I planted a row of Joseph’s sweet peppers, a row of some very nice bells that I’ve had good luck with before, and a row of dark brown bells I bought from a local seed breeder. Generally this season didn’t do good for peppers compared to last year, they were planted in some of the weaker soil in my garden, and I think got over soaked and parched a couple times over the season.
Still this was a recent harvest of peppers I’d decided to dry out to make a sort of paprika, and I saved a good selection of seeds from all plants. The red bells I’ve grown before are about perfect flavor wise, and very productive, but the limbs are overly brittle. There was a yellow banana looking sweet pepper from Joseph’s population with very straight and sturdy limbs, I’m hoping those lines will hook up and sort out their traits.
Have you tried the “perfect swarm” grex from wild mountain seeds? They are also in Colorado. I had a great success with those seeds here in northern california, and those genetics are pretty heavily represented in the grex we are distributing in the Landrace Seed Share program.
Has anyone here grown Fresh Bites pepper anywhere cold? I only grew 2 pepper plants outside, King of the North, and Fresh Bites. I was really surprised that Fresh Bites, which I thought is quite late so should in theory do badly here, gave ripe fruits and is still alive and ripening more now after the temperature going down to 0°C (32F) on the 16th; whereas King of the North’s fruits never ripened and now the plant is dead from the cold. Seems a bit ironic! I wish I had grow one of all the peppers I have outside, but I was focusing on crossing. I did also put a couple of C. chinense outdoors but they didn’t produce anything, though I was not too surprised about that.
Here’s what Fresh Bites looks like (not from my garden):
I have not grown nor I have heard about that name. And it seems it’s now wonder as google search does not give seedseller in EU, atleast not in early results. It might be that it’s marketed under different name/names. It looks likely that it’s F1 although only few results meantion that. That performance might be just result luck and variance. Peppers very easily take transplant shock or stress when they are moved from inside to outside. That might easily make weeks difference and some never recover. Similarly late season wet and diseases affect some more than others and if plants are in pots one might be more affected just by luck. I don’t think I have seen any pepper die from cold before freezing. There are always some signs that tell it’s disease or other conditions. I still have chinense in my balcony that look just as fresh even though they haven’t seen temperatures over +10C in weeks and lately it’s been just barely above freezing. Ofcourse they haven’t done much in that time, but aren’t otherwise affected by cold. Usually it’s too much water that kills plants in colder weather. Peppers are also affected by same diseases as tomato like early blight, late blight and grey mould as well as many others. Gray mold seems atleast most visible and easily distinguishable. Late blight isn’t as impactful as with tomatoes, but seems to be present. Baccatums don’t seem to have diseases that often.
As for planting I would recommend having them at most 2 months old. The smaller they are the less variance there is from planting shock. Sometimes slower variety might benefit from being smaller at the time of planting. My little brother succesfully grows varieties that are not very well suited here in his porch in pots. With my treatment they wouldn’t have a change to do as well. I have also had good varieties fail other year when sample size was small. Might be just little difference in location or care that makes difference in short season. That’s why I’m trying to get to direct sowing to make it as even playing field as possible.
It had been getting pretty cold but it seems it was just from that day where the local weather data showed it went to 0°C - even the Solanum habrochaites plants died, and the taro leaves all died. And the King of the North pepper (plus a chinense). But not that ‘Fresh bites’. Do yours usually survive 0°C or a little below?
I was glad to see the peppers seemed unaffected by late blight (and other diseases) despite almost all domestic tomatoes dying and just a few surviving but showing signs of infection.
And yes my very limited results could just be due to random variation or issues around transplanting or whatever. (They were both in the ground not in pots). Hence interested how yours are with freezing temperatures. I know at least some peppers survive below 0, maybe down to -2°C? I don’t know how much variation there is on that though, between annuums. And I’m more paying attention to their survival rather than their fruit, since they weren’t transplanted at the same time.
Yeah I noticed that. Though mine were not F1 and grew true to type it seems, so, maybe they are not F1? I think occasionally stable seeds are sold as F1 just to discourage people from saving seeds. Though it could be that I was just lucky that mine grew apparently true to type.
I have been intending to cross with baccatum but no luck yet, only 1 of mine flowered and did so without me noticing so I never got pollen! Still waiting for more flowers, it’s been months! I wonder if they are day neutral or not - I’ve had them in long and short day length but not much luck!
Thanks for tips on outdoor transplanting, hopefully next year I will plant many outside. Focusing on crossing more over winter…
If king of the north was killed by frost, others might be just lucky to be in a bit warmer spot. Technically all main species die at 0C although other factors might protect a bit. I don’t know that any would survive with full leaves below zero (unless with help from moisture tms). That’s probably just anecdotal evidence where own measurments are used that are not accurate or are just little off the plant. Many can regrow after frost thought and heard someone had annuum grow back after -20C, but that again is hearsay. Short periods they might stay alive even with hard freeze, but unlikely survive long hard winter with that kinda temperatures. Would be nice, but have to be realistic. C.flexsousum is best in cold tolerance and that can survive -20C even with longer winter, but I think that’s a bit hard to cross.
Baccatums aren’t daylenght sensitive (I don’t know if any peppers are). They need slightly more heat than annuum, but not by much on average. Some varieties haven’t done that good with normal weather like this year, but some seem to be right at home. They are grown quite high up in Andean mountains so there are those that have had time to adapt, but they are popular also in tropical climates of South-America.
