're all small and around 50k on the Scoville, so they won't burn the uninitiated out...

hi Katyajini

I only grow peppers in pots so i cannot comment on growing in soil but lots of people here do grow in both pots and in soil. As for the potting mix i used I got the recipe on this forum in "container gardening" section and its basically the "511" mix and there are tons of info on it on the container gardening section here. basically for me those plants in the pics were from seed and my growing season is long. They overwinter great and if possible that may be a great option if you are able to overwinter them for next year if so they would give you lots of peppers all throughout your season. But luckily thanks to this forum i basically just started to grow peppers the last few years and had great success with containers using the 5 parts pine bark fines (in my area its labelled pine bark mulch) 1 part peat moss or potting soil and 1 part perlite aka 511 mix... along with dolomite lime at 1 tbsp per gallon of potting mix and I fertilize with dyna gro liquid gro or foilage pro at every watering at 1/4th strength.

If making your own soil isn't a option I also had success with using regular potting soil and mixing in more perlite for drainage in my area the potting soil sold is usually Baacto Premium lite.

Hope this helps and good luck with your grow :)

Oh and the closest i have to the Brazilian Star Fish pepper is a Bishop Crown and it looks similar and are sweet/mild and i do like them alot.

Hi merlinjr! Thank you again for such detailed description for the potting mix. I think I will be able to do it. I think I will grow some of the arriving plants in pots for taking in later.

Good growing to you too.

:)

K.

Just a few off the top of my head..

Amazon Chile Roma's are good for those who do not particularly enjoy that powerful chinense smell and taste ... my guess is it's a human DNA taste-bud thing since there are some of us who feel that many chinense have an overpowering aroma & petroleum taste. But this one has milder flavor overall.

Trinidad Perfume definitely has unique flavor and texture, yummy and not overpowering, in a category of it's own imho. A little less crisp than average. Good production.

Tobaggo Seasoning: closer to typical red Chinense flavor and aroma, more complex flavor than average (good for cooking + powder) and minus 99% of the heat. A keeper but the plant has low to medium production in my experience.

Numex Suave Red or Orange: Productive, strong Chinense flavor and aroma, would make a good powder concentrate for this reason imho, or it can be used in a powder blend to tame down the heat of other varieties.

I think you are on the right track by experimenting with Baccatums also, there's many unique flavors to be found there, and enough types to keep you busy experimenting for years! And as a bonus, they make the best picklers.

Steve

Thank you so much Steve for those descriptions. Yes it is certainly going to be years (of fun) to experience so many wonderful peppers. And the baccatums sound quite special too.

Just a question: do the chinenses like Trinidad Perfume take a log time to bear in general? About how long?

Thank you!

K.

You're very welcome K.

In general most Chinenses do take a little longer compared to the standard annuum peppers everyone is used to. There are exceptions, like Hot Paper Lantern, extremely productive plants, but they are too hot for most palates. Unlike other species, chinenses are pretty bland when unripe, this makes the extra wait worthwhile. I would say the description at Chileplants.com is correct, Trinidad Perfume will take around 80 days after you plant the young starts. This means you would have ripe pods late august or early september if you planted them soon.

Baccatums take even longer to ripen on average, but the good news is they still taste great even when unripe. But ripeness does bring out their unique aroma(s) & sweetness.

Oh, something i forgot to mention earlier. If you are looking to sample as many different tastes as possible, in addition to growing different species, going forward make sure you choose peppers with different ripe colors. Try out different ripe yellows, goldens & orange, reds, purples etc.

Steve

Hello Steve,

Colors of ripeness....now we getting really good. I am sure I will get a lot of green this summer....and...

You know just what to say.

K.

The only ones I grew that I thought was great tasting was the Red Datil and Aji Red Hab. Both very sweet and tasty. They both have that Habanero flavor. Both plants are bushy and put out a lot of pods. No heat at all in either, not even Jalapeno heat.

Thank you tomt226: I am so eager to try lemon drops (I am assuming it is Aji Limon). I have never had an Aji. I have tried and use often the other chilies you mention and I love them. For me they are hot chilies. I want explore these non hot chiles, which are not quite sweet peppers either.

K.

Hi ronnyb123: I was not aware that red datil is not hot. I have to look into that. I just read about the Aji Habanero too not being hot. thank you! what a plethora of flavors to try!

K.

katyajini:

Lemon Drops have a unique flavor and make a great salsa, plus great for pickling. I'm gonna mix those and Yellow Fatalis this year for a yellow salsa. If you want to try a truly non-heat variety, try the Numex Suave Orange habanero. A large bush, prolific producer with a great hab flavor. I have to mix ghost peppers with them to get any heat.

Hey katyajini,

Here is a link you might find helpful. http://www.pepperscale.com

They do a decent job describing peppers flavors and heat. However they are so many varieties of peppers. No one can discribe them all. Almost all peppers can mix to grow and create more varieties. That is my current project.

Not to mention ways of cooking and storing them. I like peppers like Bubba loved shrimp in Forest Gump. My favorite is to smoke peppers before drying or making sauces. My second favorite way to make sauces is to roast them.

You can pot all peppers. However, they do need sufficient roots space to handle the heat. If it's to hot and the roots are to small the pepper will wilt from not being able to take in enough water. In my experience you need 2-3 gallon pots for survival. 5 galons to thrive. The 5-1-1 mix is great if you are bad to over water plants. It is a very thirsty mix 5 parts pine bark, 1 part peat, and 1 part perlite. It's been a while but I believe that is the mix. In containers the only have the nutrients you provide it.

Thank you tomt226! and thank you T S, again!

Ahhh I am aghast and upset. In my first pass I am not finding pine bark fines anywhere. Seems like its well known and yet so rare!

Steve: you are in NJ. Do you know a place that sells pine bark fines?

Sand and mulch places sell "top soil" usually it's mainly sand and compost. A soil structure test can help you figure out what you need. It's simple throughly wet the soil squeeze it. The push on it with your finger. If it breaks apart easy you are probably alright. If it does not compost and sand help. The other test is a mason jar test. With that test take about 4 inches of dirt fill it up with water and shake. Check it in a day or 2. You should see 3 layers the bottom is sand the middle is silt "compost and humus" the top is clay. I shoot for say loam which is about 40% sand 40% silt and 10% clay. Yes I know that is not 100% but it's a guide line. Top soil from a sand and mulch place if you can haul it is the cheapest way to go.

So I am to find a "sand and mulch" place buy "top soil" and use that as "pine bark fines" in my potting mix for peppers? Is that right?

I just use their top soil. Is I can find bark cheap enough I grab some just to keep the soil improving much like compost or green manure. But Sandy loam is the way to go in my opinion.

The main thing is drainage and air space for the roots.

hi if your making a 511 bark based mix please see the following link. Also on the container gardening section of the forum there are pine bark fines resources however i don't have links but a search can bring them up.

Tapla's 511 mix

Thank you so much guys. I have do more home work.....

K.

In the past i picked up actual pine bark fines at Lowes i believe, but it may have been Home Depot. At the time, a few years ago, there was a certain brand of pine bark mulch that had mostly smaller pieces in the bag, these smaller pieces are known as "fines". Sorry, i do not remember the brand name. I remember the plastic bag being partially clear, so i was able to look inside to confirm mostly smaller pieces (you can always throw out the larger pieces).

But the past few years i no longer insist on it being smaller "fines", i just pick up any bag of pine bark mulch and throw it into the dirt since i don't use containers as much any more. I use it to condition my ground soil, it also helps oxygen penetrate the root zone better, this equals bigger, healthier plants.

Steve

I did a lot of searching. Local nurseries, big box stores, garden centers, etc..... They all looked at me like I was asking for moon rocks when I asked for Pine or Fir bark fines. After a couple years of looking, I finally came upon this. It was at a Kmart near me. I saw the same product at another Kmart in my area and I don't know if it is a locally stocked product or nation wide, but it worked great for me. It does require some sifting as the size varies, but the end product is some perfect sized quality pine bark fines.

Steve, I use pine bark mulch a lot in my yard. It works very well for me too. I have never worked it into the soil but as a covering. It breaks down pretty quickly and moves down with regular gardening and earthworms etc and does make the soil very happy. But what I can get easily is way too coarse to make potting mix.

esox07: I haven't been to Kmart yet. Looking through gardenweb, my goodness, what trouble people are having finding this stuff. Thank you for taking the trouble to post.

K.

Hi nanelle_gw it will be great to do this together as life permits.

That's a beautiful bunch of peppers you got there. I don't know anything but from the few pictures I have been browsing the yellow guy on the right of the first picture is an Aji. Like Aji amarillo or Aji cito ....They can be hot but are very tasty everyone says! Someone will chime in probably.

You are in Zone 9 and you still did not get ripe peppers or much at the end of the season? That's sad news for me. Lets see....

I am getting ready to pot some plants soon. If I could only find the components of the potting mix recommended....

Did you overwinter the plants as if they were house plants?

K.

I usually get ripe peppers, and harvest past Thanksgiving, but the bunch from Cross Country went in pots mid June, while I have usually potted up by early May. Seems to matter more with chinenses. The overwintered plants spent Thanksgiving until maybe early April in my garage. They probably spent a few hours over that time in the the thirties, some plants didn't make but, but temps may not be why. I had a aphids too, and I was uncertain about water and feeding. Most turned out great, but there may have been pH or nutrition problems. Maybe whitefly.

BTW, I grew up in Brooklyn, Queens, and later, The Bronx.

katy

The timberline product needs to be screened thru garden cloth, and then you use the fines to make the 511. You can choose to use the leftover 'bigs' as mulch, or run them thru a blower/mulcher to make smaller, and run thru the garden cloth again.

dave

Dave, thank you so much. But what is the garden cloth you are referring to? What I am finding is quite tightly woven synthetic fabric that can let air, light and water through but for most part will not let even tiny insects through. So I don't see how that can act as a sieve for fines. I might not even get dust coming out, leave alone fines. I am trying to get to HD tonight to see if there a kind of wire mesh available with an acceptable openings...? But I will look in the store and ask for garden cloth and of course pine bark fines.

K.

dave ( bragu_DSM 5 ) ....I can no longer resist asking. DSM5? As opposed to DSM IV-TR?

Thank you everyone for helping me through my frustrations of finding pine bark fines. I didn't actually find pine bark fines but what I did find was

Manufacturer: Coast of Maine

called: Bar Harbor Blend Enriching Mulch

"made from naturally composted very old dark bark"

"can be worked into soil"

"will not rob soil of nitrogen"

It looks quite good. Really fine textured but fluffy, not at all compacting, essentially black.

From the descriptions I read on this site this sounds very close to if not the same as pine bark fines. Except it is not entirely pine. I am guessing being from Maine there has got to be much pine in it. I felt it through my fingers in an open bag and I liked it. I think it would make a very good potting mix.

it was $10.00 for 2 cu ft

and I got it from Stew Leonard Grocery Store.

K.