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Pepperology™ - Urban Farmer's Guide
Home > Gardener's Guide > Pepperology
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Today's gardeners enjoy the opportunity to select between a tremendous array of choices. You can pick sweet or hot. You also get to select color. There are a wide variety of colors to choose from including green, yellow, red, and orange. After you are done selecting hot/sweet and color, don't forget shape. There are traditional "bell pepper" shapes, long and slender, and of course round or "cherry peppers".
Sweet Peppers: An abundance of sweet peppers are available to home gardeners. Most plants grow to 2 to 3 feet tall. Two words used abundantly for peppers is "lobes" and "blocky". When you cut a pepper crosswise near the stem, you'll notice that the walls divide the pepper fruit into sections. Pepper experts call these sections "lobes". Well defined "lobes" make the pepper "blocky". Most sweet peppers have 3 to 4 "lobes". Blocky fruits are best suited for stuffing or slicing. A great sweet pepper is the 'California Wonder', a classic, thick walled, blocky bell that matures to red in 75 days.
Hot Peppers: In general hot peppers vary greatly in flavor and heat. Hot peppers are easier to grow than sweet peppers and produce more peppers. The active ingredient in these peppers that make them hot is called 'capsaicin'. This active ingredient forms tiny blisters on the fruit's inner wall. Fewer blisters are located at the tips of a hot pepper, so be careful when testing hotness, the tip is the weakest hot area. If you cut or handle the pepper roughly, you may break the inner-wall lining and release the capsaicin to all areas of the pepper. Our favorite is the 'Hungarian Yellow Wax' a medium hot, 7 to 8 inch long, tapered pepper that matures from yellow to red in 70 days.
The Scoville Heat Scale rates pepper hotness. The scale ranges from 0 to 350,000 and measures pepper hotness in multiples of 100.
| Pepper Types Bell Hot Cherry Jalapeño Anaheim Ancho Serrano Hot wax Tabasco Cayenne Habañero | Scoville Rating Range 0-100 100-500 400-2,500 500-2,500 1,000-1,500 10,000-25,000 10,000-40,000 30,000-50,000 30,000-50,000 100,000-350,000 |
