Pepper Types
By: National Gardening editors
Seed companies break the peppers we grow down into two categories: hot and sweet. The hot types include Cayenne, Jalapeno and Anaheim. Examples of sweet peppers are Bell and Pimiento. Banana and Cherry peppers come both sweet and hot.
Anaheim
Mildly hot, elongated, blunt-ended pods measure from four to 10 inches long and turn from green to red at maturity. These peppers are often called New Mexico chilis because of their long history of being grown in that region. Popular varieties include 'Anaheim TMR', 'NuMex Big Jim' and 'NuMex Sunrise'.
Banana
Long, thin-walled pepper that ripens to red or yellow; often used in the immature pale green stage. The hot type is called Hungarian Wax. Varieties include 'Sweet Banana' and 'Giant Yellow Banana'.
Bell
Characterized by large, blocky fruits with three or four lobes, these peppers are about three inches wide and four inches long and they taper slightly. Starting off as dark green to yellow-green, most turn red when fully ripe, although some turn yellow or orange, and even brown or purple. Bell peppers are regularly harvested and used when green. There are around 200 varieties in the Bell group. 'California Wonder', 'Northstar' and 'Ace' belong to this group.
Cayenne
These are hot chile peppers. The fruits are slim, pointed and slightly curved, ranging in length from two to eight inches. Most of the fruits are green, ripening to red. They can be used in either the green or the red stage. Examples are 'Large Thick Cayenne', 'Super Cayenne' and 'Long Red Cayenne'.
Cherry
Fruits are cherry or globe-shaped with three cells. They grow on long, upright stems, usually above the leaves of the plant. They are usually orange to deep red when harvested and may be sweet or hot, large or small. Varieties include 'Cherry Sweet' and 'Large Cherry'.
Jalapeno
One of the most well known hot peppers. The three-inch-long by one-inch-wide conical fruits can be eaten green or red and their mildly hot flavor is popular on nachos, salsas and pickled. Varieties include 'Jalapa', 'Jalapeno M' and 'TAM Jalapeno'.
Pimiento
These peppers are sweet and have very thick walls. The fruit is conical, two to three inches wide, three to four inches long and slightly pointed. Pimientos are red when ripe, and they're most commonly used at this stage. Popular varieties include 'Super Red Pimiento' and 'Pimiento L'.
Ornamental Peppers
Ornamental peppers are a true member of the Capsicum family like the peppers that are grown for food outdoors. Give them lots of sun and keep them evenly moist, and they'll produce many small cone-shaped peppers. These plants, which you can usually buy through a seed catalog, at a florist shop or even in a supermarket, are very pretty when the miniature peppers start to ripen. Often you'll have a plant simultaneously splashed with green, yellow, red and orange because each pepper ripens at its own pace.
These mini peppers are edible, but they are hot! You can use them in cooking or for attractive and different hors d'oeuvres along with crackers and a dip. Just be careful not to confuse them with a plant called the Jerusalem or Christmas Cherry. Instead of the cone-shaped peppers, these plants have round, reddish-orange fruits when ripe and they are not edible.
The Name Game
Chile, Chili, Cayenne, Jalapeno - By Any Name, It's Hot!
Names for hot peppers can get confusing. Some people call them chili peppers, cayennes or jalapenos, and others just call them hot peppers. What are they really called? Is each of these names a separate category?
The confusion started in Mexico. Chile is the Spanish word for pepper. To specify which type of pepper, Mexicans would add the word for the particular type after the name chile. Therefore, chile dulce would be sweet pepper, chile jalapeno would be the Jalapeno pepper, and so on. When chile found its way into this country, different meanings were given to it in various parts of the country, and it even acquired a new spelling. In the Southwest and West, chile is used to refer to the Anaheim pepper. In other parts of the South and the Southeast, and still other sections of the country, chile refers to any type of hot pepper. Some folks refer to all hot peppers as cayennes or jalapenos. And all over the country we have different chile con carnes, which are pepper based.
Chile and chili are not varieties of peppers, but only words used to describe that the pepper is hot. So whether you say chile or chili, cayenne or jalapeno, and whether the word describes just an Anaheim pepper or all hot peppers, watch out! That pepper is hot!
Starting Eggplant, Pepper, and Okra Seeds Indoors
By: National Gardening editors
Unless you live in the Deep South or Southwest, you won't want to sow your pepper or eggplant seeds directly into the ground. Most gardeners in these regions prefer either to buy transplants or start their own indoors for outdoor planting when the weather and the ground have warmed enough.
Starting Up With Okra
Okra has a reputation for being hard to transplant and because it doesn't require a very long season, many gardeners will sow their okra seeds right in the ground at the proper time. But if you want to and are willing to take a little extra care of the long taproot or main root that okra develops, you can successfully transplant this crop.
Some Basics On Starting Seed Indoors
It's very easy to grow your own transplants, and growing your own gives you the freedom to pick your own varieties. It also lets you make sure the plants get the best care right from the start.
To grow your own transplants, all you need is:
1. Sterilized soil or potting mix;
2. Suitable containers such as peat pots, flats, Jiffy 7's, milk cartons cut in half, or anything that will hold soil and provide good drainage;
3. A place to put the seeds while they're germinating that provides a warm, even temperature - bottom heat is especially important;
4. Plenty of sunshine or grow lights;
5. Seeds.
For good germination, make sure the container has holes for drainage. If excess water can't drain, your seeds will rot.
All your efforts can be ruined by damping off, a fungus disease that attacks the emerging seedlings, if you don't take steps to prevent it. The best preventive measures are to make sure your potting soil mix is sterile and that you don't overwater. Purchased soil and potting mixes usually are sterile. If you want to use your own garden soil, you can get rid of the fungus organisms and weed seeds by baking the soil in a shallow pan (like a cookie sheet), in a 200F oven for about an hour. Don't do this when you're hungry; the smell is enough to make you lose your appetite. And don't try to sterilize soil in a microwave oven: you may damage the oven. Another way to prevent damping off is to treat the seeds with captan, which can be bought at a garden supply store. Be sure to follow the directions on the package.
Pot Basics
To start growing your transplants, fill the container with moistened, not wet, potting mix or soil. If you're using peat pots or Jiffy 7's, plant a few seeds in each. This ensures at least one good plant per pot. In flats, sprinkle the seed about 1/4 to 1/2 inch apart. Then firm them into the soil with a flat, rigid object. such as a small wooden shingle or a kitchen spatula. Sprinkle some more of the potting mix over the seeds, covering them only to a depth of three to four times their own diameter. For pepper and eggplant seeds, about 1/4 inch of the moistened soil or mix is about right. Okra seeds are bigger and can take about an inch of covering. Firm the top of the soil again, so that the seeds come into good contact with the moistened soil to help germination.
Cover the flat or container with plastic wrap or put it in a plastic bag to help retain moisture. Then place the bundle in a spot that's consistently warm but not hot, such as the top of the fridge. Cover the packages with a few sheets of newspaper to help insulate them.
A sunny window is the worst place to put seeds that are trying to germinate. It's hot during the day and usually cold at night. These temperature extremes don't help the seeds to germinate. The top of your refrigerator is a great location because the temperature is constant, warming the soil around your seeds. It has the added benefit of getting flats or containers out of your way. Eggplant, pepper and okra seeds don't need sunlight to sprout, just warmth and a bit of moisture.
Fertilizing Eggplant, Peppers, and Okra
By: the Editors of National Gardening
Eggplant, peppers and okra are heavy feeders, but they are also picky eaters. They like small amounts of food all season long. Too much nitrogen will produce lots of foliage but not much in the way of fruits.
Adding Fertilizer
So, before planting, add some organic fertilizer, like dehydrated chicken manure, or any other type of animal manure. You can also work two to four pounds of a balanced fertilizer, such as 10-10-10, into each 100 square feet of soil. The numbers 10-10-10 refer to the percentages, by weight, of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) in the bag of fertilizer. For an extra boost at planting time, put a handful of compost or a teaspoon of 5-10-10, mixed with some soil, into the bottom of the hole and then cover the fertilizer with one to two inches of soil. This protects your plants from getting burned if the roots come into contact with the fertilizer.
The Match Trick
If you've tried to grow peppers in the past and you've been disappointed with the results, try this trick. Peppers like a pH that's a bit on the acid side (5.5 to 6.0), so take a few matches from a matchbook and mix them with the soil and fertilizer in the bottom of the transplant hole. Then cover this mixture with two to three inches of soil. The roots of the transplants must not come into contact with the matches because the sulfur can damage them. The sulfur in the matches lowers the pH around the roots, and the peppers seem to love it.
A variation of this trick can be done by buying sulfur powder at the drugstore, mixing a pinch of it with the soil in the bottom of the hole and covering it before planting.
Try the match trick. It just might give you the largest pepper crop you've ever had.
Careful with the Fertilizer
You also have to be careful when fertilizing. Sometimes pepper plants will have lots of blossoms but not enough fruit. This could be due to extremes of heat (temperatures above 90F) or cold (below 55F). Under these conditions, blossoms will drop off the plant rather than set. A lack of magnesium can contribute to the problem. To restore magnesium, buy some Epsom salts at the drugstore and add about one tablespoon to an empty spray bottle. Then fill the bottle with lukewarm water, shake it up so the Epsom salts dissolve and spray the solution on the leaves and blossoms of your pepper plants. If you do this a couple of times during the blossom period, you should have plenty of peppers.
Harvesting Eggplant, Peppers and Okra
By: the Editors of National Gardening
The most important thing about harvesting eggplant, peppers and okra is to start as soon as there's something to eat. It's the job of the plant to make seeds, so too much of the plant's effort will go into ripening the fruit instead of producing new fruit if you don't harvest regularly and often. Make it a practice to go out every few days and pick what's ready to eat. Try to get the most out of each plant. After all, having good things to eat is one of the main reasons to garden.
You can harvest peppers when they're as small as golf balls. Most peppers, except for a few varieties like Sweet Banana, are green when young. Don't be surprised if you see your bell peppers turn red; many of them do as they ripen. Harvest them by cutting through the stem of each fruit with a knife. You can have an almost-continuous harvest from your pepper plants by cutting often, as this encourages the plant to keep blossoming, especially in the beginning of the summer. Later in the season, leave some green peppers on your plants to turn red. They taste wonderful and are colorful in pepper relish.
In the South, pepper plants can be cut back after the first big harvest to encourage another crop. That's because peppers are really a perennial plant, although they are most often grown as an annual. If your season is long enough, cut the plant back to a few inches above the soil surface. The plant will grow back and give you a second, large harvest. Don't forget to sidedress, though, so the plant will have enough food to continue its work.
Eggplant tastes best when harvested young. If you cut into an eggplant and find an abundance of brown seeds, it's already too late for prime eating. The fruit will be a dark, glossy purple when it's ready to harvest. The surface of the eggplant will turn dull and it will taste bitter as it gets older and past its prime. To harvest eggplant, cut through the stem above the green cap, or calyx, on the top. It's a tough stem, so have a sharp knife handy. The calyx can be prickly, so you may want to wear gloves. You can cut these plants back like peppers if your season is long enough for a second crop.
Gloves and a long-sleeved shirt are practically a must when you harvest okra. The pods and leaves are usually covered with little spines you can hardly see. These spines can get under your skin and make your hands and arms itch for days.
Overripe okra is too tough to eat, and it grows so fast you may have to harvest every day. A pod that's ready one day will have gone by the next. The best pods, those not more than four inches long, should be cut with a knife or broken right below the cap on the bottom. Only one pod grows beneath each leaf, so break off the leaf after harvesting the pod. This helps you remember where you've already harvested and indicates where to start the next time.
Okra plants grow so tall in the South you may have to stand on a ladder to harvest them! Okra doesn't get nearly that tall in the North. When the plants get too tall to harvest, southern gardeners can cut them back to 12 to 18 inches above the ground. This is usually done in July or August. The plants will sprout again to make a second crop. You can also grow dwarf varieties that grow less than six feet tall.
Photographs by Suzanne DeJohn/NationalGardening.com (top); National Gardening.com
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