So I hung up these “habanero chiles” I bought from ShopRite to dry them. And I know next to nothing about drying peppers or anything. They have these dark spots on them now, is that normal? They’ve been hung up since Dec 26 in my basement. I’m expecting this to take another 2 or 3 weeks but the spots are kind of concerning. Is the fact that it’s winter an issue? Any other tips would also be appreciated. Thanks :)

So excited! Thanks to everyone who participated and a big shout out to the people who head this all up.

I thought you all would appreciate the GIANT bottle of hot sauce I made from my first Serrano harvest. It’s got a beautiful heat and I’m so excited to try fermenting the next one. This is my own recipe that I’m perfecting for my partners birthday gift. He’s getting his own brand of hot sauce and I’m very proud of how the first try turned out ☺️

Here we go for the 2025 season 🤘🏻🔥

The bushy ones had received the big chop at the first aphid attach, the long whispy ones had peppers on them at the time and I rode it out. Giving them a spray as the aphids resurfaced. Maybe I should cut away the old affected leaves.

When I was living in Austin until about 15 years ago, I had wild Chili Tepin plants growing randomly in my back yard. These were short dense plants with narrow leaves and the peppers were very small round berries around 5mm. Hot AF and tasty! A gift from nature!

I took some to Virginia when I moved up East and enjoyed them until my last plant died.

Since then I have tried several commercially available Tepin seeds and none of them are the same, usually much sparser, taller branching plants and the peppers are larger 7-9mm. Some varieties were round, some oblong. Also not as hot as I remembered and the taste was not the same as those damn wild yard chilis..

Anybody know what I am talking about and does anybody have a source for seeds? My wife loved that plant for its beautiful grpwth pattern and I sure loved munching on the peppers! Made some wicked red sauce with those little mammerjammers, the perfect condiment conveniently growing five feet from my smoker...

I expect that many varieties and phenotypes are lumped together under the general category of Chiltepin/Pequin/Tepin and what I am looking for might not be one of the more prominent members of the native pepper clan.

Amy information or insight is welcome. Hope to grow these again someday!

Hey, I have a new greenhouse that I'm looking to start some new varieties and just wondered if anyone had any ideas of some delicious varieties to try out. I'm looking for a bit of spice but also just nice and fruity tasting. Any ideas would be awesome!

Looking to enter the State Fair for several categories but looking to really wow in the Pickled-Other category with a pepper of sorts.

Any pepper that would taste pretty good for Pickling? I've done hungarian hot wax in the past which turned out pretty good but open to suggestions before I start germinating seeds for the season here soon.

Seed Exchange 2024, including a surprise “Purple Tomato” package! Thank you to the mods for setting this up and executing for everyone!!!

Any recommendations on what to plant?

These are day 65, I tried to LST one of them and I topped the other at day 60. These are my first peppers I’ve grown from seed. I’ve been feeding with fox farm trio and they’re planted in happy frog getting 20on 4off light. Is this normal for this age? I’m counting day 1 from sprout. I’m thinking one might be too close to the light. Any advice appreciated!

Recently I have seen some debate over what the hottest pepper is... Some say pepper x (although we can't try that) some say the Warthog by Mathew Arthur and others say the Chocolate Primatolli, I presume this means these 3 peppers are the hottest 3 there are, but what other peppers would you say are up there with them (if any)?

So what are your top hottest peppers according to heat level (SHU) that aren't these top 3?

I started growing some "white carolina reaper" peppers in early September. so far I've had over 100 flowers appear on my three plants over the last month but so far only two small peppers have popped up and quite a few flowers have dropped. I've used cotton swabs and shake them everyone in a while to try and pollinate them. does it usually take pretty long for fruit to appear? any tips would be great! thank you!

yesterday i separated and repotted 11 of my reaper seedlings and they seem to be doing fine, they have been under lights and on heat mats, i woke up today the weather is great. (finally)

my question is, how long should i put my seedlings out in the sun for? (if at all)

would they be better of getting some breeze outside but left in abit of shade?

or will them being by my window enough for them?

sorry for all the posts but i am new to this and I really appreciate all the help from everyone ✌️

I love these seeds! They're open pollinated so crosses do occur, but I'm fine with that. Last year, I had excellent germination rates, and many of the seeds grew true to type.

Wish they were ready and dried for Chinese New Year. Happy to have them and excited for it to fruit.

Somehow when I ordered my seeds I thought I bought Fresno's from Johnny Seeds this year but I actually bought Flaming Flares. I grew 6 different varieties of hot peppers. Out of the 6, the Flaming Flare's absolutely blew away everything else is terms of growth, fruit output, disease resistance. Only the Scotch Bonnett's compare. I'm talking 6 times the size of the other plants, all planted on the same day. Anyways, I am super annoyed that I grew what seems to be a pepper with no heat but they seem remarkably prolific in south FL. Mine are still all green but I am wondering if anyone else has grown Flaming Flares and how they were? I have 4 beautiful plants right now and about 40 peppers on the first harvest about to turn orange.

Update: I grabbed a green one off and took a bite. No heat at the bottom, the seeds actually had quite a bit of kick. So these might be promising if I'm getting maybe 1/3 of a Jalapeno heat while they're still in green stage.

I noticed early on that the pot for this plant would get white mould-looking stuff on the outside. I always just wiped it away with a dry cloth. This past week the pepper has suddenly taken a turn for the worse, with black and sometimes white/clear spots on the leaves, the leaves curling and yellowing and dying fast. We have occasional house spiders (the long-legged fellas) and fruit flies this time of year, but they don't seem to affect any of the plants much except for being in proximity at times.

I've always grown peppers outdoors but this Hawk's Claw Cayenne was in very rough shape as a seedling, so I transferred it to a terracotta pot while planting the better ones. It ended up flourishing after bringing it inside and under a grow light. I typically water when the soil is dry and leave the grow light on for 12 hours per day.

I trimmed most of the damage I could, but some spots remain. If there's a way of potetially saving it, I'd also like to hear your thoughts. I have a second one nearby that is starting to get the little spots but is not as badly affected. It has its own issues of stems/leaves spread too wide.

I tried uploading some photos below, but I don't know if it was successful.

https://preview.redd.it/3ifzov8z3fce1.jpg?width=3000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7846c6f2ed568c50899a35de3f59464c2b0ef62e

https://preview.redd.it/0j4x1x8z3fce1.jpg?width=3000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2ac60473566dbeeb8b4742d7c02c3dc0f85ccffb

Just put this together today. Jan-10-2025. What you all think of this set up. Want to get a head start on my hot peppers. They take forever to germinate. 7000lumen 6500kelvin. 2 Fans and 2 oscillating fans. 6 shelf rack.

Just curious if there are some unique banana peppers that are worth getting seeds for instead of just getting the generic banana pepper seeds. Also curious about the same question with Pepperoncinis.

Happy to share the finalized selections for 2025. A mix of F4 and F5 populations. They're all really cute and high quality crosses of Aji Charapita and pink varieties. Let me know what you'd improve, the point is sharing ✌️