By Katelyn Bahr, Specialty Gardens Horticulturist | Photo credit: Carmen Michael
Photo (Above): Specialty Garden Horticulturist and volunteers (not pictured) harvest fresh produce from the Bruno Vegetable Garden to combat hunger in our community. As part of the Friends’ Harvest for the Hungry initiative, all of this delicious food is donated to the Foundry’s kitchen, a local addiction rehabilitation program.
The Bruno Vegetable Garden at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens harvests and donates about 2,000 pounds of produce each year. We love trying out new varieties, especially heirloom vegetables. These open-pollinated varieties allow us to save seeds, which we use to grow next year’s plants, and the rest are shared throughout the community. Here are some of our favorite pepper varieties we’ve grown recently that will keep you harvesting all season long!
‘Lemon Drop’ (Capsicum baccatum)
This bright yellow hot pepper will have you picking fruit until our first frost! Originally known as ají limon, the lemon drop is a popular seasoning pepper from Peru. It has a citrusy flavor with hints of lemon popping through the heat. With Scoville* Heat Units of 30,000-50,000, this pepper gives you just enough spiciness without being overbearing. This pepper is great for hot sauces, salsas, jellies, and preserves.
‘Fish’ (Capsicum annuum)
The Fish Hot Pepper might be our absolute favorite to grow! The flavor is wonderful, and the plants and peppers are showstopping. These 1.5-inch-long peppers vary in color from white, orange, red, purple, or green, with many having multiple colors and white striping. Not only do the colors vary, but so does the heat level of each pepper, ranging from 5,000 up to 30,000 Scoville Heat Units. This is a must-grow variety, even if it’s just ornamentally!
‘Shishito’ (Capsicum annuum)
Blistered shishitos have become a popular appetizer across America, though this pepper variety originated in Japan. This 3-inch-long pepper has pale green, thin skin, but may ripen to red if left on the plant for too long. Although this is a savory frying pepper with a very mild heat rating of 50 to 200 Scoville Heat Units (SHU), some peppers can have a slight kick of heat!
‘Habanada’ (Capsicum chinense)
No, not Habanero. The habanada is a heatless, orange habanero pepper. It has all the flavor, fruity and floral, of the typical habanero but without any of the spice. This pepper was developed at Cornell University by an organic plant breeder using natural breeding techniques, so you can still save the seeds and it will grow true to type.
‘Ozark Giant’ (Capsicum annuum)
Ozark Giant isn’t your typical bell pepper. The fruits from this variety can grow as large as 6-8 inches long, making them perfect for stuffing or roasting. They start out green before ripening to red, but you can harvest at either stage. Be sure to add some support stakes to keep the plant upright before the branches get loaded down with peppers!
*The Scoville Scale
The Scoville Scale is a system used to measure the heat and pungency of chili peppers. It ranks peppers based on their capsaicin content, the natural chemical compound responsible for the burning sensation we feel when eating spicy foods. The higher the SHU, the hotter the pepper.