Chilli pepper update - hybrid is ripened, ripe rocoto and second grow area,

With the season over I am currently trying to find homes for all the peppers I want to overwinter. it was a pretty successful season considering I started so late. 

The stars of the show this year were Aji Lemon, Big Sun Habanero, My own Hybrid (what can I say I'm biased), and some of the small fruited annum varieties.

Aji lemon produced very well and peppers have a unique flavour. I have overwintered three plants, two of which produced well. The third was a very late start so didn't have a chance to fruit. The reason I am keeping this one is it was grown from homegrown seed so there chance it could be another hybrid.

Big Sun Habanero is/was the first chinense  variety that has ever produced well (or at all) outside for me. It produced good numbers of large pods with the typical habanero heat and flavour and the pods are extremely sort after round the kitchen for sauces, jams and Caribbean cuisine. I only had one plant of these which has been brought in over winter, but as it will did so well I will start off some seed from a pod. None of these were isolated pods so there maybe another accidental cross. I am not worried as this is half the fun with home collected seed.

Big Sun Habanero

My own Hybrid produced/ripened only a few peppers but was started very late. It appears to be a cross between Black Hungarian and a Bell Pepper. It seem to produce well for a larger podded variety. More about this pepper in a minute.

Small fruited annum varieties all produce fairly well and seem to be the best types for growing outside in our climate.

The next thing I have been looking forward to all season is my Red Rocoto. Capsicum pubescens varieties take a very long time to mature, but overwinter well. I recently bought the plant indoors in order to help ripen its peppers and have been rewarded with my first very nearly ripe fruit. Any day now I will harvest my first pod, which no doubt will be stuffed. Capsicum pubescens have a different heat profile because of different levels of chemicals to the other species. The peppers are large round and juicy and make great stuffing peppers. I will collect and save the seeds as I didn't grow any other pubescens varieties (I don't think any neighbors grew any), so the seeds should be true to type.

Capsicum pubescens Red Rocoto

Next I have taken a photo of some of plants in my second grow area which is predictably full already. This a strange view of the plants in there because it is difficult to get a photo because the area is inside my aquarium cabinet. I may need to start thinking about where I am going to put the next batch of plants or maybe start giving away some where I have more than one of the same variety.

Cupboard plants (grow area 2)

Lastly I have harvested my first ripe pepper off my own hybrid pepper, that I wrote about in my blog post -  "A tale of two brothers". The plant grew from seed taken from a Hungarian black pepper. The other seeds grew normally, true to phenotype. One plant grew  larger leaves, flowers and peppers. My best guess was that it crossed with a bell pepper.

Homegrown hybrid pepper photographed with unripe Hungarian Black

As can be seen in the above photos, the hybrid pepper has a larger, more boxy appearance than the purebred pepper. The pepper had thick juicy walls very much like a bell pepper. the flavour also reminded me of bell pepper. it was sweet juicy but we some heat. the heat was about as hot as it is pleasent to eat raw. these would be nice in a salad if you like a little heat. they would also make very good stuffing peppers. inside the pepper had a good number of seeds and appeared to have three lobes, again like a bell pepper, even though you could not see the separate lobes from the outside. The pepper ripened to a vibrent red with some black shadowing

Inside of Hybrid pepper with proper camera

Overall I really like this accidental hybrid and have saved the plant for next year. I have also saved the seeds from the ripe pepper and will attempt to grow F2 next year. Due to the large amount of variation in F2 plants I will have to grow a quite a few to see lots of different characteristics. I will be aiming for plants similar to F1. The characteristics I would like to stabilize are, the larger size(still with good yield), lots of sweetness, some heat but not too much and attractive pod colour. At the end of the season I will save seeds from the F2 plant that most follows these characteristics.

That's all folks! lots more posts on the way. Among other projects, I have now received lots more wild capsicum seeds and will get some started soon.