I once grew peppers which were called pepperoncini, but they weren't. Wish I could help.

George

I got the figitelli sicilias at Baker Creek. I think I was looking for pepperoncini at the time, because DH loves those.

There are at least two kinds of pepperoncini peppers whose seeds are commonly sold---the Greek pepperoncini and the Italian pepperoncini. Which type are you looking for?

Ha, Amy, I found it at BC yesterday, too, and figured that's where you got them. Dawn, I found the pepperoncini at Sustainable Seeds (I opted for the Italian). I'd also forgotten about poblanos, so ordered those, too (Ancho).

Do you like pepperoncinis? And which variety? :)

I do not grow them. We wouldn't eat enough of them to make it worth while. Mostly I grow the sorts of peppers used in Tex-Mex dishes, so jalapenos, serranos, habaneros (strictly for Habanero Gold jelly), Anaheims and poblanos. With the jalapenos, we can tons of them as Candied Jalapenos and also freeze tons for year-round cooking, so most years I grow 4-6 varieties of jalapenos in order to spread out the harvest over the widest possible time frame. If the weather cooperates and I get the jalapeno plants in the ground early enough, we are harvesting jalapenos from late May/early June through November (or the first freeze, which was prior to November this year). Every few years I'll grow other specific peppers for specific reasons---like, either last year or the year before, I grew chicken hearts (Hinklehatz) just so I could use them to make pepper sauce (similar to Tabasco sauce). Pepper sauce is a big thing where I grew up in Texas and I like being able to make our own, but a little goes a long way, so I don't grow them every year. I always grow bell peppers to use in making salsa. When you can as much salsa as I do, you need a lot of bell peppers. Most years, I grow far more peppers than we can use fresh or in canning recipes, but I do try to preserve as many of them as possible, whether it is through canning, freezing or dehydrating them.

I also love to grow ornamental peppers, though I don't necessarily grow them every year. I didn't grow ornamental varieties this year, so likely will grow them next year because I did miss having them. That is part of planning the garden each winter---asking myself what I didn't grow in the current year and missed, so that I can add it to the following year and not miss having it two years in a row.

Over the years, I bet I've grown at least 200 different varieties of peppers of all kinds, but only the best are still on the Grow List for any given year. It was fun to try a lot of different ones, but only the ones we use a lot of will make it onto the list regularly.

I don't know which variety of pepperoncini it is, but I like the ones commonly served on salad bars.

Me too, George. That's what I'm looking for!

I love ornamentals, too--I wasn't impressed with the fish peppers I grew this year, however. I'm going to have to shop around.,

You will see pickled pepperoncini peppers sold labeled as Greek pepperoncinis or Golden Greek Peppers, sweet Italian peppers or Tuscan peppers. They all are not the same.

The ones sold as Golden Greek peppers are the kind you generally see on salad bars (or, at least that's what we see at the places we go to). If you ever order Papa John's pizza, their peppers are the golden Greek type of pepperoncinis. These peppers are a golden-green and are fairly small--maybe 2-3" long, and can vary from 1/2 to 1" in diameter. They will ripen to red, but the ones I see pickled usually were harvested at the golden green stage. The Italian ones are longer peppers, maybe 3-4" or even 5" long and perhaps slightly bigger in diameter. They often are harvested and pickled at the green stage too, but sometimes I see mixed red and green ones. They are not quite a sweet as the Golden Greek ones, and I don't think their flavor is quite as good. So, if I had to guess, George, I bet the Greek ones are the ones you want.

Nancy, I have grown Fish as an ornamental but didn't think it was especially ornamental compared to other ornamental peppers. I think of it for fish sauce Baltimore style more than for an ornamental.

My favorite ornamental peppers include the ones with dark purple foliage like Purple Flash (variegated white/purple/green foliage) and Royal Black. I also like Explosive Ember, Chilly Chili and Medusa and grow them pretty regularly.

Sedona Sun is a newer ornamental variety with yellow and orange peppers that is a nice contrast to the others which mostly have peppers that eventually mature to red.

I also like to grow Thai hot peppers as an ornamental.

The New Mexico Pepper Institute has a whole line of ornamentals, and when you are seeing their peppers, you'll known it because the phrase NuMex is in every variety's name.

Finally, for fun one year I grew 4 Texas Bird Pepper plants, mainly as ornamentals because I knew they'd produce more tiny peppers than we'd ever use. The plants did get huge and produced probably thousands of small peppers per plant. I harvested a few and used them (it only takes 2 of these tiny very hot peppers to spice up a whole batch of fresh salsa) but it wasn't until fall that I harvested a lifetime supply that I dehydrated and froze. I just couldn't waste all those tiny peppers. Of course, for years thereafter volunteer bird peppers popped up all over the garden because those tiny peppers either got spread around the garden by birds or by wind/rain.

Dawn

Dagnabbit, now I'm going to have to order the Greek pepperoncinis! And I wanted to get Medusa last year and got Fish instead. Medusa, here we come this year.

Yeah, the Greek Pepperoncinis made my list, too.

Dawn! Now you have me racing all over the internet studying pepper seeds! You rascal! Oh--I found an amazing one this afternoon. From Totally Tomatoes. Have any of you ordered from them? Oh--I see it's one you have grown, Dawn--Chili Chili! I had Purple Flash this year--it was so cute, but never did get very big. I want big and lots of color!

Nancy, Ornamental peppers are deliberately bred to be short, stocky and compact because the breeders mean for them to be used like ornamental bedding plants. Indeed, down here in our hot area, there's tons of almost full-sized ornamental pepper plants in the stores in May-July to be used to replace cool-season ornamental flowers that have played out in the heat. You know---yank out the cool-season ones, and plop the ornamental peppers into the ground in their place. So, some of them are only bred to be 8-10" tall, and others maybe 14-16" tall. For me, the purple tricolor one sold as Tricolor Variegata probably is the tallest one I've ever grown. Some years it maxes out around 2' tall, but in some very good, rainy years it has gotten taller than that. It is an exercise in frustration to wish for tall ornamental varieties because the breeders are deliberately breeding and selecting for dwarf sizes.

All peppers are ornamental though (just as all ornamental peppers are edible, though many are too hot to really eat), so the tallest ones in my garden usually are some of the poblano and Anaheim types. I have to stake or cage those early in theri lives or they get so tall they droop over the shorter ones or just completely fall over and lie atop the ground). I also cage most jalapenos as they will get 2-3' tall and also fall over when heavily loaded. I generally grow the shorter ornamental peppers as a border in a raised bed. I have the ornamental peppers along the southern edge of a bed that runs east-west, with the taller edible crop type peppers to their north. A few edible peppers that get pretty tall and are fairly ornamental include Bird Pepper (3-5' tall in my garden, with the 5' height being late in the season or in very rainy years), the similar chiltepin, and also Aji Red, Aji Lemon, Bolivian Rainbow (maybe maxes out around 3' tall) and Hot Sunset (3-4' tall). Some of the cayenne and tabasco types can get pretty tall too. Thai Hot is not a real tall pepper, but it is very heavily loaded with peppers (which are edible but fiery hot) and very ornamental.

You could use the shorter ornamental peppers along with something that has the height you want---maybe some of the taller types of celosia plants or sun coleus or something similar. One year I grew roselles as the tall plants in the center of a 4' wide bed, with various peppers (both ornamental and edible types) along both sides of the roselles (eventually the roselles sort of shade them late in the season, but by then the plants have produced a billion peppers and they keep producing even when partly shaded) and with ornamental sweet potatoes beneath the roselles and peppers. It was a gorgeous bed, but I did have to keep pulling the sweet potato vines off the peppers and roselles because the vines wanted to climb the taller plants. Copper plants also look really good with the darker roselles and all the ornamental peppers and tall celosias.

Dawn

Oh sizes. . . The fish pepper got really big, nearly 3 feet. And ones I grew several years were about 2 feet. So I was surprised that the cute little purple splash only got to be, as you say, 10 inches. It was nice and fleshed out, however. If I grow it again, and probably will, I'll have in a suitable container! Glad to know this. I'll pay attention to how high they get. That one I got from the nearby nursery, and the only info on it was the name. lol

It is the more modern ornamental peppers that are so short, but that's not their fault---it is the fault of the breeders! I wish they'd also breed some ornamental peppers for height like some of the taller ornamental varieties from long ago. I've had some of the dark-leaved ones reseed and when I let the volunteers grow, they look the same as the parent plants from the previous year but grow taller. I like that. And, of course, none of those volunteers popped up in the garden this year, likely because both 2015 and 2016 were so wet that any self-sown seeds didn't survive the constant moisture long enough to give us volunteers.

The dogs are torturing me. All 4 are indoors and are howling. Howling, howling, howling. At night, this might mean they hear coyotes howling outside, but during the daylight hours it usually means they hear either a train or the sirens of emergency vehicles off in the distance (neither of which I hear indoors). Sometimes peace and quiet is shockingly elusive.